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Devotion is a complicated word. It’s even more difficult a thing to measure. What standard could it even be defined by? Does one count the years spent in service? Do they count the words spoken in veneration? The people slaughtered, the blood spilled? Is it something captured in the focus of eyes, caught in lines on the face brought upon by years and breaths exhaled?
Devotion is a complicated word. To be devoted is to be loyal. It is to give everything to a cause. To live and breathe it. It is, especially, to die by it.
Martyn never wanted to die. That was a fact he learned when he was very young, watching the light leave his mother’s eyes as he saw the dagger plunge into her side. It struck true once, twice. As the blade was ripped free, it burst with bright splashes of red, red, far enough that he could feel it fleck his cheeks. Stark and staining. The sort of stain that could never be washed away. He fled from that scene with that very thought echoing through his mind. Martyn Littlewood never wanted to die.
That’s the only memory he has of his mother. He’s uncertain of who she was beyond her death, if she was kind or cruel or something between. He probably cared about her, at least a little bit, for that moment to have stuck in his mind so vividly. But then again, perhaps it had just been his first instance of witnessing death that had caused the memory to keep as well as it has. The rest of his early years are little more than a vague blur. He’d been a mercenary of sorts. He remembers water and deep waves, hands clutched around the solid bone handle of a knife. He knows that he learned to fight at some point, but from whom?
It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t waste time wondering about lost memories because he knows well by now that he will not get them back. Whatever people may like to say about him, he’s not one to waste time on lost causes. Wherever it was his childhood went, it’s not somewhere he knows how to reach and he stopped searching not long after his ascension. It wouldn't do a damned thing for him anyway.
He was already a fighter by the time he met Ren. The exact context, the “hows” and the “whys”, they’re also lost, but he’s aware that he picked a fight with someone stronger than himself and lost it. That fact is one he would be more than fine with forgetting because Martyn does not lose. Not since he became something else. It was different back then. He’d been something fresher, weaker. Whatever the case, he’d had a blade driven through his side, red dripping from the wound much like the dreaded memory of his mother all those years ago. He’d thought that was the end. He found a challenge he couldn’t meet, a force that could bring him to his knees.
Then, Ren. Martyn still sees him from that moment they met. It’s ingrained in him. A man that towered over himself, broad shouldered, young, bright eyed. He wore a crown then and he looked down at Martyn like some sort of higher power, a miracle in the form of a man. He felt like the Sea itself. Some kind of force of nature, a deity that reached out a hand and told Martyn that he could live if only he would swear himself to him. So Martyn did.
Ren was a man who fancied himself a King, but he was yet to achieve the kind of power that would put all other kings to rest. That was the way of the Sea- no man alone could rule, but they sure as anything would try. Ren, much like the rest, wanted the world at his feet. Martyn was nothing, a creature born amidst the waves who drew blood where he could so that he could keep his own viscera safely inside his body. For all intents and purposes, he was nothing special, save for the minor feats of magic he could perform. Ren saw something in him, though. A potential for worth beyond what lay on the surface. He thought of Martyn as something, whereas everyone else in existence had always thought of him as an exceedingly small fish in a great large pond. So insignificant he was never even noticed, unless he was fighting to claw his way out of a being larger than himself through the soft lining of its esophagus as it tried to swallow him whole.
He made Martyn his general. He should have been a footsoldier at best, fodder for the armies to cut down and slaughter. Ren kept him by his side though and in turn, Martyn cut down anyone who got in his way. He was the sword, the shield, the blade that would sever the throat and clear a path of bodies for Ren’s boots to trod over on his journey to power.
He might as well have been a loyal hound, following at the man’s heel. Ren would give him orders and he would obey, but as the years passed, something inside him burned. Because the truth of his existence grew ever louder in his ears. No matter what he did, he would always be seen as lesser. It was never something that Ren did, not particularly. He was never cruel enough to say it out loud, but Martyn could hear it clear. The reality of his situation was that no matter what blood Martyn drew, no matter how skillful he was at commanding Ren’s soldiers to move and protect, he would always have to bow his head to him. He would always have to concede. He owed Ren his life, but how could he be content with his lot in life? How could he be content with a lifetime of servitude when Ren would be the one benefitting, always?
