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When Cecil finally unlatched the last of his breastplate's straps and hinges, he was relieved to find there was very little blood. The process of removing his armor was already laborious enough, especially as the suit didn't seem to abide anyone else touching it for too long. The pauldrons came away first, then the breastplate proper, carefully maneuvered so as not to re-open any wounds; he thoughtfully rubbed at the back of his shoulder where the flesh was cold to the touch around an irregular arrangement of gouges and punctures. Most of the blood must have seeped into the metal when it bit him, leaving only a few streaks of blackish ichor behind.
Absorbed in the meditative exercise of removing his armor, buckle by buckle, pin by pin, Cecil had completely forgotten Edward was in the room until he noticed the silence.
With Rosa sleeping off the final fits of her illness next door, safely isolated, Cecil had crowded into a guest room with Rydia and Edward. It wasn't terribly spacious -- Cecil suspected it had once housed the old couple's children before they'd all gone off to families of their own -- but it did at least have two beds, and Rydia, exhausted as only a child could be, had immediately fallen dead asleep beneath a pile of quilts. Cecil had taken the other bed to remove his armor, and Edward had sat down on the floor between them to do something with his harp that, to Cecil at least, seemed almost as involved.
The quiet twang of strings being tightened and tested, notes without a song, had faded easily into the background, but now that they'd stopped the absence of that sound was almost palpable, the chirping of birds and insects outside standing out in sharp relief as the only noise in the room.
Edward was staring at him with his fingers still on the tuning pins, as though he'd been stopped short midway through some adjustment or other. He looked away when he realized Cecil had noticed him, turning his attention back to the harp. Cecil supposed it was unusual to see someone wearing only bandages beneath a breastplate, and on the rare occasions they'd entertained dignitaries from Damcyan, Edward had been mostly conspicuous by his absence. That, and the fact that he seemed completely disinterested in matters of warfare, meant he had probably heard very little about dark knights. On the only occasion Cecil had removed any of his armor during the journey, Edward had been asleep -- so exhausted that perhaps "unconscious" would have been a better word -- so this would be his first time seeing what was beneath.
Cecil watched Edward's gaze flicker to the discarded armor, the barbs on the joints still slightly wet in the light of the single candle. He opened his mouth to say something before he apparently thought better of it, and Cecil frowned.
"What is it?"
"Nothing," Edward replied, running his fingers up and down the strings, which produced a barely-audible hum. Cecil couldn't tell if it was actually testing the sound or just doing that so something else could occupy his attention. "It's not important."
"You were going to ask me something," Th prince's reticence grated on him, Cecil knew, at least partially because he didn't like to be reminded that people feared him, so he did his best not to sound irritated. "Just ask."
"I was just thinking..." Edward looked up from his harp and hesitated for a painfully long moment before he finally spoke. "How can you move in that without hurting yourself?"
"I'm not intended to," Cecil said, slightly taken aback. The question struck him as a little absurd -- if protection was all Cecil wanted, surely he could just wear ordinary mail. His armor had a much different function, and he puzzled for a moment over how to explain it. "You know how mages pull sparks from their soul to cast spells?" Edward nodded slightly. Some of the feeling was starting to come back to the wounds nearest to Cecil's neck; they stung as he dragged his fingers over them. "Similar principle. All magic takes a little bit of life from you. It's what allows me to fight like I do."
"Oh," Edward said.
Cecil didn't know what to say next. That had usually been enough explanation for anyone to understand why he wore the armor, but he got the impression it hadn't done the trick for Edward. He'd never seemed all that impressed by Cecil's prowess in battle -- or at least, only impressed in the way that someone might be impressed by a bolt of lightning or a landslide.
Cecil went on. "There have been dark knights in Baron for centuries, so the sword's an heirloom, but a dark knight's armor is forged for them alone. It will never fit anyone else, and it still takes years of training to master them both. I took up the blade because..." Why had he done it? Because the king had wanted him to do it, of course, and because Cecil needed that power if he wanted to help people. To protect them.
He looked at the pile of quilts on the bed, still soundly sleeping.
All he'd been doing since deserting Baron had been trying to clean up the the mess he'd made.
Edward was now looking up at him with a concerned expression, eyes slightly narrowed as though he were trying to see Cecil's face more clearly in the dim light. Cecil realized with a stab of something like embarassment that Edward had likely heard "years of training" and started trying to work out how old he was. Trying to gauge if he ought to be feeling more pity than he already clearly did.
The icy cold had bled down his arm by now, running through his veins like ice water down to numb the tips of his fingers. On his shoulder, he could feel the bone-deep, searing ache that told him the fangs had gone deeper than they ought this time -- usually a sign he needed to exercise more caution. Was he really calling its presence to him that often?
It was so hard to be cautious when he'd been glad to feel the darkness sink its fangs into him, to be reminded that there existed that near infinite well of power just waiting for him to call upon it and make himself nigh invincible. He'd come to think of it as something close to an ally, if not a friend.
Cecil looked down at his hands, the nails starting to go a pale blue-purple like a corpse who'd died in the cold. None of that he could explain to Edward, of course. The bard wasn't looking at a warrior empowered by the gifts of darkness, someone whose power ought to be respected and feared. If anything he seemed less afraid of Cecil now that he'd seen the full extent of it. To someone like Edward, Cecil thought, he must look pitiful indeed -- a man who'd thrown himself into a monster's jaws for no gain whatsoever.
"I can't get rid of it all ," Cecil said quietly, even though Edward hadn't asked anything out loud. He knew exactly what Edward was thinking. "Not if I'm ever going to have a hope of standing up to Baron."
"You would know better than I," Edward said with a shrug. "I'm not a soldier, after all." He plucked a chord on his harp, was seemingly satisfied with the sound, and pushed himself to his feet. "You ought to try and sleep, though. You're hurt, after all."
"Where are you going?" Cecil asked. Edward had turned toward the door, his harp in his arms.
"Out," Edward said.
"It's the middle of the night."
"I just... I doubt I'll be back here for a long time. I wanted to...see the desert moon. Before I left."
"Suppose you're unlikely to run into trouble," Cecil admitted after a moment.
Edward pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. "I'll be fine. I appreciate the concern, though."
He was nearly out the door before Cecil managed to murmur "...and thank you," quietly enough that he doubted Edward would even hear it, but the bard stopped on the threshold, rubbed at his eyes, and glanced back over his shoulder.
"For what?"
"For not thinking it was worth it."
Edward hesitated for a long moment, not meeting Cecil's eyes, before he nodded. Cecil wasn't sure if he'd actually understood the sentiment, but he supposed it didn't matter.
And then Cecil was alone, save for Rydia sound asleep on her bed. A familiar enough situation at this point. He'd been probing at the bite on his shoulder so much that he realized he'd re-opened it -- he was bleeding again, and his entire arm ached. The icy chill had faded but the discoloration remained, blue and purple streaks like his veins had been flooded with old and befouled blood. Carefully, he unwound the bandage around his chest to re-tie it tightly around his shoulder; it would be ungrateful of him to bleed on the old couple's bedding, after all.
Cecil reached out and carefully snuffed the candle with his fingers. A familiar circumstance, he thought, if not a comforting one -- alone in the dark, with only open wounds for company.