#everything that isn't pure crack? sorry kindrie

[aethersea]

and kencyr beauty and the beast? i remember you talking about this but it's been awhile...

this is one of the many aus @tanoraqui and I have come up with in the kencyrath chat, and honestly it's a banger

The monster was a dark shadow, backlit by some faint glow whose source Kindrie couldn’t guess. Its eyes shone silver from edge to edge, split by slit pupils that were narrowed almost to nothing despite the gloom. Its fangs were too big for its mouth. They distorted its lips into a permanent sneer. 

“Why?” it growled.

Why what? Why should it forgive him? He couldn’t say, because I’m sorry—he wasn’t, despite everything. Better that he should die here than the Highlord.

No good answer to that question; find a better one. Why had he thrown himself into the monster’s path? 

Because he is my natural lord. He couldn’t say that either. He’d never found the nerve to utter the words aloud, and he had no nerve to spare just now.

“Because he’s the Highlord,” Kindrie said. His voice rasped worse than gravel. “I had to protect him.”

The monster hissed at that, like a vicious cat. Kindrie flinched. “Forgive me,” slipped out without thought.

The last of the far echoes died away, leaving them in silence. Kindrie’s labored breaths drew more attention to themselves in that stillness than he would have liked. The monster regarded him balefully, but there was something else emerging from behind that rage. Kindrie tentatively judged it to be curiosity.

He should fan that curiosity, say something intriguing, anything to keep the monster talking. To make himself more interesting alive than dead. But Kindrie’s mind was filled mostly with gibbering panic, and he had no experience at all in being interesting. 

The creature spoke again before he could think of anything. “You will stay.”

The words came out garbled, as if they didn’t quite fit the shape of the monster’s mouth. It took a moment for Kindrie to parse them, and a moment more to understand them. Even then, he could make no sense of them. 

“I will…stay?”

“Swear it,” the monster growled.

Kindrie stared, baffled. The monster roared. “I’ll stay!” Kindrie yelped. “I’ll stay!”

“Honor break me,” the monster snarled, the words gnashing together like boulders.

Something in Kindrie found the space to quail at that. It was one thing to be trapped in the lair of a darkling beast; another thing entirely to never even try to flee. Freedom had tasted so sweet, for the brief time he’d known it. Its pull had borne him through so many horrors.

The monster slammed him against the wall again. His vision swam and flickered.

What point in freedom if he was too dead to enjoy it? “Honor break me,” Kindrie choked out, “darkness take me, I so swear.”