Archive of Our Own

There's something numbing about continually participating in the greatest turning points of a nation's history one after the other after the other… It should be a sobering thought, but Erador is distracted. 

Aesfrost. Hyzante. Wolfort Castle.

A sense of gravitas hangs over these upcoming battles, more so than anything else they've been through so far, and the air is electric with it: The soldiers look as grave as they ever have, sharpening weapons and building barricades. The townspeople, over-excited and anxious, fortifying their homes, pretending their tasks won’t potentially dictate whether they live or die in the coming hours. And though Erador is always nervous before a big battle, something about this has him pacing a trench into the ground.

Maybe it's the kids that they’ve, thus far, done their absolute best to keep from the fray; Picolletta juggles some wind stones to show off for an unimpressed Narve while they wait by a merchant’s stall. The babyfat has not even thought of leaving their cheeks yet. Quahaug is so small and quiet that Erador has nearly tripped on the young boy once or twice, it’s easy to forget he isn’t even here. The time prodigy had demanded to go to Hyzante under Frederica, and Erador highly doubts his situation is any safer. And no one is really sure how old the magic barrel is, or if it's even truly alive, but it has a child's voice and Erador feels bad that they’re even considering bringing it onto the field all the same. 

Or maybe it's that this is the first major battle without the young Lord by their side. Erador knows Seranoa is not by any means unskilled in battle, but it worries him all the same to not be present to protect the boy from harm as he’s done all the boy’s life. He knows Frederica would unleash hell to protect her betrothed, Erador has seen it firsthand, but the fact remains that their mission at the source is the riskiest of them all.

Or maybe it's that he's not sure if he'll see Wolfort, this Wolfort, ever again.

Even if they survive this battle, the town's secret weapon will likely render the landscape unrecognizable. Jens has been working for days on improvements, the trenches can hold more oil now, they will flow in rivulets between pavestones and gutters. A network of death. The quaint, sturdy houses, the markets, the gardens and alleyways... all destined to be ashes.

It should make Erador melancholy, but he mostly finds the thoughts distracting at a time he cannot afford to be distracted. He almost wishes they would burn already so he wouldn’t keep pre-emptively mourning them. He grew up here, after all. He can list these streets with more ease than he can list his cousins.

But- as he looks at Benedict finally coming down from Wolfort castle, tactician’s cloak billowing out behind him as he descends the grand steps- Erador finds himself suddenly mastering his anxiety and impatience.

He has always found himself able to become what those around him need him to be; a shoulder to cry on, a mate to drink with, a shield to hide behind. So when he notices Benedict's thumb repeatedly tapping the butterfly engraved on his weapon, his eyes fixing on one hawk statue after another after another… Erador finds his own breathing slowing, his nerves numbing… if only to project calm at the man who seems not to need it to the untrained eye.

The thing is, Erador has spent over 30 years learning the silent, stilted language of Benedict Pascal, and the man is as close to panic as he gets. 

Erador pushes off from where he’s been leaning on the market stall, picks up his shield, and moves to meet his friend. Benedict can be cold, but he is courteous, so as Erador approaches, he becomes increasingly unnerved as Benedict fails to notice and greet him, so lost in his thoughts.

"Benedict?" Erador intercepts him the moment he takes the final stair. Benedict startles, but allows himself to be pulled to the side, partially down the space between two houses when he recognizes who is holding him.

"Are you okay?" Erador asks gently. Benedict’s eyes are clear, but Erador isn’t fooled. Benedict’s subtle irritation from being pulled from his thoughts is betrayed by his arm tensing, releasing, and tensing again under the larger man’s grip, even through the layers of cloth and leather that his armor affords him.

"I am perfectly fine." Benedict huffs. "Why would you think otherwise?" 

He gives Erador a sharp, pointed look and he reluctantly lets go, even though no one can see them here.

“I've never seen you this tense before." Erador says, curt.

“Do I not have reason to be?” Benedict grimaces. “A confrontation with Exharme would have been dangerous enough without us being deprived of two thirds of our forces.”

“True...” Erador replies slowly. "But Exharme was coming for us in the Rosellan village as well. And while we were searching for a key you didn’t even believe existed, you didn’t so much as twitch.” Erador desperately wishes his hand were still on Benedict’s shoulder. “Tell me what's wrong." 

