Thrymr stood in front of the wall, feeling a sickening shiver go down the back of his spine as he stared up at the jagged writing. Red dripped down the brick, drops on the street, but it was all dried now, a duller shade than scarlet.
He did not look at the body. Instead, Thrymr’s eyes moved across the scythe scrawled at the bottom, a crude image. It was unclear as to who had left the note if one was not familiar with the scythe wielders - but there was only one that Thrymr knew of, and one that he thought of now.
The idea that it was not General Labyrinthite was a little ludicrous, but still a possibility nonetheless. Thrymr doubted this, even as he made his way to the rooftop, his heart pounding in his chest, his fingers shaking at his sides. He’d spent the majority of the last few weeks doing hardly anything other than training and sleeping and avoiding people - but in spite of all of his hard work, he felt entirely unprepared to face Labyrinthite.
Thrymr was not vicious. He hardly felt strong, his slender, almost effeminate frame only heightening his lack of abilities. His hands were not meant for hitting, and he felt the weight of his failures acutely as he stepped onto the roof, his throat dry. This was why he had struggled to fit into Ouroboros from the start - he wasn’t like the others. He didn’t have Methone’s easy, relaxed confidence, Aegir’s open determinedness, or Mont Blonc’s unfailing kindness.
He was Thrymr. There was little more than that to him.
And he didn’t know why he was here now, trying to find the very man who was the reason for the large scrape up his back, stretching from between his shoulder blades down. A reckless desire to prove himself? A desire for strength? Morbid curiosity?
There was no telling. Even he didn’t know.
But Thrymr came anyway, bathed in white and the colors of a sunrise, long hair twisted into a thick braid over a bare shoulder.
xoxo
The building he’d picked was that of an old abandoned bakery, with the foundation crumbling even if parts of the roof remained in tact. Some nights, the general would circle the nearby buildings with bright, watchful eyes scouting the streets while his other senses looked for energy signatures. Tonight he remained perched upon the bakery, sitting on top of the structure that had the stairwell into the decrepit building.
It was one of the few parts that remained stable.
There was someone approaching him and while he recognized the strength of the pulse to be that of an eternal senshi, he did not stir. Instead, he remained seated with one leg dangling over the side and the other one propped up on it’s heel with his arm draped across it.
In his lap sat the staff of his bone scythe, the bird skull that led to the large, shining blade, resting heavy on the concrete beside him. There was no splintered stone surrounding it this time, if only because he’d place it there rather than dropping it.
When he saw brilliant white decorated in pinks and gold, a dark sinister grin split his face, the top half obscured by his hood even if the white of his teeth was too visible.
“Thrymr, is that you?” He cooed in a sing-song voice. “My, I remember more pink. What happened?”
xoxo
Labyrinthite was as he ever was - and Thrymr felt a thrill of something like anticipation and fear twist in the pit of his stomach. He tamped down on it, pushed it aside, and kept walking, his heart beating fast and erratic in his chest; it felt almost too small to contain everything that he was feeling.
He didn’t know half of what he was feeling.
Thrymr came to a stop several feet away, and the contrast between them was as startlingly obvious as ever. Black from head to toe, including his hair, whereas Thrymr’s white uniform was like a blaze of light in the shadowy recluse of the rooftop. The only thing even the slightest bit similar was the pink - a streak in Labyrinthite’s hair that matched with the detailings on his uniform.
Thrymr swallowed hard.
“I upgraded,” he said softly, and the heels of his boots clicked a little as he shifted. The new outfit - and the wings - were still something he was getting used to, but he at least felt marginally better, even if he knew he was not stronger, would never be as strong as this man.
“I saw - “ His voice cracked a little. “ - your message. Why did you do it?”
xoxo
“I suppose that means a congratulations is in order,” came the low rasp of his reply as he shifted, other leg dropping over the leg and both elbows coming to rest on his knees. “But aren’t you a little overzealous?” There was a dark chuckle escaping him as he leaned forward and the hood slipped backward, exposed the intense whiskey-colored gaze.
Why did you do it?
He shrugged, pushed the bone staff off his lap and slid off his perch in a smooth, graceful motion. “Why not?” Was his first response, barely visible brow arched challengingly. “They kept coming and it was clear that they were not finished so,” he gestured to the crumbling building around them.
“I gave them a place to find me. It’s easier really, besides. They’re not the only ones with unfinished business.” He never specified who they were. It was unlikely that Thrymr would recognize any of them.
He didn’t know they existed until they’d come at him relentlessly.
“Like it appears that you do.” There was a pointed sweep of bright eyes across the senshi’s lithe frame. There was a slight spark of hunger in that gaze of his but it was fleeting. “Though I can’t imagine why, do you have a death wish Thrymr?”
xoxo
His face coloured a little at the comment.
