#//that being the one with the monster unicorn and crows that drop bombs on you...in a maze

[warncdandwiles]

Thinking about if the TADC gang got dumped in Sugar Rush for an adventure King Candy would not be happy.

[charlottedabookworm]

Not-entirely-serious-thought - You've already turned Nyx into a dragon and a phoenix; honestly, now all that's left to complete the trifecta of Magical Beings is to turn him into a unicorn.

A unicorn!Nyx would have blood on his horn and ‘say something, I fucking dare you’ in his eye. 

Damn you, because you are right and the moment that you pointed it out my OCD would not let me rest until I’d written something for this. So have like, 1600 words of Unicorn Nyx - featuring a very dead DRautos and also, ‘Say something, I fucking dare you’

—

When Nyx learns how the world outside of Galahd views his kind, he has to fight to keep a straight face.

Because, peaceful beings representing innocence and purity?

He doesn’t know whether to choke in outrage or to cry tears of laughter or to stare in complete disbelief. Peace, purity, innocence – none of those things are represented by a being that quite literally has a weapon attached to its skull.

Fuck knows how people haven’t realised this. But then, the world as a whole doesn’t seem to realise that his kind exists outside of mythology – so he could maybe forgive people for the insults that they pay to his kind.

Maybe.

(Because, honestly, it doesn’t take much digging for someone to realise that the majority of the mythology about his kind originated in Galahd – before being twisted so completely that it was almost unrecognisable. 

And, if people would just stop and think, they would realise that no creature like that in their myths would have ever be borne of Galahd.

But people are fucking stupid and Nyx can blame them for that)

It would be easier if all of Galahd didn’t tease him about it though.

(He keeps the plushie that Libertus lobs at his head as a gag gift though. No matter how much he had grumbled about it.

It might be a horribly insulting representation of his kind done up in hot-pink and sparkles, but it’s also soft and fluffy cuddly and honestly sort of hilarious when he can forget to be outraged about the entire thing)

—

It wasn’t completely unexpected when it happened.

Everyone had known that the Nifs were planning something – they’d been too quiet, had pulled back slightly at the fronts, and attacks at the borders were more small half-hearted skirmishes instead of actual battles – but, even so, they weren’t prepared for what happened.

Of course, nobody expects a spy.

Nobody ever fucking expects a spy. Just like no one ever expects a bomb in a place that they deem safe – like the Citadel. Just like nobody ever expects an attack from within, instead of from outside. Just like no one ever expects their magic to suddenly stop working – without the Kings say so.

Just like nobody ever expects someone that they trust and respect to try to kill them.

(and Crowe and lib are never going to let this go – when they could all think past the anger.

Because there had always been a part of Nyx that hadn’t trusted the man – a purely instinctive urge that had whispered threat in the back of his mind – but he had ignored it after years had passed with nothing happening.

He’d ignored it – despite everything that he’d been taught about trusting his instincts – because he’d wanted to be wrong, because he couldn’t deal with another betrayal.

But he had known, and Crowe and Lib wouldn’t let that go – not after nearly a decade surrounded by Lucian depictions of his kind. He was going to spend the rest of his life haunted by the idea that unicorns knew whether someone was trustworthy or not.

Fuck his life)

They didn’t expect it. But that didn’t mean that they didn’t react.

It’s the Glaive that react first – they’re the people who practically live on the front lines, the ones who are used to bombs and disorientation, the ones who half expect safe places to be suddenly not, they’re the refugees who are used to this sort of thing, and to be a glaive you had to be adaptable or you didn’t last long.

(And the Glaive is mostly staffed with Galahdians. Nobody – not Niflheim, not Lucis – stops to think about what that actually means. But the Galahdian Glaives saw the fall of Galahd – they fought in it, watched people they loved die one after another and their home burn as they tried their best to get their children to safety – and they are used to betrayal in a way that the Lucians are not. They fought – even as their King fell, even after their home was taken, even after everything was lost – because that is who they are. And so they are surprised, but they are experienced, and that makes all the difference.

They react first, instinctively, and the rest of the Glaive follows their lead)

When the bomb goes off, when the traitors reveal themselves and attack, when Drautos turns against them (reveals himself as Glauca – and how dare he. Galahd remembers the monster who had slaughtered his way through their people and they hate the man who was once their Captain with a quiet rage) and attacks the King in the chaos, they fight back.