Benedict is still for a minute, irritation frozen on his face, but hollow. Erador knows he's battling whether or not to simply brush the warrior off and stride back out onto the street. It wouldn't be the first time, and Erador would expect it normally, but something is clearly off: It’s even more obvious up close: There’s a smear on Benedict’s glasses, his short hair manages to be in disarray, and there is blood under his nails and at the edges of his fingers from where he’s been mindlessly picking at them. 

Benedict takes a breath, and Erador senses immediately that the man is gearing up to straighten himself out, to hide all evidence of his stress. He will wipe his glasses, stand up straight, fold his arms behind his back, and tell Erador not to concern himself. And Erador will nod, turn away, bury his worry and hurt and unfulfilled need to just help where it will fester and ferment and feed this tumultuous thing inside of him. Just like always.

So it shocks him when, instead, Benedict is closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall of the building that hides them. He exhales, long and shaking, and rubs the bridge of his nose, under his glasses.

"Erador, I can't help but feel that I've outlived my usefulness." He opens his eyes again to look out to the rest of the village preparing for the battle ahead. "The young lord has shown me that my pragmatism has left me… blinded to possibility. I am finding myself looking back on the choices we’ve made and seeing how much my unwillingness to leave anything to chance may have crippled us. I've been… beyond arrogant.” He huffs out a humorless chuckle. “I thought myself a boon, but now see I was a hindrance. And to be frank, I am shaken." 

“Benedict-” Erador starts, but Benedict shakes his head.

“None of that now. I am well-practiced at setting aside my failures as a man.” He says matter-of-factly, and it breaks Erador’s heart, but he stays silent. “What troubles me is… Is…”

Benedict Pascal. The most eloquent man Erador has ever known. The silver tongued. The diplomat.

And he is struggling to put his thoughts into words.

"There is… a part of me that is at war with the other,” He finally says, staring out over the town. “And for the first time, I find myself at a loss. Lord Seranoa has shown me that we can aim for more. That, perhaps, we can have more than just survival. And… I want more for us all. I want Symon's legacy to remain. I want no damned boot from the Duke nor a King nor the Goddess upon our necks! I want our people to be independent of Glenbrook. I love this demesne. I love this village. I want Lord Seranoa to be married here ! I want..." 

He trails off, and there is something bizarre in his expression. It takes Erador a moment to name it as wistful.

Erador is frozen. He has never heard anything like this from Benedict, and it's... incredible.

He can picture it all too easily: Wolfort bustling, prosperous. The people of all the clans united and cheering Seranoa's name as he and Frederica, dressed in their finery, take their first steps into the town as Lord and Lady of Wolffort. No longer prostrating under a foreign power's thumb or debt, no bending the knee to Glenbrook, Hyzante, or Aesfrost. But a country of their own.

Had he not realized how strongly Benedict had felt? They had always had their pride in the clans unified under Symon, but this generation did not know of a time before Regna had split them into the three high houses. Erador had thought, always, this was all for Serenoa, or, beyond that, Lady Destra... 

What exactly had Benedict promised her?

What else did he want?

“That said…”

Benedict steels his gaze and finally looks Erador in the eye, and his heart sinks into his stomach.

"Erador, I need you to tell me it would be foolish not to use the wildfire.” Benedict says, words like ice. “I cannot damn us all to fancy." 

Erador’s nails dig into the flesh of his palm as he squeezes his fists.

Of course.

Of course Benedict would finally give a breath to his own suffocated heart, give it air to speak. Of course he would allow Erador a glimpse of it, and then order him to strangle it for him.

It's not fair. Benedict knows Erador is just pragmatic enough, just realistic enough to advocate for the sure victory. How dare Benedict put this on him, to try to bounce this off of the callouses in his heart. Damn him, damn it all! 

Erador's mouth opens, but he finds the words stick in his throat. Benedict is looking at him, pleading without words, but Erador can't protect him from this. Erador has before him, finally, the Benedict he has known all along, and he is too selfish to lock him away again. Not even for the chance to save all their lives. 

Benedict is waiting. 

Erador doesn't speak. He reaches out again, instead, and this time the tactician doesn't shrug his hand off. 

-The trumpets sound.

They are out of time. 

Erador squeezes Benedict's shoulder, and tries to convey... something with his gaze. Good fortune, of course. Camaraderie, most definitely. A wish that this is not goodbye. Love of clan, love of Wolfort, love of this entire piecemeal bizarre company. An answer. 

Benedict holds his gaze until Erador can delay no longer. He picks up his shield, and sprints to the front. 