“Perhaps,” said Thrymr quietly, because even he knew that becoming an Eternal was no guarantee of strength, none at all. He had more magic now, but that was about the extent of his capability. His physical abilities remained as limited as ever, pitifully slender and too graceful to be much of a threat at all.
He knew this, all of this, and yet he still had come to meet Labyrinthite.
Why indeed.
Thrymr tensed a little as the general dropped, straightened in front of him. Moonlight glinted off of the scythe’s blade, the skeletal head of it gleaming morbidly under the the silvery glow. He let his gaze rest on it briefly before returning his eyes to Labyrinthite’s face.
He did not doubt that many wanted to fight this man. Thrymr did not want to fight, and knew he could never have stood a chance against him even if he exerted all of his, for lack of a better word, strength. Labyrinthite had too many years and too much blood behind him for Thrymr to even think of surpassing, in spite of their power levels.
The difference between them was overwhelming.
“I don’t have a death wish,” he said softly, swallowing hard at the unknown glint in those whiskey eyes. “I wanted…” He took a breath. “...to talk.”
xoxo
Labyrinthite did not move from where he stood, he debated moving forward and approaching the senshi with his scythe dragged behind him, for effect. He considered banishing the weapon all together, theirs would be a battle he could conduct with his fists alone. After all, the general knew of Thrymr’s magic, two of his attacks and there would only be one he’d have to learn.
It could be an experiment, with him doing a bit of recon, where he tortured until the pretty thing begged for him to stop.
He remembered last time with a clear fondness that was almost unsettling. Thrymr had been in his grasp and Labyrinthite could distinctly remember the way the senshi’s starseed felt in his hand when he’d touched it back near the castle.
But someone had interfered both times and he wouldn’t let anyone interfere this time.
“I’m not one for talking Thrymr, I thought you knew that,” he replied, opting to banish the scythe when he chose to take a step forward. They’d talked once, even a bit the second time but - in the end, he was a man of action. “What could you possibly discuss with me that would convince me not to make you pay for your foolish decision to approach me at all?”
xoxo
He wondered whether those whiskey eyes would be the last thing he saw; whether these moments would be the remainder of his life before Labyrinthite decided to rip the starseed from his chest. It wouldn’t be the first time; that general had done it before, and it had ached for weeks after, a constant reminder of just how easy it was to break him.
Thrymr swayed a little where he stood, footsteps drawing closer. The scythe was gone, but that meant little when the man in front of him was a head taller and twice as experienced in fighting, coldness in his gaze, a cruel amusement in his tone.
“I just,” he said quietly, and his voice only had the faintest of tremors to it, Thrymr swallowing hard. He took a deep, shuddering breath, his pale lashes light in the moonlight, turning them almost silver in color.
“It’s silly and naive, I know,” he whispered, “But I just thought...maybe if I talked with you, I could...I could maybe understand you a little better.”
Pitiful, his mind whispered, a mocking whisper, but he ignored it.
xoxo
Thrymr was a curious creature, quickly joining the ranks of the others that Labyrinthite found...odd; Hvergelmir, Scholomance, Antiope to name a few of the white moon he found perplexing. Who else sought to speak, comfort, be close to a man who might slit their throat given the chance.
“Why would you wish to understand me?” He asked in an earnest sounding voice, head cocking and the hood sliding forward again. “I doubt I'm very complicated, despite what you and yours might think.”
A lie, for the general knew he was an intricate complexity that few could figure out. Some days, the general did not know how clear his personality was himself. The muted emotions created a certain...disconnect.
“Are you enamoured with me Thrymr?” He asked after a moment of consideration, rough hands lifting to remove the hood completely as he crossed the roof, approached the fair senshi. “Is that why you seek me though you know it's a foolish ende our? What do you hope to gain?” A rueful grin spread across his mouth. “Do you think you can save me? With this…kindness you think to offer?”
xoxo
That’s not true, he wanted to say. You’re not simple at all. I can’t understand you.
Or was he just making more of this than it was? Labyrinthite was a volatile, cruel man out for blood, it was a simple as that - or at least, it should have been. Yet Thrymr could not help the strange tug in his chest, the peculiar - and stupid - desire to learn more about him, in spite the track record of past encounters.
He was just a foolish, foolish senshi.
Thrymr’s cheeks coloured on instinct, and now Labyrinthite’s features were thrown into stark relief with the removal of the hood. An angular, strong face, whiskey colored eyes, a coldly twisted smirk that could have been a smile, but hardly felt like one.
“I’m not - I just - “ Thrymr swallowed again, trying to find the right words.
“Everyone can be saved,” he said softly, but he wasn’t even sure he believed the words himself anymore.
xoxo
It was too easy to slip into the senshi’s space because he was quicker, stronger, and could teleport if he needed but he merely strode forward. He reached for Thrymr’s face with a surprisingly soft, gentle caress of the hand without the glove. The difference in their heights allowed him to loom over the senshi effortlessly.