When they slept, they’d do so in the same room. Martyn had a cot at the man’s feet, so as to keep Ren alive if anyone came to end him during the night. Trust was a rare commodity. Trust, Martyn had earned through debts of blood. He held his own blade above the man’s throat. Imagined driving it down, watching it disappear into skin and sinew and ripping it out to watch the blood splatter. Staring down at that restful face, he willed his hand to move. His mind flooded with that singular thought, that action. One swing of his hand, a single strong downwards motion, and it’d all be his. I’ll kill him, he thought. Tonight.
Inevitably, his arm started to shake from the exertion after enough time passed. The blade trembled in his tight grip and he tried again to will himself. Then, as always, he lowered it. Tomorrow, he vowed. His ears caught the soft snuffle of the man’s breath, the way his lashes fluttered against his cheeks. The hand not grasping the knife rose to- what? Steady them? Still them at last? He forced it down again. Tomorrow, I kill him.
Tonight however, he lowered himself back down to his own cot on the floor and tried to block out the violence of his wants.
For all his intentions of killing him one day, in the end, Martyn did not follow through. In fact, for Ren, his King, he did the one thing in the world he swore he would never do. He died.
It wasn’t a regular battle. It wasn’t irregular, either. It simply was. They were surrounded on all sides, cornered in and being targeted endlessly. Ren was still confident they could win. Martyn was, too. After all, there’d never been a battle they lost. It was a simple moment, really, the one that killed him. A shot fired that neither of them had seen coming until it was too close, too late. Martyn, despite every impulse he’d ever had, every instinct to survive and destroy anything in the way of keeping his own life, had taken the hit for him. It wasn’t even something he actively thought about doing. There was no decision involved in dying, no sudden swell of fealty to his king that made him willing to give up what he’d struggled for his entire lifetime. It was a sequence of mindless motion. His body moved. He took the hit. He fell down into the endless waves.
There, he drowned.
It was agony. Endless and vivid as he choked and fought. His arms windmilled uselessly, desperate as they tried to propel him to the surface. He gaped, searching for breath that would not come. It was the second battle he lost and the end did not come swift and certainly not painless. It lasted a small eternity, something he now knows took well over fifty years of ceaseless death as he was remade, reformed with his body and soul as a shell to house what waited in the deep.
When he emerged from the water, from the endless darkness, he was something else. Something more. Something better. He became a god and in turn, godhood changed everything and nothing at all.
°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡
The world runs on subtle shows of sublimation. It always has. It always will. To live is a battle of wills, a fight to be the one who ends up on top of the heap. To put it in a way that Pearl might appreciate: life is a dogfight and he is champion of the ring.
Relationships are about who bows their head lower.
It used to be him. It was always him having to bend at the waist. He was lower, always. The one told, the one who listened. He bled himself dry for Ren, cut down every soldier and challenger in his path, yet still. It would always be him looking up, admiring and never having.
It’s different now.
Say it, part of him demands, watching what once was his King bow. Say you hate me, that you envy me. Say that you wish I were dead, so that you can take everything that I have. Yet, he doesn’t. Ren never does because it isn’t true. And that part of him inside that begs to hear those words rages. He doesn’t understand how he can’t despise that reversal of positions, that forced sublimation of a man who was once so proud. Except the look in his eyes isn’t one of disdain, one of jealousy. It is something much rawer. He is loath to admit that he recognizes it intimately. It is devotion, admiration, worship. It is acknowledgement of godhood. It is understanding of a power greater than you.
Irritatingly, he sees himself in that expression. Sees a knife raised in the middle of the night, unable to bring himself to use it because, despite his own greed, his own desires, he still admired the man. Enough so to die for him.
A greedy part of him now is wickedly satisfied to have him under his thumb, but the other part knows it is wrong, wrong. It’s the way he always wanted it to be, and yet he can only meet that glaze of worship in the other man’s eyes and find a reflection of a past that is long gone. Ren is the ghost of someone long dead, someone that never should have seen the light of day again and yet will never be laid to rest.
At times, he wonders if he could take one of those tide pools and force it to turn him back to when the world was simpler, bloodier. When he was just a general fighting for a King. Before he’d been magic. Now, it’s all he feels, all he knows. He reminds himself again that such thoughts of turning back are pointless. He knows well that the changes made to his body, to his soul, are irreversible.
Martyn is not a simple man. He does not bleed. Not anymore.