Erador swears loudly once the last Hysantian Soldier in view goes down under his shield, crumpling into the mud.

He hasn't seen Benedict or Archibald or Trish since Ezana called the rainstorm, and between the pelting rain and the tempest, Erador has lost sight of where the fighting is thickest. Now he can't even track down anyone with a good enough view to direct him where to go. Jens's ladder had caught an unlucky lightning blast and was in pieces, so he can’t even get up to a roof himself. Travis had been with him, but the ex-bandit leader had chased off after some archers down an alleyway some time ago, and Erador hasn't seen him since. 

He swears again. Erador does not do well alone on the field. Without a clear point to defend or distract the enemy from, he’s nothing more than easy pickings from ranged attackers. And he’s usually too distracted keeping the enemy away from where they want to be to figure out what his third move from now is going to be. That’s what Benedict is for.

Erador wipes rain or sweat or blood or who-knows-what from his face back into his drenched hair. His lucky hair-tie had fallen out somewhere, and the wet hair constantly smacking back into his eyes is not helping him think straight either.

He finds himself with two options; go down further into town, where he can draw off the most reinforcements, or go back uphill towards the castle, where the rest of the Wolfort army is most likely to be, provided nothing too drastic has happened in his absence.

Erador wants to double back and regroup with the others, but he is in the craftspersons district and it will take him twenty minutes at the least to make it back to the markets where Benedict commands the army, and it will potentially lose them all the ground they've gained on this side of town. Worse: the enemy could use this route to flank the castle.

No, the decision is clear. There are likely more mages in the backline anyhow, and he can do the most good in taking them out.

Erador curses and wipes aside the wet hair sticking to his face yet again, before hurrying down the rain-slick stairs. 

He hates fighting mages. 

Magic itself is hard enough to deal with; fire slips in through the seams of his armor and turns his protection into a furnace. Ice chills his muscles, cuts through his skin, and freezes his boots to the ground. Wind doesn’t seem to care about his weight, and being knocked over is just that much worse when it's a struggle to get back up. 

And there’s just nothing to be done, no time at all to think or react, in the face of lightning. 

But fighting mages is just so especially bad because once Erador is up close, they are just completely defenseless. A soldier may have anger in his eyes, a sword in his hand, but mages always look terrified. They aren’t soldiers, not most of them. Students, scholars, draftees. Cornered. Out of options.

Erador wishes magic wasn’t inherent. That all it would take would be snapping a staff in twain, or ripping out a book's pages, and he could let them run. But it is, and he can't. So they must die. 

He finds a group of mages, as he predicted, casting support upon the Hyzantian infantry from below as they trek up the steep, sloped streets for which Wolffort is known. He tries not to wonder how Geela or Frederica or Corentin are doing in Hyzante at this very moment, as he steps out from his side street, and silently readies his shield. 

The downpour helps mask their cries as they go down, but not enough, and the Hyzantian foot soldiers turn, shout, and charge. They are much quicker going down the hill than up it.

A swordsman slashes at him from the front, and Erador only barely manages to block it and swipe back, knocking the soldier back, when a spearman uses the opening to jab at his abdomen. They strike true, and Erador howls in pain before roaring at the soldier and bashing the spear into pieces before they can run him through completely. 

"Is that all you've got!!!???" He shouts.

The rain is pouring. His armor glistens. The adrenaline is more intoxicating than any wound can hurt. There is no one, no thing, to worry about defending, no thought to ground him, and his mind goes blank save for the screaming of his muscles as he swings his shield. 

If he were sober from it, he would be sickened, but right now? There is no feeling more powerful.

His armor saves him from about half of strikes, but he is in the throng of it in no time, and when he sees no one but enemies around him, his bloodlust begins to abate. Adrenaline can only get you so far, and it is clear he will not be able to keep this up for much longer.

He runs into trouble when an archer gets a lucky shot through the gap in his armor at the shoulder. Erador suddenly can’t lift his shield above his head fast enough and the swordsman he’s engaged with tries to take advantage of it right away with a wide swing to the neck. Erador manages to avoid being beheaded by ducking at the last possible moment, and shoves the soldier away using his overclocked momentum, but another takes his place almost immediately and Erador barely manages to force the sword into hitting him on the flat. Even so, the blade hits the side of his head at the slightest of angles, and suddenly blood is filling Erador’s left ear.

Things are going bad fast.