His head cocked and whiskey-gold met sky-blue as he bent down, tipped Thrymr’s chin up.
“What if I don’t want to be saved?” He breathed reaching for the braid cascading over the other man’s shoulder, twisting the fair strands in black gloved fingers. “What makes you think I’m worth saving?”
It was a question he’d asked himself many moons ago, when he was breaking apart in the seams. When he tried to convince Iris he deserved to be save, that he wanted out. But instead, his foundations were only stronger than ever and what Thrymr thought was saving was really just another way of damning him.
He tugged on the braid, let his bare hand drift down the side of Thrymr’s neck in an oddly intimate gesture wanting to see how he would react.
“Why do you care?”
xoxo
Too close.
Labyrinthite was too close again, and Thrymr’s heart seemed to want to beat out of his chest; whether from nerves, fear, or anticipation, he wasn’t sure. Possibly a combination of everything, his thoughts twisting confusingly around and around so that it was hard to tell one from the other.
Pale blue eyes lifted, every ounce of Thrymr held tensely, resisting the urge to flinch away from that hand that caressed his face. Labyrinthite’s fingers were cool against the flush of his cheek, and the gentle movement felt somehow wrong from a man who had spent his time dismembering a human being.
Thrymr’s head tilted up on request, his skin tingling.
“Everyone is worth saving,” he whispered, swallowing hard. Labyrinthite’s eyes were like molten gold in the dark, the moonlight catching in his dual colored hair. “There - there’s always something.”
This was moronic, idiotic. He was a fool for coming here in the first place, for thinking that talking was something this man did. His teammates would have been out of their minds if they had known what risks he was taking to even think of coming here at all, let alone actually doing it.
But he had to.
Beneath Labyrinthite’s bare fingers, Thrymr’s pulse reached a crescendo, a shiver chasing its way down his spine. He tried not to look afraid, but it didn’t quite work, his eyes wide as he stared up at him.
“I don’t know,” he said, always honest, his voice a little hoarse, a little pained. “I can’t seem to not care, even...even when you and the rest of your kind do what you do, I can’t just turn off how I feel.”
xoxo
The naivety of Thrymr was astounding and if he were more capable of it, it would even be endearing. Dully, the senshi’s words made him think of Hvergelmir and the same sort of kindness that she’d offered him. This was different though, Labyrinthite could not explain why if asked but he simply knew it to be.
“Then what is worth saving about me?” For every answer, the general had four more questions, each weighing heavier in his mouth than the least.
Thrymr was perplexing and Labyrinthite did not like that he did not understand the petite man. It both intrigued and infuriated him.
Curiouser and curiouser, he thought when their eyes met.
“We do things for the greater good Thrymr,” he mumbled, gaze dipping low before immediately back up. “I won’t pretend to think that you’d understand.” They hardly ever understood, Aue seemed to be the only white moon senshi with a sense of understanding. The general himself was a twisted creature he knew, muted to the moral travesty that the deaths by his hands created.
“Tell me what you hope for, what you want.” Fingers slipped from soft strands of white so gloved hands could press against the senshi’s chest. Fingers drummed idly against the ruffles, a warning that they could easily slip into that other space. “Do not keep me waiting.”
xoxo
What is worth saving about me?
The question should have been simple, but Thrymr felt it as though it were something heavy on his shoulders. His mouth opened and closed, unable to formulate the proper syllables for a response that didn’t want to pass his lips.
I don’t know, he thought despairingly, I don’t know and that’s the problem.
“The - the greater good,” stammered Thrymr, and the weight of Labyrinthite’s hand on his chest sent his heart skittering madly, a combination of apprehension and fear. He could still remember the other general, pushing her fingers into the space where his starseed lay, and the screaming, brief pain before he’d collapsed.
Labyrinthite could do that. It would only take a moment, a second.
“The greater good shouldn’t mean - “ He swallowed hard. “Killing everyone.”
He was going to die. Labyrinthite was going to kill him, and he knew it, but Thrymr’s blue gaze met the whiskey colored eyes more steadily than they had been so far.
“What does the greater good mean to you?” he whispered. “What do you hope for?”
xoxo
“What a pathetic response,” he sneered, hands dropping and space being created between them almost instantly. “I doubt you even know what greater good you think you’re defending.” Labyrinthite sounded disgusted that Thrymr had offered such a weak answer. He took another step back, shaking his head with teeth bared and narrowed eyes.
“You know nothing senshi,” he hissed between those bared teeth, a sharp exhale accompanying his words. “Your naivety proves that you are not made for war.” But he hadn’t expected anything else when looking at the boy - man? - dressed predominantly in white.
