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With the weight of a breath held, the night is quiet.
Saparata waits in Turntapp’s office, a kind of cursed mockery of what they’re doing. Saps is reading into it, he is, but it’s too quiet— like there are too many breaths gone or withheld. He eyes the planks of dark spruce that make up the quarters; for a second, maybe a good thirty minutes, he’d started reading familiarity into these walls, and the ones beyond;
—For all their posturing as a militant state, the Covenant fancied themselves a rustic and homely vibe. Spruce, chimneys, and blackstone were basically written into the building code—
He thinks, after this, no matter what, that notion will shatter. Compound fracture. A messy break. Thousands of shards to pick out.
.
.
.
— — — —
He thinks of that night. Here, in Westhelm’s cobbled Citadel, so far removed from the Covenant’s warmth— if it even still existed— it seems like a lifetime ago. Like a gulf had opened up between the memory and him, blurring it into a pinprick in his mind’s eye.
Saparata thinks of the storm. He looks at Pandora’s leaders.
The new guy— Freshman of Aperion— was glaring at him, all nerves. What a shame. Rigid and stolid, SitzKrieg was impassive as ever— maybe more so; being sole ruler of the Commonwealth would do that to you. Saps smiles at him, as placid as possible. He tries to place some respect; he’d survived it all, after all. Zekor… He glances past Zekor.
The man, because Saps doesn’t doubt that Zekor hates him enough to read his mind and know exactly what the worst thing he could do in a scenario was, clears his throat at that. “Emperor Schpood, we implore you to see reason—”
Tough shit. Talking to Schpood of all people like that, and not even an hour into the meeting. Where did he get his mediating license from?
“— The other nations of Pandora have all been informed of Westhelm harboring Saparata. This is your last chance at a peaceful resolution.”
Zekor. SitzKrieg. Freshman. Zekor and Freshman are both intent on Schpood, gazes locked on the Emperor. SitzKrieg, with the eyes of a soldier, stares at him.
“Hand over the fugitive, or we will attack.”
Instead of answering, Schpood looks to him. Crazed, ravenous, Schpood. The man might be his closest friend.
He’s been quiet so far, stuck to Schpood’s side and impassive, waiting. Until…
“No.”
Here, he’s somewhere else.
A blink; he’s in the Covenant’s spruce and yellow-lit Headquarters. Another, and he’s standing atop the stone Warden’s sword and watching the sunrise.
He is worlds away.
Turntapp is right beside him.
“You can’t.” In the same breath, he raises his hand to his chest, searching, beseeching. A second, two; his chest rises against his hand. Then he slips past the silks and finds it. There, netherite against netherite.
— — — —
Saps fidgets with his hands. Before, a height and view like this stopped those neuroses. Now, the sky is bluer than it's ever been and still lacking.
Saps squints against it; he’s trying to find something, he thinks.
Putting a hand to his chest, He breaths with the wind as his newly-white robes and veil billow into the open air because of the stronger drafts Yggdrasil’s snowy mountains brought, slow and caref—
“Emperor Schpood incoming!” In a shrill voice, the man himself calls out from behind. “Don’t wanna spook you or anything!”
Saparata is white-knuckling the stone ridge beside him, having had to stop himself from jumping from the colosseum banister. He dips his head in greeting. “Emperor, good morning.”
In mild amusement, wonder, and horror, Saps watches the man scramble his way over stairs, safety rails, and random stone rocks until he’s beside him. Schpood nods his head vigorously, huffing and with his hands on his knees. He looks like a cockroach gilded in gold.
“Enjoying the view!?”
As always with Schpood, he feels his mouth tick up into a smile without his say-so. “Eh, it’s pretty good. Your guys’ sky sucks compared to the south’s, though.”
“And yet you still climbed up on this ledge, how bizarre!”
Saps feels actual, honest to Ish, full-body chuckles bubble up in him at that. He wonders how the man feels up here, where it’s so high up he can look at almost all of West and see only specks.
Opening his mouth, he almost breaks the companionable silence he and Schpood had fallen into. The man beats him to it first, though. “About our friend—“
No. Nope. Saps snaps his head to face Schpood, his veil whipping with the wind.
After a few seconds where Saparata tries very intently to beam his mind away from himself (maybe into Infernus’ volcano), Schpood speaks up again. “… Oh, I thought you were going to say something.”
“Nothing to be said.”
“Right! Anyways… I really am sorry about everything that’s happened to you— I mean the framing, arrests, what happened to Tapp and his kni—“
“No, not the knights. They aren’t dead. I’ve seen those peacekeepers. They fight dirty in the courtyards. ”
“Yeah… but they haven’t been spotted in days, and those who have were seen going up Cynikka’s volcano of doom and gloom, so.”
Saparata shakes his head. “Zynn’s… she’s still the head of the guard. With her corralling them, they’ll come back.” He tries to inject as much confidence into his words as he can, even with his fingers shaking and the tips of them going numb with pins and needles. He is confident in that statement; he believes in them— his old fears just have a habit of being dredged up.
“Well… That’s good! We might need them soon.” Schpood, like he was in those first and second meetings they had, doesn’t look entirely convinced, but if there’s anything the man knows how to do, it’s to go with the bit.
The emperor looks over his country again, then past it, far into the distance. With a sigh, Saps follows his gaze and knows exactly where it lands.
