❀ IC INBOX

[intoningly]

[ To the tune of a programmed animatronic voice ]

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[courtmagic]

[he's forced to play more defensive in her next hits, darting around like a fairy, preserving himself above striking her. the force is enough to shake him, rendering the blows he gives in exchange less sure, less secure. if he had his power, he'd weave her a dream, escape while she didn't know, send her somewhere else. he'd free himself, and be away, ensuring his survival. running, hiding, his instincts keeping him moving. a trait that could be said to rival his skills in magic. but he'll always wake up in Avalon, so-

thinking costs him, the fraction of a second of hesitation that means he can't effectively block her, that trying to step away means that his balance is shifted - maybe he could have taken it if he planted his feet, but he didn't, and she hits him to send him down, his head cracking against the stone and sending him reeling, flat on his back.

everything in him screams to get up, get up, hold onto the sword, never stay still or your opponent will kill you. get up, he has to get up, and though he doesn't fear death, he knows that the pain is less than desirable.]

[intoningly]

[ Merlin falls, and even though her vision is sharpened by the adrenaline she can't really see anything well enough to decipher much past felled prey.

She holds her sword with both hands now, and with another cry– angry and loud for no reason other than to be heard, she brings her sword down with all of her remaining strength.

The sword pierces the earth, skewers the ground right beside his face. Her blade just barely touches him, leaving a razor thin cut along his cheek.

Her hands remain on the hilt of her sword, but she lowers herself to loom over him, hair falling like a shroud over them both; unsmiling, out of breath, chest heaving, eyes searching. Her voice is more small that quiet, a shaky sort of anger punctuating her words. ]

Don't act like this was for me– not when you don't play fair.

[ She feels worse than before. ]

[courtmagic]

[the sting of the cut is nothing when he's also breathing hard, hand clenched around his sword, silent. his eyes are wide, looking back at her, and they betray him in this moment. it's the look of a man who's been caught when he desperately didn't want to be, who knows that he's been beaten. but there's also something uncertain, confused, distant and alive. that half formed self that lingers in him, flooding him with things he doesn't understand.

part of him will always be in Avalon. cloistered and comfortable. safe, until the end of things. so why does he dare to reach out - just his fingertips - as if he does not know that they will get burned? why does a man reach to touch the rain, knowing it is cold? why is he still trying, so many years later, when he knows the outcome, knows what will happen no matter how many seasons pass?

the stars and the world tell him nothing, in this place.]

It wasn't for me.

[not him. not the man who takes the way out that's most advantageous. it's ingrained in his legend that he's someone who escapes.]

...but you're right. And for that, how about you ask me one question? Anything at all.

[she's right that he pretends. that he doesn't play fair. if she wouldn't take his head, it's another sort of trophy. wrestling out the truth from his liar's tongue.]

[intoningly]

[ She doesn't trust him.

And that's why even when he concedes and offers honesty, it doesn't satisfy her. She doesn't trust him so it feels like bait, like he's throwing a bone in the opposite direction so she won't come any closer.

Even if that is not what he intends, it's how she feels.

She wishes she could go back to being a thing, a number, nothing– because she wouldn't be bothered by this, wouldn't think so deeply about this.

One hand remains on the sword still, but the other hovers near his face as she crouches lower. She lifts his chin with her fingers, wipes the cut with her thumb. Red paints his skin in a watercolor smudge; she has been this close to him before, but never has she seen him this closely, splayed out and offering himself up in the name of survival. ]

Don't bother, not when you look so scared.

[ Her gaze lingers for a moment longer before she draws her hand back and examines her stained thumb.

Zero stands, and pulls her sword from the earth. ]

I don't want your pity.

[ Because even if that's not what it is, it's what she thinks it is. ]

[courtmagic]

[he'll watch her walk away, barely moving, lying there where he's fallen. nothing he could say would make this better. nothing he could do would change things.

it wasn't a physical fear that gripped him, for he knows her well enough to know that she would strike knowing he would block it. she's not the sort of person to kill him in this fashion - she'd want something much more intense. less pathetic than a man holding his breath, waiting for his fate to be decided.

the blood is long dried on his face, gone dark, by the time he puts a name to whatever she had seen. but by then, it's probably already broken into pieces, too many to be put back together. just another thing sacrificed along the way. blood wasn't enough, honesty wasn't enough. such was life, and he breathes a little easier when he's sinking into old patterns of thought as he does.

it could be fifteen minutes, it could be hours that he lays there, thinking, but when he drags himself up and goes to his room to sleep, he finds he dreams of nothing at all.]