Ren is different when he returns with the Overworlder and his follower. It is a subtle difference at first glance. His bow is the same, the smile that stretches across his lips when he catches sight of him dopey in that way it always is now that Martyn is strong. But there is a consideration in his eyes that was not there before. There are questions that no one has thought to pose in a long time. Certainly never on the Isle of Endings. It is no place for new things.
Ren doesn’t voice them, not for the majority of his visit. He spends it taking care of their newest insect that stood against him, some lowly merchant who thought they were smart enough to outrun the power of the Empire. When he is done, he follows after Martyn, keeping at his heels. They enter Martyn’s chamber and he pours them a drink. They sit on thick cushions (too rich for his tastes. He never sits there save for when Ren’s come back.) and the silence is viscous. Martyn lets them stew in it, his eyes drilling into that conflicted expression.
“What are you thinking of?” Martyn asks.
Ren’s back goes painfully straight. “Forgive me,” He says. “I’ve been terrible company.”
Martyn raises a brow in judgement. Ren can clearly understand what he’s saying. That’s not answering my question. He knows what Martyn meant. He always does.
The man lets out a soft huff of air. It deflates him, if only momentarily. He lets his eyes squeeze shut. When he opens them again, he’s composed. “I have been considering a question that Jimmy, the Overworlder, posed.” Martyn’s a bit intrigued by that. What question could an Overworlder possibly ask that would stump Ren? He’s seen the shift of the world. He knows what was and now, what is. “He asked me why we don’t end the wars.”
Martyn blinks. Then, he lets out a snort. “End every war?” The concept is preposterous. He laughs. “There is no end.”
Ren agrees. “That is what I told him.” There is something hesitant in his expression. Martyn lets the humour die in his own. “He could not understand it. He kept insisting that there could be peace.”
It’s stupid. Naive and such a foreign concept that it could only have come from someone outside their world. There is no such thing as peace. Not here, not in Martyn’s domain. Ren knows this. Martyn knows that he knows this and yet, for some reason this question has stuck with him. Why would he even waste time thinking over such a dimwitted remark?
Martyn doesn’t say anything. He’s annoyed now that he sent Lizzie off with the pair. He should’ve let them die, should’ve cut them down where they stood. Screw Scott and his favours. They can continue to be the noose tied loosely around his neck, for all he cares. Even if they feel a terrible amount like a leash.
“My Emperor,” Ren begins. He stops himself. His jaw goes tight, but his voice is soft when he says, “Martyn.”
The name coming from his mouth is unexpected as it is nostalgic. He pauses. All thoughts of the Overworlder die because Ren holds his attention instead. He turns to him fully and waits for him to speak once more.
Ren always loved to talk. He loves the sound of his own voice more than anything. He loved it more than Martyn’s. Back then, at least. “I’m sorry.”
That… That’s not the statement he was expecting. He isn’t certain what he was expecting, not with the script changing as it has, but that’s not right. Ren hasn’t done anything wrong. Not yet. The only thing that would be worthy enough to cause the man to owe an apology would be if he’d committed some betrayal, but Martyn hadn’t predicted a betrayal. Ren sees him as a god. “For what?”
Somewhere across the Sea, a ship sinks. It’s not quite intentional, but a growing storm causes a swirling tide to suck it down into the depths. The water draws it deeper, enveloping it until there is no hope of escape. “I let you drown,” Ren says. Martyn stares, trying to make sense of that, but it doesn’t. Martyn’s only drowned once and that was a lifetime ago. It’s been thousands of years and he and Ren have not spoken a word of it since other than Martyn telling him when they reunited that he died and rose to godhood.
And besides, how could Ren say that he let him drown? That would have involved a conscious decision on his part. Martyn was the one who took the hit. He was the one who fell overboard like a fool. Ren could not have saved him.
“No.” Martyn doesn’t know who put this thought into Ren’s mind. It is foolishness, plain and simple. “You didn’t.”
Ren, for the first time in what feels like an eternity, argues. “I didn’t jump after you.” Stupid. That’s the thought that sticks its way into Martyn’s head. Stupid. Martyn has never thought Ren to be an idiot, but maybe he is. Maybe this is him proving that he is. What other reason could he have for saying this? “I should have.”
Martyn scoffs. “You would be dead.” There was no chance that Ren would have been able to stop him from sinking. Martyn was dead weight, an anchor on its way down. “There would have been no point.”