He gets a moment of respite when Decimal seems to get off a spell all the way from the castle that strikes all enemies in the field, disorienting them just long enough for Erador to move forward into what he recognizes as the stable master's yard. It doesn't afford him an easy way out, but they can't hit him from each side so long as he keeps the stone wall bordering the property to his back. 

It's his best option. After all, he won’t need to escape; his allies aren't here, but neither is Exharme, which means that they’re likely engaged with one another, and this group was intended as reinforcements. He can die well enough, knowing that he kept them from blindsiding his comrades. A group this large could easily turn the tide. Yes. The best Erador can do is distract them long enough that Benedict's force will have time to defeat Exharme and take them out later.

Unless. 

Unless Erador can take them out now .

The stablemaster lives a block away from- yes. There! 

Another shieldbearer tries to slam into him. Erador roars and diverts his momentum into the granite barrier and the soldier is stunned just enough that Erador can step on the man's armored back and pull himself over the wall.

Landing on the other side is disorienting with his ear so badly injured. Luckily, when his vertigo clears, the Hyzantian archer who’s posted there is overly focused on something up the street, and takes a second to realize someone is behind him. Erador punches him in the face as he turns, startled, and he goes down like a sack of bricks. Erador takes a second to look at who the archer had been shooting at.

From the top of the opposing building, red shingles shiny with rain, Piccolletta's horrid decoy grins at him with dead, soulless eyes.

Erador jumps at the opportunity, not even sure if the terrifying thing can understand him, but it's some kind of magic, right? So it's worth a shot. 

"Tell Benedict!!!" He shouts over the downpour. "Tell him the tailor's house!!" 

The decoy tilts its head like an inquisitive dog, before turning and cartwheeling away, out of sight, grinning that unnerving grin all the while. Erador does not waste another second as the next Hyzantian soldier follows him over the wall. 

"Come and get me!!!" He yells, and sprints as fast as he can down the street. 

The tailor's house is a cute little thing. She's a pleasant older woman, with a love for growing sunflowers and tea herbs. She is a widow, and is one of the few old enough to not only remember before the Salt Iron war, but well before the unification of the clans, before Symon was even born. Her only child had perished several years ago, and her apprentice has her own place down the way, so when she'd been asked if she was willing to outfit her home with trenches of oil and stakes for the protection of Wolfort, she did not hesitate. 

The small, picturesque little house, and its lush, beautiful garden is a deathtrap. 

Even now, Erador can see two archers trying to get the drop on him by climbing onto the roof. They'll get a good view of how bodies contort and roast in white-hot, oil-fueled flames from up there. The sound of men's fat and skin sizzling and cracking… right before they become engulfed as well. 

Erador throat gets tight. His heart is pounding in his ears, throbbing painfully in the left. It must be the running. The exertion. The fight. He tries not to think about it too much.

It smells like rain. Like ozone.

Not meat. Not yet.

Don’t think about it.

Erador reaches the edge of the garden as the first of the Hyzant forces catch up with him. He catches a sword on his shield just in time, sparks and rain droplets flying from the contact, and fortifies his stance as he backs further and further back into the flowerbeds. He reaches into his pocket, the one pathetic spark of magic in his blood readies, and he tosses the firestone high, high up into the air, hoping that someone sees the signal, and stands ready. He just needs to bring them here. Keep them here.

They come. Shieldbearers and spearman and mages and swordsmen and archers all. He is completely surrounded and as he endures blow after blow after blow, he thinks to himself, there you go Benedict. I guess I gave you the answer you wanted after all . 

It's the best, final gift he can think of, as a mage in the distance locks eyes with him, raises their hand, and calls a bolt of lightning down from the blackened sky. 

Erador, of all things, pictures a horned beast, and then all is white.

Erador wakes. 

He didn't expect to wake. The goddess is fake after all, right? There is no one's side to return to. Erador had had neither the time nor the spiritual reflection to come up with a replacement for her in the time since Frederica's grand revelation, so he’d presumed there simply was no afterlife now.

Erador had never exactly been the most devout to begin with.

The first thing he sees is a clear, bright, blue sky through a quaint little window. It's open, and a pleasant breeze is gently billowing some patterned light curtains. Two small, puffy little white clouds lazily moseying across the blue. A picture perfect, beautiful day. If this is an afterlife, it's a pretty good start. 

The next thing, on Erador's other side, is a man laying on a bed. Whose face is contorted with pain; groaning and crying and shaking as a medic and an apothecary treat something in the general vicinity of his abdomen. There is quite a bit of blood.