Thrymr had always looked soft and appeared innocent, like he was not made for the cruelty of what Destiny City had become.
What does the greater good mean to you? What do you hope for?
Were he a weaker man, Labyrinthite would have visibly recoiled from the probing questions. Instead he appeared to be made of stone, the harshness in his expression melting into something more stoic. It did not matter that the questions reminded him of last year, when he’d been on the edge of insanity and Princess Iris had asked him similar questions.
It did not matter that Hvergelmir thought that she could offer him what she thought was salvation. It did not matter that Iris had spurned him. It did not matter that the boy before him thought he could save him in whatever he thought was the better equivalent of the life he lived now.
“You think that your - “ he stopped and gestured at the sky, “faction I suppose, is the right side. You are wrong and you are naive if you think that there is any part of me that would leave mine.” He was Metallia’s knight, new General Sovereigns and Queen be damned.
xoxo
His lips pressed together, the space that was suddenly between them like a breath of fresh air. Thrymr felt the clarity begin to come back to his hazy mind, and he took a deep, steadying breath, his blue eyed gaze fixed on Labyrinthite’s angry, tense form in front of him.
“I was never made for war,” he said quietly, and there was no tremor to his voice, no uncertainty. This fact alone was one that he knew, one that he had known from the day that he had awakened. There were some that seemed to fit with the violence and the chaos of this war they had been thrust in, and yet Thrymr himself was not one of them and never had been.
“I’ve long ago accepted that fact,” he said now, his voice still low. He took a step forward towards Labyrinthite, not quite consciously, swaying a little where he stood. “But I still fight, even though I’m fully aware of all of my weaknesses, and isn’t that what you do as well? You don’t know what the next day will bring, yet you fight because you know where you stand.”
And he, Thrymr, was again weaker in that sense. He could feel the weight of his own inabilities heavy on his shoulders, as though something were pressing in on his chest, making it harder to breathe.
“Tell me, then,” he said, and there was a pleading note to his voice that galled him. “Tell me what makes your side the one to be loyal to.”
I want to understand you.
xoxo
I was never made for war, Thrymr said.
No, you are not, Labyrinthite thought in kind.
There was nothing about the senshi, save for his newly beconing rank that marked him as someone capable of withstanding war. Labyrinthite wondered how the senshi even managed to get to eternal, he had seen the boy in battle and, well, it’d been disastrous from the senshi.
“That makes you foolish, going into things knowing you are ill-prepared.” He shook his head. “You and I are nothing alike senshi,” he snarled advancing again, heavy palm pushing against the ruffles on Thrymr’s uniform. “You think that your softness may dull my sharp edges but you know nothing.” Fingers gripped the fabric tightly, other hand reaching for the smaller man’s face again, holding his jaw with an iron grip.
“And you will continue to know nothing.” He wouldn’t give Thrymr any of the answers he sought. He’d tried to explain himself once to the other side, he had no interest in doing it again.
“Coming here means you seek death, what a shame for such a pretty face.”
xoxo
No, thought Thrymr, and he was no longer sure if he was trying to convince himself or Labyrinthite. No, not foolish, not entirely. Naive, I know, I’ve always been naive, but foolish?
He couldn’t tell. The general’s hand was pushing against his chest again, forcing him to take a step back, his heart staggering wildly in his chest. Thrymr’s eyes were wide, his pulse rapid, and the flush to his cheeks was a mixture of fear and apprehension even as Labyrinthite’s fingers dug into his jaw. Paralyzed by his grasp, by the fact that moving felt impossible, he stared into the whiskey colored eyes and saw the anger there, burning hot.
“No,” said Thrymr, and it was a word that was too much and not enough all at once. “I don’t want to - I wasn’t trying to change you, I don’t - “ I have hope for you to want to change on your own, but I can’t make you. “ - “I’m just trying to - to understand you, I want to know you, why you are the way you are, why you are so loyal to your side.”
He would have shaken his head, but Labyrinthite’s hand was firm on his face, restricting movement.
“I have no illusions that I could influence you enough to soften you,” Thrymr whispered, half pleading, and a hand had risen, fingers curling around the general’s wrist as though to pull the hand away from his face, though Thrymr did nothing but rest them there. “I don’t - I don’t want to die, I don’t - “
xoxo
It would have been easy, too easy, to push his hand into Thrymr’s chest and pull out his starseed. Dully, Labyrinthite wondered what color the senshi’s starseed was - he wanted to know if it would reflect the white, gold, or pink of the man’s uniform. Or if it’d reflect the color of his eyes - so blue he thought they might be an ocean to drown in.
In the end it was a trifling thought that had no place, so it was banished from his mind.