Ren shakes his head with stubborn insistence. “It would have been better,” He says. “To drown by your side.”
Martyn stands. He throws back the rest of the drink in his glass, something usually bitter and yet now completely tasteless, and tosses it to the side. He doesn’t let it shatter, cradling it with the water evaporated in the air. He doesn’t let himself pace, not like he wants to, but he does move towards the balcony so he can stare out as a wave of anger overtakes him. He doesn’t speak for several long moments, jaw clenched tight. He has the urge to punch through the glass, but that’d be stupid. Martyn isn’t reckless like that. He doesn’t break his own things out of petty frustration.
Ren doesn’t stand to follow him. He shouldn’t, not when Martyn’s skin feels like it’s buzzing and the air is heavy with vapour that could snake around him at any moment. It all bows under his command. The whirlpool he feels doesn’t end because time is slow there, swirling in darkness that doesn’t want to let go. Ren chooses to open his mouth to talk. “I have thought of that night. Over and over again, I have thought of it and wondered what might have been had I leapt after you, into the Sea’s embrace. I imagine what you must have felt like, alone, sinking into the depths. It haunts me.”
Shut up. He doesn’t say it out loud because he won’t say that to Ren. Because he knows that his authority is real and visceral and he can’t let himself give orders like that. Not to Ren. He let him stay a king so that he perhaps would not feel so wrong about godhood, so that maybe it would balance them somehow, yet it did nothing to change the gap in their magic. So he bites down on his tongue and seethes.
“I was a coward.” Ren’s voice breaks like it shouldn’t because he’s always been strong, even when he was weak and an idealist. Even when he smiled at Martyn. “All that talk of loyalty and I couldn’t show it back.”
Martyn’s stomach is swirling. Or maybe that’s the Sea again. Maybe it’s the magic inside of him, killing the people under his rule and letting them drown. Maybe it’s the water flowing through his veins that replaced what used to be blood once death emptied him out into a dried husk of a man. “Shut up,” He says because he is weak. Ren swallows, once. “You would have died.” He knows that he knows this. “You jumping in would have been suicide.”
Ren doesn’t bow under the order to keep quiet. Not like he always does. He doesn’t keep his mouth shut, though his throat bobs like it's fighting to keep him quiet, to obey the command. “To die by your side,” His voice comes out rough. “Would have been the greatest honour.”
Martyn turns. He gapes at him, at the fucking gall of that. “You can’t say that.” He points at him, jabs a cutting finger through the air with enough aggression that Ren blinks twice in rapid succession. It’s as close to flinching from Martyn as he’ll get. “What honour would there have been in dying for a general? What loyalty did you owe me, Ren? I made my choice.”
Ren’s expression turns sad, pitying. Some part of him recoils at that. Ren has never pitied him. Not even when he first found him on the edge of dying. “You were never just a general, Martyn.” He sounds sincere, but it’s not true. Martyn knows it’s a lie, even when the words are sweet. “You were my friend.”
Martyn laughs. He laughs, but it’s not funny. It’s not funny in the slightest because Ren didn’t think that way two thousand years ago when he was at the top of the food chain. When he was winning, when he was in charge, when he wore a pretty gold crown on his head and bossed everyone around like he had a right to it. Martyn was a tool back then, just like everyone else was. He was the weapon in his hand. Now, he’s supposed to think that it wasn’t all about power between them? “Is this your way of trying to challenge me?” He asks, wiping at the corner of his eye as if he’s laughed hard enough to leave tears there. They both know that Martyn isn’t capable of tears anymore. “Because if so, well played. Useless, a bit indirect, but a good attempt.”
Ren’s eyes go wide, horrified at the implication. Martyn doesn’t buy it. He would have yesterday, but now his skin is crawling at the thought of betrayal coming from the least expected place and he should have expected this, really. The fact that he didn’t is such a joke. “No!” Ren’s voice bursts from him, desperate. “No, I swear to you. On the Sea itself, I swear it to you.”
Martyn stares at those blue, blue eyes. They’re begging him to listen and Martyn’s never been able to resist them before. He tries now, but it’s a weak attempt. He will always fold before Ren. He hates it, hates that remnant from the days where he was forced to hear every word Ren said and obey, but still it is ingrained in his soul. He was formed from the urge to listen to his King, to make the world bleed at his say so.
