Work Text:
Warriors' hands were covered in bruises. They lingered around the knuckles, blue and black and purple against tan skin. When Warriors had lost his sword during the battle, he had fought with his fists. He hadn't thought much of it then, the adrenaline muffling everything but the need to stay alive.
He thought of it now.
Warriors' hands were scarred. It wasn't rare they were graced with a superficial cut – he was a soldier, after all, and accidents happened. His hands were often bloody, in more ways than one.
But never bruised.
Warriors looked at his hands, turning them over to take in all the details of their injury. There was something undignified about fighting with one's hands, he thought. Something wild and primal and desperate. A man with a sword might be fighting for his country or his honor or his queen. But a man who kept fighting, even when he had nothing to defend himself with but his hands? He fought for his life.
Warriors hadn't fought like that in years, but he'd never forgotten what it felt like to be a cornered animal. A condemned man with a noose around his neck, the rope tightening ever so slightly with every breath.
In the beginning, it had been an escape attempt. When he'd searched the entire room and found no other exits, he'd started pounding on the door every night, knuckles spilling bright red blood across the wood. Soon, the door was worn into two perfect marks of his fists, but it remained sturdy. Unbreakable.
Slowly, as hope turned to despair, Warriors' nightly ritual turned from an escape attempt into something else. There were so few things in his life he could control during those days. It was ... nice to be in control for once.
Cia told him once that it was such a waste to hurt a perfect body like that. That night, Warriors broke both hands against the door. The next day, Cia gave him a potion. She even stole the choice to mangle his own hands from him.
Warriors knew what it was like to fight with his hands. He knew what it was like to be treated like a trophy, an object with no feelings or thoughts. He knew desperation, despair, agony of the kind which couldn't be expressed in words. And while his skin usually was unblemished, the bruises lingered. Blue and purple and black. Just like Cia.
"Hey, Wars? You okay?"
Warriors jumped at the sudden sound, already reaching for his weapon. But it was just Four, the small smithy's face turned down into a concerned frown.
"Do you need a potion for those?"
Warriors forced a smile onto his face. It felt like the ones he'd been so used to back during the war. Fake.
"I'm fine," he lied. "Just some bruising. It'll fade."
It wasn't like a potion could fix the real bruising anyway, Warriors thought bitterly. He found the gloves in his belt and put them on. His knuckles burnt against the leather, like the bruises desperately wanted him to remember they were there.
They hadn't needed worry. As if Warriors could ever forget.