Not such a great afterlife after all, but from there Erador surmises he is probably not dead.

Continuing his slow journey of wakefulness, he notices he's in a bed of his own, and then, feeling foolish, that he must be in the Wolffort medical house, which he really should have recognized right away; those curtains had become as familiar to him as the back of his hand over the course of his life here. 

He looks back over to the window for a more pleasant view, and sees there's someone asleep in a chair in the corner nearby that he hadn't noticed before. It takes him a moment to recognize Jens, who's hair is out of its typical ponytail for once, soft brown locks draping down over his face. 

Erador decides to let the man sleep, as he'd been constructing spring traps and hidden ladders and overseeing the various fortifications of the town for two days straight before the battle, even though Erador is itching to know how it ended. He’d had only caught a glance of Exharme near the beginning of the fight, and after having fallen prey to his allegiance-altering magic in the past, had kept a wide berth.

However, the man being treated in the next bed over inevitably yelps loud enough that Jens startles. He gives Erador a slow smile once he realizes the older man is awake. 

"Hey big guy! How are you feeling?" 

"Well..." Erador smiles back, and takes a moment to think it over. "Most about everything hurts, I'm sore all over, and I think I'm gonna hurl." 

"Sounds better than when they hauled ya'll in here." Jens frowns. "I don't think I'd ever seen you so beat up. Its lucky Archie's so good; he stuck a good number of them Hyzantians to the ground to keep em' off you." 

"What?" Erador had been drawing them all in for the wildfire, and Archibald hadn't been anywhere in sight.

"Yeah." Jens continues, clearly thinking Erador is still groggy. "You know? Picolletta's creepy doll hopped over to Benedict from out of nowhere-" Jens chuckles. "I think he jumped a foot into the air, and then it whispered something at him-" 

"Wait, what?" Erador repeats, dumbstruck. He is alive, so he’d simply assumed his gambit with the wildfire hadn’t been communicated. But the decoy could speak? So Benedict…

“Yeah, I know! I had no idea that thing could talk! Man, I hate it. Gives me the heebie jeebies.” Jens shudders. “Anyways, Benedict cast that speed spell onto Archie and Ezana and they all started running towards where you were at.”

There's a quiet pause as Erador thinks; the neighboring bed seems to have finally fainted. 

"So Benedict... chose not to use the wildfire?" 

"Yeah, I know." Jens huffs a laugh. "I almost couldn't believe it either. Don’t get me wrong! Glad you’re okay, but I can't help but feel like if it had been any of the rest of us down there he would've gone through with it though. Uh-" Jens gives Erador a look. "No offense. Cause, uh. Well, you're good friends, right?" 

Part of Erador wants to correct Jens. That, because they're good friends, Benedict would trust he'd understand as he burned alive. That, because they're good friends, Erador had trusted that Benedict would go through with it even with him there. They understand each other better than themselves, and that is no small thing.

That Benedict had held his life in his hands like that, as a gift freely given, a token to exchange for Wolfforts safety, and still kept him safe was- was... 

Jens takes his silence as offense and clears his throat awkwardly. "Uh, sorry. Anyway, Ezana fried most of them in one blow, I've never seen her hit so many targets without missing, but I guess Benedict breathing down her neck was motiv- ah, nevermind." Jens coughs. "By the time Travis and I caught up, he'd finished off the last of them by himself. I mean, I know he was in the war with you, Erador, but I had no idea he had moves like that." 

Erador chuckles absently at that. "Kid, he was vicious on the field before he was vicious in the war room." He leans back against the pillow. "I'm glad he was feeling like his old self... Real glad." 

Hes starting to feel tired again. And he closes his eyes before asking his last questions. "We lose anyone?" 

"Not a one, sir." The smile is plain in Jens's tone. Erador smiles too. 

"Exharme?" 

"Fled like a damn coward." Jens smirks. "Not before Trish nicked a bunch of that tacky jewelry off him, though. I told her we should wait for Giovanna to get back to appraise it, but I think half of it's already gone."

Giovanna, who went north with Roland and Maxwell. Flanagan and Hughette. Groma and Rudolph…

"And..." Erador mumbles. "The others?" 

"We're still waiting on word-" 

"Successful." A familiar voice draws closer. No longer tense. Instead; steady, confident. Words said through a smile. Erador's eyes open. Benedict in his casual wear, leaning a little heavier on his cane than usual, but unharmed.