He forces himself to cross the room and sit again. He leans back in his seat, waiting for the man to continue.
“I know that things were not the same back then,” Ren says, when it’s clear Martyn is not going to lash out. “I know that I might not have treated you as such, but that does not change the truth. You are the loyalest friend I have ever known. I cannot say the same for myself. I let you take the blow for me and I did not throw myself into the waves after you. Perhaps it would have killed me, but you were by my side for years. I owed you that much. You became the only one I could trust and I did not understand that until you were no longer there to confide in. When I lost you, the colour drained from the world. There was no joy in conquest because you were not there to see it.”
Martyn does not call it a lie because Ren swore on the Sea itself, but it is a close thing. His stomach is doing a strange thing and there is an island moving far to the west. It is shifting as the waves push.
“When I saw you again,” Ren continues because never knows when to quit. “It felt like the world came back to life. You were everything I never thought could be possible. You were power itself. You made the magic bow before you because you were the magic. There is no one in existence that I would rather serve because there is no one in existence that is like you.” He takes a deep breath, slow to release it. “But somewhere along the way… I think I lost you.”
Martyn takes a moment to find his voice. When he does, it is firm as always. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”
“And yet,” Ren replies. “I no longer know what it means to call myself your friend.”
They both sit in silence for too long after that. Martyn’s insides twist and rage and he hates that Ren has the power to tear him up inside with a few words. This is weakness that should have been cut at the root a long time ago. The idea that Ren no longer considers him a friend should not hurt because it only makes sense. After all, he is a god now. He is something to worship. He knew this from the moment he returned and found a head formerly held high lowered in awe of him.
“Martyn.” Ren waits until Martyn’s eyes have focused in on him again, instead of the tempest inside his chest. “I would like to know you again. I failed before, but I hope… I hope you will let me try again.”
Martyn still thinks that this is some ploy, but Ren bleeds sincerity in a way that only he can. Anyone else and he wouldn’t believe it for a moment. Then again, there is no anyone else in existence whom he could have this conversation with. Why the sudden change of heart? he wonders. Why? It’s been thousands of years of this, of following and obeying blindly, and now he wants something different. “Is this because of the Overworlder?” His eyes narrow, focusing in on that instead of Ren’s tentative request. He has to know what it spawns from. Perhaps so that he can kill it before it fully takes root in him like it has Ren. Before it can spread, a parasitic and invasive species in a foreign land.
“In a way,” Ren hedges. It is not a denial, but it isn’t a confirmation either. He can’t be certain if that’s out of some misguided sense of loyalty owed to the man or truthfulness. “He and Tango… They reminded me of us.”
That admission takes him aback. He doesn’t interrupt, but Ren must sense his disbelief. His voice takes on that specific tone it always does when he has some story that he wants told, the one that holds Martyn’s attention hostage. “Clearly, they are not the same. There are too many differences to count, but it was one difference in particular that drew my attention.” The man explains. “When Jimmy fell, Tango jumped. He did not pause to consider. There was no doubt in his mind, only the reality that Jimmy was in the water and he was not, and so he changed that. I knew then that there was something I could learn from them, though I was not sure what yet.”
“Well?” Martyn asks, when he does not immediately say. He had to have learned something if they’re having this conversation, but what?
“I realized from them that you and I are rather lucky.” Martyn pauses at that. Despite himself, he feels the pull of the words. It makes curiosity bubble up under his skin. Ren always manages to spark intrigue with his speeches. “Jimmy reminded me of myself, during the early days of our friendship. Tango reminded me of you. The way he followed him was familiar. The dedication, the way he cared despite the danger to his own health. Looking at them was a reminder of what we used to be before the shift. I was so caught up in recalling the past that it took me too long to understand the ways in which we are fundamentally different.”
Martyn wonders which ways those are. Besides the obvious, of course.
“Jimmy and Tango will stay the same. Tango will follow as Jimmy leads because Jimmy is the one with a destination. He is the one with a world to return back to. Tango will be the one throwing himself into danger, again and again, out of a loyalty that creeps closer to worship with each day that passes.” It echoes Martyn’s own thoughts upon meeting the pair. It will surely end in tragedy because the Overworlder will disappear and his devoted little follower will be left behind, lovestruck and alone. Yet he follows on this silly trip around the world, listens and obeys and lets himself think that it will make a difference in the end. “Jimmy is going to disappear. And that leaves no room for them to change. It will always be Tango trailing after, caring more and more. He will give everything and it will amount to nothing in the end because Jimmy will go anyways.”
