#* YOU KNOW BETTER THAN ANYONE NOT TO TAKE THE OFFENSIVE WHEN SMTHN LIKE THIS HAPPENS

[phantasmaw]

♢* —  @saintsdawn /  𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫

〈 ✥ *〉┊   Sweat and disquiet prickle down the nape of the wayward knight’s neck as his chest heaves with great gasps of breath. Aching arms hold his greatsword aloft, the sharp end of its heavy-weighted blade pointing down towards the ground. Right now, it is not a sword so much as a shield. As he fights to catch his breath, he stares, unblinking, over the ornately carved hilt. When his gaze catches Florence’s, his heart drops somewhere down into his stomach. It’s almost enough to have slightly trembling fingers uncurl from around the handle. Almost. 

    It’s not the first time the other knight has been on the opposite end of his blade. They both have needs to meet, separate paths to follow; sometimes, those paths cross on rocky terrain. Those instances have always been few and far between, and any harm done dissipated in the frothing foam of shared drinks and, if called for, needlework on battle-worn skin. The tension that existed before lives now only in memory. He would have even argued no tension existed at all. A bit of healthy rivalry, certainly. But never any true ill-will, nor any personal grievance. 

     Until now. 

     “Flo,” he drawls the other’s nickname as casually as he typically would when greeting them, albeit with far more rasp. He even grins as he usually would. Or he tries to. He’s entirely certain his good eye does not light up with warm comradery as it normally would when they join him inside a dingy tavern or take his side in a petty squabble among the other wayfarers. But it’s the least he can do to show he won’t turn the deadly slant of the blade upon them. Not yet. It’s a precaution, to have a weapon as strong as this to buffer the tides of crackling uncertainty between the two of them. He swallows, the tendons of his neck straining to work past the lump of dread forming in the middle of his throat. He hates that, in the moment, their name feels foreign in his mouth. Like he’s not quite sure how it should sound when shaped by his voice. 

      Feris takes an experimental step to the side, boxing himself further out of reach. He lowers his greatsword out of an actively readied position, but doesn’t yet murmur the spell that would store it away. He can’t. He can’t. It would make him an incredible ally to cast aside his means of protection and shout their praises for such a definitive end of that grueling battle against such a harrowing foe. They’ve saved the two of them countless wounds and fatigue. He should be slinging an arm over their shoulders and laughing between wheezing breaths about how they should have pulled those stops a long time ago. But doing so would also make him a gargantuan fool. 

      “....I’m not going to ask you to explain,” he says between heavy breaths, and he can’t hide the slight quaver of his voice. He shouldn’t be saying this to them. While they haven’t exactly bared their souls to each other, they also aren’t strangers keeping poison-coated secrets in the dark. Now is the time to offer an open hand. To assure them that he understands the burden of cryptic and coveted power. To say that, while he cannot begin to fathom where that surge of destruction came from, he does not fear it. Not when it’s their hands wielding it. Yet he does not. Self-preservation demands nothing less than the possible burning of this bridge he’s only halfway crossed in finding who he believes could be a true friend. And so self-resentment for it stains the inside of his mouth with a bitter taste as, instead, he intones, “But I do need to ask you to tell me just how long you’ve been capable of doing… that.”

[jinmukangwrites]

1/3 im writing bc u said before youd like to know if lgbtq rep didnt land right: ur wild & legend drabble is very sweet; im happy to see more queer characters!but theres some quiet things that dont mesh w my own experience as a nb person. broadly: you have a char oblivious or denying theyre not cis, avoids the topic like its shameful& another char who is out & proud but also treats the realization like its smthn to be scared & sad about. like being nb is whats terrible, not the way ppl treat us

Hi anon! Thank you for letting me know! I want to say that in no way was it my intention to make it seem like being non binary or genderfluid is a world shaking thing. It's difficult for me to write things like this because there's so much I'm discovering and so much I don't understand, and it's hard to make things perfect when it's a small drabble. I wanted to write a scene that takes place after my gender fluid Wild fic, and I wanted to write something like Wild helping Legend though his own self discovery, and I'm sure if I spent more than ten minutes writing that, it would have came across better.

I'm aware everyone's coming out experience is different, and I know that it can be such a joyful and exciting time just as much as it can be scary and unsure. I wanted unsure for Legend, I wanted it to be something he's never really thought about before, like at the back of his mind he always wondered but never considered. Didn't know that that could happen, and I wanted Wild to not be the thing that made legend realize "oh I could be this too!" But more like a "oh... This is a thing?" And have a wire connect and feelings rush and him realize his whole life there was something... not comfortable.

I suppose I was projecting too much into Legend in that, because in my own sexual and gender discovery in the past couple years, not a lot has been happy.

I'm sorry if it was wrong and it was poorly written in a way my intention didn't come through or it came out offensive. I apologise if my thoughts on it is still wrong, and if you would like I will gladly take it down and never attempt it again. I never want to offend anyone, especially when it comes to experiences like this that are so so so important and so so so hard for someone like me who's grown up in a very religious and bubbled culture where I didn't even know half the things in the LGBT+ community were a thing until after I left highschool. I'm still learning, and it's my only intention to try and learn correctly.

Thank you for messaging me, please let me know if you'd like me to take that drabble down, I will not be angry if you want me to. I will do my best to avoid topics like this until I fully understand them from now on <3