“There is nothing to know, nothing to learn or understand,” he snapped harshly, leaning in towards the face he held stationary. He could see the fear, the curiosity, the want of something he didn’t understand reflected back at him through Thrymr’s eyes. “I am not some puzzle you can solve with determination and whatever resources you think you may have.”
Each word was said with a lacing of venom, a spitting hatred for the delusions that senshi seemed to have. A mixture of frustration and disappointment swirled in his chest as harsh gold met softer blues.
There was a moment when silence stretched between them, latched onto his shoulders and attempted to weigh him down. In the end, Labyrinthite could not understand, could not comprehend why soft, breakable Thrymr stood before him. It was nigh impossible for him to wrap his mind around the idea that this senshi, this boy stood before begging not to die but not resisting it either.
It didn’t make sense.
“If you’re not here to face death - “ there was a slow hiss of air being exhaled between gritted teeth breaking up his words “- to bargain or fight for your survival then why are you here?”
What do you want from me? Labyrinthite thought.
“Don’t tell me it’s to understand me because that’s a fool’s errand and will only end with you dead or corrupted.”
There was the sliver of a promise in his words as he threatened. It would be easy, to shatter Thrymr if he wanted.
xoxo
Too close. Labyrinthite’s habit of pushing into Thrymr’s space made his nerves stand on end, made his heart twist inside of his chest, his stomach flutter with a myriad of emotions that left him feeling dizzy and unsteady. A mixture of fear and apprehension was on his face, but there was also undeniably something else, something that was not the same as the fear. Confusion, perhaps, but more.
Thrymr’s fingers tightened around Labyrinthite’s wrist, but he still made no motion to try and pull the hand away from his face, as if he somehow knew that even attempting would likely result in the breaking of bones or the crushing of his starseed. The general’s hand was still on his face, and the other still against his chest, fisted tightly in the ruffles of his uniform, Thrymr trapped terrifyingly close, unable to move.
“Not a puzzle,” he said, because he didn’t see it that way.
He didn’t know exactly how he saw it.
Thrymr swallowed hard, and his blue eyes were fixed on the whiskey colored ones, as though to look away would result in something far worse. But his gaze was steadier than it should have been, not hesitating in fear or submission, exactly, but calmer and searching, almost beseeching, as he gazed up at him.
“I don’t know,” Thrymr whispered, and there was the faintest tremor to his voice. “I don’t know. I know what you are. I know what you can do. But I still want to know more about you. I want to talk to you, to try and know you, because maybe then I could understand why it is that I came here in the first place, because I don’t know.”
He swallowed again, licking dry lips, and didn’t dare close his eyes, because he felt the danger if he even so much as blinked, it would be over.
“You’re not a puzzle, but you’re a confusion that I don’t understand.”
xoxo
I don’t know.
Thrymr said that a lot, especially during this conversation which only served to infuriate the taller, bigger, more dangerous man. It was a cop-out answer, as far as Labyrinthite was concerned and the snarl that ripped from his throat made it very clear how he felt about it.
The hand gripping the ruffled front of the white uniform Thrymr wore dropped and his fingers pressed more tightly against the outline of the softer man’s jaw. It was possible that there would be finger-shaped bruises dotting his jawline in the aftermath.
“I don’t know isn’t an answer. You’ll have to do better than that,” he snapped, face now mere inches from Thrymr’s own. It was likely that the white-haired senshi could feel the general’s breath on his skin and no way to miss the harsh upward twist of Labyrinthite’s sneer. “I do not talk nor do I explain myself. Not to pests like you.” And yet -
Labyrinthite had spent more time talking with Thrymr than anything else. Still, it wouldn’t take much to change the nature of their interaction.
“Puzzle, confusion. What’s the difference?” Thrymr’s jaw was released and Labyrinthite stood straight, to his full height that let him tower over the other man. “Unless you wish to be turned, you have no business with me. You’ll only get yourself killed. Consider this my last act of mercy for you, that I let you leave intact.” He stepped back, expression unreadable as he looked at the senshi.
“There is no salvation, redemption to find for me or from me. I become death, destroyer of worlds,” he said low and voice rough. “There’s nothing to find, to unlock, or understand of me but what you see before you.”
Reaper, the voice in his head hissed. Reaper, he agreed.
xoxo
He knew it was not the answer that Labyrinthite wanted. It was not the answer he had wanted back in Negaspace, and it was not the answer he wanted now, the snarl that tore from his throat causing a shiver to run down Thrymr’s spine.
The hand on his chest had dropped, easing some of his breath, but the fingers on his jaw were now painfully tight. Thrymr stared up at the general, blue eyes wide, and felt a tugging in his stomach, a fluttering that mixed with the apprehension of what was to become of him. This close, their faces were hardly two inches away, and Labyrinthite’s breath ghosted across Thrymr’s face, more shivers chasing their way up and down his spine.