Yes, this all makes sense. But the question is, “What does this have to do with anything?”
“You disappeared too,” Ren says, and oh. Hm. Maybe he’s piecing together what he’s on about. “But you came back and suddenly, it was not you following me. I was the one following you. There was reversal of roles, unlike what Jimmy and Tango will face when he inevitably leaves this world for his own. You came back and now, I understand just how lucky I really am. There is still opportunity to know you because you are not gone. You are different, stronger and made up of magic, but you are still here and I am still here and I have missed you, Martyn.”
It’s stupid, how much those words settle something inside of him. Martyn has always been here, has never been gone, but he thinks of a knife pressed to his palm during the night. “I’m not as loyal as you think,” Martyn says. This much should be obvious, but he doubts Ren knows. He doubts he understands because he never once tried to kill Martyn since he rose to godhood. Not once. “I almost slit your throat while you slept more times than I can count.”
Ren grins. What a fool, Martyn thinks, but his own lips pull back into an answering smile that feels more like a snarl. “I would expect nothing less,” He says, fond and silly and so Ren that it makes the waves churn. “There is a reason that you are a god, and I believe it to be your spirit. You are the Sea made flesh. You push and pull and do not let yourself be broken or bent. It is only natural that you would push back against my rule and yet, you pulled away instead of killing me when you had the opportunity. It speaks a great deal of your character.”
Martyn huffs out a laugh. “Not killing you is a mark of my kindness, hm?”
Ren blinks at him. “Oh, no.” Of course that's not what he meant. Martyn should have known he wouldn’t make that mistake. “No, it is a mark of how much allowance you make for someone,” He pauses for a brief moment, swallowing back some swell of emotion in the back of his throat. “Someone you care for.”
Martyn lets that roll around in his mind, lets it digest the words until they are broken down and small. He is smart enough to understand what Ren is saying, but what he wants… That is a question. A return to friendship, a plea to know Martyn again, but is it a request to see how much he will tolerate once more? That is a vulnerability that Martyn cannot allow. He has not allowed such weakness since he asphyxiated under an unforgiving, cold blanket of water, bleeding out from a hole caved into what was once his heart. He died down there. He might have come back, but it was in a dead man's float.
“What do you want, Ren?” He asks because he is honestly curious. He wants clarity, wants it now. He doesn’t need it, could live without it, but he wants. It's the same kind of vicious want he's always kept buried within, a selfish want, waiting for something more to catch and drag under with him. He is at his core, after all, an incredibly selfish creature.
“I want,” Ren begins before he falters. It’s almost imperceptible, but Martyn knows him too well not to sense the hesitation. He's struggling for words, struggling to convey his message in a way that won't cause it to get caught up in the net of Martyn's mind and rendered untenable. “I want to understand you in a way I never got to before. I want to know you, all of you. I want to know the things you do not say. I want to leap right over into the waves when you are drowning. Will you allow me that much?”
Martyn considers. “You know what that will mean, don’t you?” He must know what he’s asking for. He’s asking for something Martyn has never been prepared to give. He’s asking for something Ren never offered himself, something he could never live with back then. “You know what that means?”
Ren nods. “I want to be your friend.”
“You want to be my equal,” Martyn emphasizes. The words taste strange, wrong. In all their lives, they have never stood on equal ground. Once, Martyn was bowed at his feet. Then, Ren was the one looking up. They have never stood eye to eye. They have never seen the world from the other’s exact position. It goes against the very fundamentals of their beings. “You are asking me to abandon authority.”
“Yes.” Ren doesn’t sound ashamed to be making such a bold request. He’s the only one who could ever get away with something like this.
So Martyn lets the thoughts roll and the waves crash and time to slow. He halts everything, brings a pause to all movement as he allows himself to exist in this small infinity. Ren is unmoving, still in front of him, frozen in a moment. His lips are still open, gaping and fishlike, waiting for an answer. His expression is soft. He hardly looks like a man capable of killing, let alone one who thrives off of it. Martyn knows him, though.
Knew him, a voice corrects. He’s not sure who it belongs to, but the more it speaks, the closer it starts to creep to sounding like Scott and isn’t that a blow to the ribs? You knew him once, but he is not the same man.