“Really!? Awesome!” Jens exclaims excitedly, but then his face rapidly pales. "Er, how much of that did you hear, sir?" 

"Enough," Benedict smirks; a playful thing. He looks a full decade younger with it. "Thank you for keeping watch, Jens. You are dismissed, I would like to speak with-" he raises an eyebrow. "My good friend. " 

Oh he is in an excellent mood. 

Erador finds it infectious, and feels his lips pulling into a grin. Jens clearly doesn't seem to think so, and all but springs from the chair.

“Hope you feel better soon, Erador!” And Jens is gone.

Benedict watches him leave, rather like a cat lazily observing a bird. Erador chuckles at the thought. “Kid’s scared enough of you. You didn’t have to sneak up on him.”

“I was hardly sneaking.” Benedict scoffs. He glances at Erador, almost guiltily, and takes a seat in Jens’s chair. Erador feels the good mood wither away. 

Benedict is fiddling with the butterfly on his cane again.

Erador decides he does not have the energy to be delicate.

“Thanks for not frying me.”

Benedict nods, and relaxes out of his stiff posture. He sets the cane aside.

“I should be glad, shouldn’t I?” Benedict frowns. “I took the chance. We won the day and Wolfort still stands.”

Erador sees through him immediately. “You’re wondering if you made the right choice.”

“It must have been; I couldn’t have dreamed of a better outcome, no?” He leans his head back, eyes closed. “I’d just gotten a message back from Lord Seranoa.” He laughs quietly. “He said he was proud of me. I should be happy.”

“You’re thinking about how it could have gone wrong.”

“We could have all died.”

“But we didn’t.”

Benedict is quiet. Erador would like to think he won this conversation, but he knows his friend is still sitting on his betrayal of his own modus operandi. It is a hard thing to come to terms with, but Erador will wait for him. It makes the silence companionable. Erador closes his eyes. Maybe he naps for a time, maybe not. He is awake when Benedict finally speaks.

“Erador?”

“Yeah?”

“I was going to do it.” Benedict says quietly. “I didn’t rush to save you. I rushed to set off the trap before they could escape.”

“I know.” Erador says.

“Archibald wouldn’t hit the statue. He called me a monster.” Erador opens his eyes and looks over. Benedict is smiling bitterly, gazing down at the back of his hands resting on the end of his cane. “I told him he was right, and I’d take that bow from him and do it myself if he couldn’t follow orders. He didn’t take that very well.”

Erador huffs a small laugh.

“I ran over to the statue.” Benedict says. “I didn't even check to see if you were alive or dead first. I- I…”

Erador waits until it is clear Benedict will need prompting.

“Did you draw your sword?”

“I did.”

“And?”

Benedict won’t look at Erador. He is picking at the butterfly.

“...And?”

“I should have hit it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“We could have all died.” Benedict continues. “If Trish hadn’t faked being turned by Exharme. If Decimal hadn’t completed that calculation. If Narve had gotten hit by that spearman-”

“But we didn’t die, Benedict.” Erador interrupts.

 Benedict’s eyes snap up to meet his, and Erador is shocked to see they’re red.

“Erador, if I had just set the trap off the first time, at the beginning of the battle, then I wouldn’t have almost killed you.”

“Benedict, we won. We’re okay. Wolfort is okay. I’m okay.”

Erador lays his hand, palm up, on the bed near Benedict. The man stares at it but doesn’t move until Erador wiggles his fingers. Benedict gingerly reaches out his own and takes it. Erador threads their fingers together and revels in the feeling for a moment. Rubs his thumb over the vein behind the knuckles. Memorizes the callouses and scars.

“Benedict.” Erador starts. “Why didn’t you hit the statue?”

“I- I couldn’t do it.” Benedict says quietly. “I was weak.”

“No. You’re not weak.” Erador replies.

“I was selfish.”

“For wanting me to live?” Erador asks pointedly. “Am I selfish for being glad that I’m alive?” 

Benedict looks like he’s about to reply, but then stops himself. It’s quiet for a moment, only the birds outside chattering away in the afternoon. The sky is beginning to turn painted as the sun begins to dip; it’s going to be a beautiful sunset later. Benedict’s hand is comfortably warm.

Yes. Erador is glad he is alive. No afterlife can match this.

Erador closes his eyes, but doesn’t let go. “Do you regret it?”

“...No.”

Erador squeezes Benedict’s hand, and, after a moment, he squeezes back.