He swallowed hard. Let go, he staggered automatically forward, the force that had kept him pinned in place abruptly gone. Thrymr sucked in a sharp breath, and felt the ache in his jaw, his own fingers having slipped away from Labyrinthite’s wrist as the man stepped back. He was so very tall, every inch of him rigid with tension and that imposing power that Thrymr could not deny, nor ever hope to overcome. It would be reckless, downright stupid to stay, when Labyrinthite was telling him to go.
And yet…
“Let me see it, then,” said Thrymr, his gaze still on Labyrinthite. “Let me see you as you are. I - “
He did not mean corruption. In spite of his frustrations at his own inability to understand, he had come here to try and make sense of everything. And yet Thrymr felt as though he had more questions than answers now.
“I feel drawn to you and I don’t know why,” he whispered, the words pulled from somewhere deep inside of him, and he half seemed to be talking to himself, his chest heaving for breath.
xoxo
Labyrinthite had half turned away from the senshi, senses still on edge and prepared for a counter strike should an attack be launched, expecting him to take the graciously offered opportunity to leave. Instead, Thrymr stubbornly refused. An animalistic growl rumbled from his throat and out his mouth as he whirled around, teeth bared and whiskey-gold eyes narrowed.
“You are an idiot,” he hissed between teeth, sharp points of his canines glistening in the pale moonlight. “Do you hope that someone will come rushing to your aid once again? Do you think that your pathetic boyfriend can save you?” There was a sharp bark of laughter, with Labyrinthite’s head tossed back slightly, one arm extending to the side.
“Your rank means nothing. You do not know how to fight, how to defend yourself and I know your magic,” he pointed out with a sneer. It was effortless to summon the skeletal scythe into his gloved hand. Immediately, fingers tightened around the bone staff and he hefted it into the air almost effortlessly. There was a slight visible strain of muscle beneath his coat where his bicep flexed from the exertion, but over all, he made it look simple.
“Do you know why I left that message? Because some group of white mooners thought themselves capable of handling me.” Each encounter flashed before his eyes in quick succession. The saturn knight, the fire senshi, the martian and his lover, and then, the girl he’d pinned to the wall. There were more he knew, but he was ready. He would handle them just like the others. “They were wrong and they died for their accusations, their foolish belief that they knew me, who I was or who I would be.”
He took a single step forward, lowered the blade so that the tip was pointed directly at the freckled boy’s face. “Their blood stains walls and pavement. I don’t care about shedding blood or ripping a starseed from someone’s chest.” The look on his face was utter contempt for Thrymr. “I would have no qualms about ripping your starseed from your chest after I cut you up, just like them, then crushing your very soul between my teeth so you lose any chance of a future life.” He shook his head, decided to offer the senshi one last chance.
“Do you want to end up just like them Thrymr? Do you want to see me that badly?”
xoxo
It was like trying to talk to a wild animal, where the animal was not afraid to bare its teeth, snap a limb off at any moment. Thrymr felt as though he was on the edge of a precipice, balanced precariously, any wrong move leading to a violent and bloody death that he did not wish for, as much as it may have seemed like it.
“No,” said Thrymr, because it was true. He had been saved too much by Aegir, by Methone, by Mont Blonc. He knew they would have come to his aid at once if he called for them, but he could not and would not call for them now, not after all that they had done for him. Not when he knew that they would not always be there to save him.
He had to stand on his own two feet or not at all.
“No,” he said again, and the appearance of the scythe made him wince a little, but he held his ground, standing simply and quietly a short distance away. “I know none will save me now. And I know my magic is not strong enough.”
He was a fool, and he knew it, but that didn’t stop the twist of emotions that were clustered tightly in his chest. Understanding what they all meant was pulling at him, a desperate attempt at figuring out something that he could not hope to figure out.
The scythe was in front of him, scarcely an inch from his face, and the expression Labyrinthite wore was terrible. And yet Thrymr did not - could not - walk away, even with the prospect of something even more terrible right in front of him.
He knew what the stakes were, what he was risking. And yet he did not know why.
“I don’t claim to know you,” Thrymr said quietly. “I want to - I want to know you, because there’s something about you…”
He trailed off, knowing how meaningless, how pitiful it must sound to anyone but himself.Thrymr’s eyes were not on the scythe, too close for comfort, but on Labyrinthite’s face, a pained expression on his own that was part despair, part rueful, part frustrated, and part sadness.
“I don’t want you to kill me,” he whispered. “I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to walk away, either.”
xoxo
There was nothing that Thrymr was saying that he hadn’t said already. It was aggravating in an entirely new manner, though Labyrinthite did not lash out violently like what might’ve been expected of him. It was a controlled, seething rage that had only rose to the surface in small blips. Irritation was something that bubbled easily, but this - this anger beginning to burn within him - was a beast of another nature.