He can almost see Scott’s smug face in front of him now, frozen in pale white and covered in frost that glitters under the sunlight. It’s only fitting that it’s him delivering the message, because he’s the one that brought this on him. Him, and that favour he earned through a quiet surrender when he very well might have been the one to finally make Martyn bleed. We are stuck in time, the Scott in his memory says. Frozen as we were. But people change.
Martyn knows that. He knows that his own formation pulled together the broken pieces of his soul and fused it with the magic of a place that never rests, never breathes, never lets itself lose. What he was became something bigger, but he will always, at the core of him, be the general following a king to his death.
He tried to fight it for the longest time. He tried to deny that he’s still the same as back then because he can never allow stagnation, but it doesn’t change the facts. We are stuck in time.
But this… This would be a change. Something Martyn has never experienced before in all his years of life, whether that be before or after his death. This would be a quiet surrender, a loss. Martyn doesn’t lose. Not anymore, not since the shift.
Maybe. He considers it, considers those glittering blue eyes and the way they reek of honesty. He stands, reaching a hand for his belt loop. He approaches the Red King, the man who had raised an army to rule the Sea, and pulls a knife from its hidden sheathe. The blade is sharpened to a deadly point. Martyn raises it to Ren’s throat. It doesn’t rise and fall, but there is a barely perceptible shift, even to him, that tells of time passing so slowly it might as well not be doing so at all.
He can’t tell if this is trust or stupidity that has put Ren before him, making a request like this and not expecting the blade to cut across his throat.
He holds the blade there for a long, long while. It might be days, might be weeks or hours or months, but it doesn't matter. His arm never starts to shake because he is no longer weak and fragile and mortal. Nonetheless, he can see the phantom tremble of the limb somewhere deep in his mind. I could kill him, he thinks. Now.
He tries to make it sound like a reality, like a simple truth. It is. It should be. Martyn could kill him.
He stares at the knife, at the way it presses to Ren’s neck with just enough pressure so as not to cut. It would take a minuscule movement to sever the tendons there, to remove that fragile connection between mind and body. It would be easy. Martyn could make him live up to his namesake: the Red King. How fitting, that Martyn would make that name true twice. The first time, through a trail of bodies. The second, through just one.
Martyn doesn’t want to.
It’s the first time he’s ever admitted it to himself. Every other time, staring at the man in the dark, he always told himself that there would be a later date, that he was just biding his time before finally making his move. He never admitted that the real, honest reason why he didn’t kill Ren was because he had no actual desire to. That hasn’t changed, but now, when he sheathes his dagger, he knows that there will be no tomorrow. He will not end Ren’s life. It is a fatal weakness, one he should purge himself of immediately by ending the man and consolidating his power, but he won’t. Ren should be nothing more to him than a king under his command, but he goes to sit back down and lets time resume.
Ren is still looking at him, hesitant and wide eyed and waiting for the verdict. He is waiting for the blade to come down on his neck, unaware that it’s already swung by and granted him clemency. That this, this is just Martyn delivering a message that had been decided upon thousands of years before. “Fine,” Martyn says, because what other ending ever was there? “But this isn’t something you can take back. If you live to regret it, that will be your own fault.”
Once Martyn allows Ren to know him, once he’s gotten to know and understand Ren in a way he hasn’t in a very long time, perhaps ever, then there will be no undoing it. Martyn potentially could reverse time, but he doesn’t do that. Not for something like this, mostly never, because as willing as he is to cheat in any game he plays if it means winning, he will not cheat this.
“There will be no regrets,” Ren says, as though it’s simple. As if he has not spent all of Martyn’s Archonhood regretting something that he had no right to regret at all. “Not when I am by your side.”
Martyn takes a moment to soak that in before his hand opens and the glass that he flung across the room earlier returns to it. He doesn’t feel like doing it by hand, so he lets the liquid inside the bottle they’ve shared tonight press up against the cork until it pops and it finds its way into his glass, like a pool of dark, still water. He takes a long sip. Then, he laughs. “You fucking sap.” He lets his grin turn sharp, lets it be a weapon and defeat in one. “You better stow it before I get sick all over your boots.”
Ren’s face lights up. There’s no other way to describe it. Whatever heavy cloud had been hanging over it clears and makes way for sunshine. Somewhere, a storm dies down and a sailor lives.