Or, they try to.

It takes about half a second for them to realise that they have a problem, and several seconds more to share confirming glances between them as they fought. By that point, the nearest glaives have already been tossed aside, taking blows when they weren’t able to warp away as they normally would be.

Because their magic wasn’t working.

None of it – no warping or spells or elemental manipulation or weapons storage, hells but Nyx could hardly feel the space where the Kings magic had made itself home all those years ago. He glanced over at the King even as he drew his kukri’s, but the man looked just as shocked as the glaives and – from where he, Cor, and Lord Clarus were battling against Glauca – his own magic was noticeably sluggish.

‘Whatever it is that the NIfs have done,’ Nyx mused, even as he spun away from an attack to strike from behind, relying on his two decades of training and fighting without Lucian magic. ‘Obviously affects Lucian magic. Enough that the glaive and our borrowed magic is completely affected but the King himself is only weakened.’

‘It’s incomplete,’ he concludes, ‘but they’re pretty confident about it to use this as a test run.’ Nyx grimaced, taking out another assassin – this one dressed in a servants uniform.

“Lib! Down!” His friend dropped instinctively, and Nyx’s thrown blade buried itself in the eyes of the man dressed in a Crownsguard uniform that had been sneaking up on him. The next time that someone told him that he was paranoid for carrying so many weapons on him at all times he was going to fucking laugh at them.

A brief lull in the battle allowed Nyx to take another glance at the King. Lord Clarus was doing his best to defend his King against Glauca, even with a rather serious wound to his leg, while Cor had been drawn away by several other attackers – Niflheim had obviously thought this through, sending several of their best against the Marshall of the Crownsguard so as best to have an opening to attack the King while everyone else was held up and unable to help.

They’d planned this well, Nyx could admit that.

Even as he watched, Glauca struck again – this time with a blow that Nyx could tell would be fatal for Lord Clarus, with the way that the wound and exhaustion were slowing the man.

And Nyx? Nyx couldn’t just stand there and let that happen.

“Fuck.”

There was no chance that he would be able to make it across the room – not without being able to warp – at least, there was no way that he could as a human being.

Without another thought, he gave in to the burning in his veins.

The shift – always natural, because Nyx was as at home on four legs as he was on two, because for all that he played at it he wasn’t human – came easily. Easier than it had since the fall of Galahd, because his friends – his family, his people, his home, his pride – was in danger, and a predator’s instincts to protect his territory and what was his was a powerful thing.

He’s moving before he’s even finished shifting, hooves pounding against the stone floor – a sense of freedom filling his heart even as rage burned in his blood. There was nothing more freeing than being himself, all of himself.

(And maybe there was a little smug pride there as well.

Because the Nifs hadn’t even thought to block this, and now they were going to find out exactly why his kind had been so feared by the world over centuries ago)

Head down as he charged, the few enemies who weren’t frozen in shock ended up impaled on his horn or trampled underneath his hooves when they tried to attack - even with his instincts at the fore, Nyx still knew better than to attack allies – Nyx slammed into Drautos’ back even as the spy (oathbreaker, betrayer, traitor – his brain whispered to him) swung his blade.

With his speed and his strength and the sharpness of his horn, it slid past the armour that he was wearing – parting it as easily as it did the skin and muscles and bones in the way – until he reached the heart. Glauca’s dying gasp echoes in the room – despite the few fights still finishing up – even as Nyx jerked his head sharply, flinging the body to the side.

Whinnying, he kicked out at the traitor’s head and torso – crushing the skull and ribcage – annoyed at the lack of suitable revenge for his betrayal.

Tossing his head in irritation, Nyx turned – catching movement out of the corner of his eye.

Lib, who was moving towards him having finished off his own opponents, took one look at the gaping faces of the Lucians – including King Regis, and he felt a spark of pride for having made someone who was literally trained since birth to hide his emotions gape in shock – around them and opened his mouth with a shit-eating grin.

Flicking excess blood from his horn, and ignoring the blood that already stained his mane, he glared at him.

Say something, I fucking dare you.

Libertus, the little shit that he was, just carried on grinning at him. However, before he could actually say anything, one of the younger – non-Galahdian – glaives spoke up.

“Okay, since when is Ulric a fucking unicorn?”