“There is nothing to know,” he repeated, knowing that it didn’t matter how many times he said it, the senshi couldn’t seem to comprehend them. “Is your vocabulary so limited that you can only repeat the same things over and over again until they lose any meaning?”
There was a click of tongue against the roof of his mouth, bones cracking as he cocked his head. The weight of his gaze was heavy, intense.
“If you do not seek escape or death, then there is only one alternative,” Labyrinthite mused. The scythe dissipated and he invaded Thrymr’s space once more. Bare fingers reached for the senshi’s face, stroked his cheek in a surprisingly gentle gesture before dropping to his chest and the space above his heart.
“You act as though you wish to be mine.” Why, Labyrinthite could not understand, but it was the only explanation he could think that made sense. “The only way to know me like you so desperately claim to want, is to bathe in the all consuming nature of who I am.” He leaned forward, head still cocked but eye searching the softer boy’s face. “Let the passenger consume you.”
His hand sunk into that other space and hovered above Thrymr’s starseed, though he did not touch. Not yet.
xoxo
He knew he was just repeating himself, but his thoughts would not seem to settle. Thrymr felt as though Labyrinthite’s eyes could see right through him, a blaze of whiskey colored intensity searing into his very soul. There was not much that Thrymr could hide; his emotions lay bare as it was, and even now he felt exposed and vulnerable.
And once again, there was no space at all between them.
Thrymr felt his breath catch in his throat, felt his eyes widen as a fresh surge of fear caught him, mingling with the confusion inside of his head. Labyrinthite’s fingers felt cold against his flushed cheek, a fleeting gesture of tenderness that caught him by surprise before the hand dropped lower.
Thrymr’s mouth opened and then closed again. Words escaped him, failed him, lost somewhere in the hollow of his throat. As the general’s hand sank into his chest, a sharp, breathless gasp escaped him, his body jerking, and he almost dared not to draw breath, his wide blue eyes focused on Labyrinthite’s so near to his.
He hated not understanding. He didn’t know why he was so unbelievably naive all the time, thinking he could make a difference when it was so glaringly obvious that he could not, and would never.
Thrymr swallowed hard, his lashes fluttering.
“I would be no use to you corrupted,” he whispered. “Nor dead. I only wish to…”
But he trailed off, because it had all been said before, and he could not find the proper words to explain this feeling.
xoxo
Speechless. That was how he’d rendered the white clad senshi and it was more curious that it wasn’t out of fear, not quite. Peculiar.
“Who said anything about corrupting you?” A finger traced the outlines of the starseed. Again, he was wondering what the color of the gem might be and it was terribly tempting to pull it out, watch the color leave Thrymr’s eyes as he examined the physical embodiment of a soul. He restrained himself, there would be time for that later if he truly wanted.
Right now?
He wanted to terrify pretty little Thrymr.
“And even if I wanted to corrupt you, which is tempting, who’s to say that you’d be useless?” A low rumble of a chuckle left him. “I could break you, then remake you.” Terribly tempting. “Of course, shattering your starseed is far more tempting.” Youmafying the pretty thing that was apparently already attached to him was clearly the preferred choice.
After all, he didn’t have a personal youma yet.
“Do you think yourself useful to me alive, uncorrupted, what you consider to be whole?” He shook his head, dipping to press his nose against Thrymr’s cheek before his mouth was near the senshi’s ear. He closed his hand around the starseed when he spoke again. “Tell me how. Give me reason to let you live when you so rudely rejected my earlier offers of mercy.”
xoxo
He felt the shift of Labyrinthite’s hand in his chest and a shiver ran down Thrymr’s spine, a trickle of fear ebbing into his consciousness. He was standing once again on the edge of a precipice, and one wrong move would result in what would likely be a devastating loss.
Who said anything about Corrupting you?
Thrymr’s mouth opened and then shut once more, a parody of speech. His eyes were so wide they looked almost entirely blue, and for a second he could do nothing more than stammer, because the only option other than corruption was death, at least to his knowledge. And the last thing that Thrymr wanted was to die, in spite of everything.
“Yes,” he stammered, and his breath caught in his throat as Labyrinthite leaned closer, lips against his ear. The slight tightening of his hand around his starseed made a jolt of pain race through Thrymr and he made a ragged noise in the back of his throat, half a cry, half a gasp.
He could not betray the Order, and yet -
And yet he was stupid. And yet he was naive, idiotic, pathetic.
And he was going to die for that stupidity.
“I can - help you - “ Thrymr whispered, swallowing hard, and his mouth felt very dry. “I can - be of use to you on - on this side of the war.”
xoxo
“Did you know,” Labyrinthite said slowly, mouth right against Thrymr’s ear and close enough he’d be able to feel the smirk sliding across the general’s lips, “that there are so many things far worse than death?” His face turned and something brushed against the senshi’s cheek before he pulled back. “Like being stripped of everything that you are?”
Idle threats as he had not done anything but grip Thrymr’s starseed.
Labyrinthite was testing the white haired boy. “What makes you think that you can offer me anything I don’t already have access to?” He already had a senshi spy, he didn’t need another one. “You say you can offer me something and yet...you offer nothing concrete. You give me no reason to believe you.”
The general, on the other hand, had made quite a few threat that he was intending to follow through with. “There are so many things you do not understand, no matter how plain the answer is. Or that it is right in front of your face.”
Whatever Thrymr thought he saw in the general, Labyrinthite was certain that it did not exist.
He kept close, chosing to make the other boy uncomfortable with his close proximity, mouth scant but centimeters apart. If his gaze drifted down at all, it flicked back up immediately after.
xoxo
Thrymr made another noise in the back of his throat, heat spreading across his face as Labyrinthite’s lips moved against his ear. Shivers were making his entire body tremble, and there were too many conflicting emotions inside of his head to make sense of now, each one tangling with the next until they were nothing more than blackness.
He didn’t want to lose everything. He felt the fear acutely, his eyes wide as Labyrinthite leaned back, surveying him with those whiskey eyes of his. Thrymr couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away, and the general was right - he had nothing else to offer, nothing he hadn’t already said, nothing that wouldn’t sound repetitive and useless.
So very, very naive.
Labyrinthite’s face was scarcely more than an inch away. Thrymr could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, taste the breath that skirted across his own mouth. He drew in a sharp breath, not even daring to lick his dry lips, hardly daring to move. Every nerve ending felt paralyzed, fraying at the edges.
“Myself, as I am,” he whispered. “That’s - that’s all I have to offer anymore. I - “
His lashes - and his chest - fluttered. He wanted to run, but he could not bring himself to do so.
I wish I knew why I want to figure you out.
xoxo
It was almost tempting, to close what little space that was between their mouths, but Labyrinthite did not. He did like that it was an option, something he could use to startle and confuse Thrymr further. Ah, tempting but ill-timed so he withheld.
The grip on the senshi’s soul gem loosen, the hand retracting and coming to rest along the length of the boy’s neck. Labyrinthite’s thumb pressed against Thrymr’s adam’s apple and his fingers dug into the nape of his neck. The grip, all in all, was gentler than expected but it was still very clear that the general would have no problem tightening it and restricting his companion’s breathing.
“You are you are is useless,” he spat. “Weak, pathetic, eager to die based upon your inability to fight back or even attempt to defend yourself.” He squeezed the hand around Thrymr’s then let go, palm finding his chest and pushing him back.
“Last chance. Leave or find a fate far worse than death.”
xoxo
The throbbing pain receded as Labyrinthite’s hand did, and Thrymr let out a half-choked gasp, stumbling forward a step. But the fingers on his neck stopped him from going any further, the air constricting in his lungs mostly from fear rather than pressure. A tremor went through his body, fingers shaking as Thrymr clenched them at his side.
Weak. Useless.
Pathetic.
Like little stab wounds, even though he knew them to be true, even though he knew of his own failings as a senshi. Thrymr opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out, the words dying in his throat, and then Labyrinthite was stepping away and pushing him hard. He staggered back, gasping, his own hand rising to press against his chest as he stared at the general.
He wanted to run. He wanted to stay.
He wanted not to feel the way he did anymore.
His feet shifted, forced themselves to move, and then Thrymr had turned and was making his way slowly, painstakingly away, over to the edge of the rooftop where the ladder was. At the parapet, he turned, and there was a pained expression on his face, his chest feeling too tight for his body to accommodate for.
He wanted to say - something - but there was nothing that could be said, so instead he turned away and left, because ultimately it was all he could do.
xoxo
Labyrinthite did not say anything further, merely watched the senshi stumble away with a hard look on his face. He’d straightened after pushing him, standing tall and to his full imposing height. His scythe had returned to his hand, the skull and blade near his face with the base of the staff pressed firmly against the ground.
It was not his intention to wield it, but instead, like so much else that night, it was used to pose a warning. If Thrymr dared to step towards him again, he’d be met with the sharp edge of a blade. The senshi of southern lights only had one chance, one last leap for life and the general could not help but wonder if Thrymr would chose him, the horrible fate he promised, because he struggled with walking away.
In the end, it appeared that an unchanged life was what the white haired boy wanted and Labyrinthite watched with a firmly set jaw and hardened gold eyes. When Thrymr looked back, obviously pained, he was met with a stony glance. There would be nothing he could see or read on Labyrinthite’s face.
Worthless, he thought, waiting until the energy pulse was far enough away that he could no longer feel it before he teleported from his rooftop.
xkuropeco