Across the vast ocean, he can almost imagine the hundreds of tiny specks he expects to see.
“The other thing I wanted to talk to you about, Saps, the Commonwealth—“ he breaks off into a sigh, and then a dozen strange hand gestures. “— They’ve allied with Aperion, Ish knows how, those bumbling dumbfucks… The two of them are marching on Aperion’s beaches. The audacity.”
It’s… It’s not unexpected. Pandora’s had it out for him since day six. Saparata just can’t help the ice that spears through him when Schpood speaks his recurring nightmare into reality. The shock of cold drains through him, a creeping frost starting from his nape through to his feet and almost taking him to his knees. He has to clutch that Ishforsaken ridge again.
“A show of force,” he says in a mumble, now looking Schpood right in the eye (though, not that the emperor can tell, what with the veil). “And the other nations could be in on it too, maybe all of Island One.”
“Hey! There’s the good news I forgot, the Cass Coalition’s reopened your case— or, err. The eight leaders' assassination case.” Schpood thumps him on the back and gives him a thumbs up and winning smile; he twists, and turns, and wrings his fingers.
“They’re looking into it, Saps.”
“… Thank you.”
Saps means it, he does, but he can’t help but look back at that distant shore. How are they, the people on Pandora? He picks at his fingernails. His every breath feels heavy in his chest, settling at the bottom of his lungs like sediments, like air-turned-molasses. He’s reaching his tipping point; he knows it. The moment in which he won’t be able to refute his fears anymore.
His ears are filled with cotton, and he doesn’t believe his words will have an echo, nor his movements a shadow. He wants very badly for it all to stop.
“Damn, you really do like high places way too much, mate,” Schpood says awkwardly.
“Thought he was exaggerating about the heart attacks…”
Saps drops his hands from their fidgeting.
“… Turntapp and I wrote a lot. Back and forth. You know how it is.”
Saps looks away from the view. Stares at him.
Then he feels himself smile.
— — — —
.
.
.
Looking down, he’d started picking at his gloves, thick and bulky like the eternal winter demanded them to be. When did he start doing that? He looks crazy. He needs to stop; nerves don’t get you anywhere in the world, least of all when you were Saparata.
Saps directs his thoughts back to the wall. Ah, yes, the Wall.
He’s holding breaths too, counting and pacing them. They hit the sheer linen of his veil, completely ineffective. (He can read into the irony and mockery of that, too. That he has always worn this white veil, and now. Well.)
Effectively the Peacekeepers’ war room, Tapp’s office was dimly lit and buried in the heart of Headquarters, with a single, reinforced window overlooking everything else— though, it was void of the knights now, with only Zynn stood next to the door.
Zynn— Zynn probably thought he was losing it. Saps chews on his lip, “Where is he?”
She answers with a smile. He barely resists lunging across the room to wring her neck.
“I mean, not to play into cliches, but you don’t think he got— I dunno, cold feet?”
Zynn does the weird nose-breath-huff thing that counts as a laugh for her, before clearing her throat and typing something out on her pager. It buzzes back in a second.
She sweeps to face him, lightning fast. With the black hair framing her face and netherite-dark eyes, she was cut from the shadows. Intimidating even in the mundane. “He’s coming.”
He giggles, then ducks his head and pulls at his gloved fingers.
“Shut it.”
“Didn’t say anything.”
“I saw you whispering, Saparata.”
“I have a veil on.”
“You sure do.”
Saps wraps his arms around himself, squeezes, and bites out a despairing “aaaaaaa.” He thinks he might be trying to hold himself together like this, in some weird psychosomatic way. Overall, it’s the third most embarrassing hug he’s ever had.
Zynn— he can't see what Zynn thinks about it; his eyes seem to keep slipping to the floor.
Like a sudden drop into northern Yggdrasil’s frozen waters, in crystalline clarity, Saparata remembers exactly who the two of them are right now, Zynn and him. She doesn’t have his head only because she answers to Turntapp, and, for whatever reason, the clock on those diamonds he lent him hasn’t run out yet. It cleaves him open, frays all his nerves.
Because he doesn't know why Turntapp is doing this. He— he believes him and his story, yes, (and on one occasion had called him, hushed and a touch too close, “Captivating.”) but with the world closing in on them… No matter what sentiments he held, Tapp would be better off cutting his losses.
Saps wouldn't even blame him— a single man weighed against an entire nation? It was an easy choice.
One any man could make without looking back.
He squeezes tighter.
In a swoosh, a sudden rush of air hits him, swooping a chill into his bones; an omen, maybe, one that promises frostbite and desolation. Saparata tries to not eat his own veil.
.
.
.
— — — —
“Tomorrow night.” Schpood is trying to infuse the air with as much nonchalance as possible. Saps appreciates the effort. “The Commonwealth and Aperion want to ‘give their last olive branch’.”
At a truly insulting speed, Scphood slows and slurs his words together while somehow doing bolded air quotes with his hands.
Saps giggles against his fist. A bolt of unease goes through him at the familiarity.
Patting his arms, he tries to smooth out the goosebumps that prickled his skin because of that. It’s a too-bright dusk in Westhelm now, the sunset’s red and orange light as potent as a heavily poison-and-harming-laced dagger. Sunbeams, still blood-red, filter into the Citadel’s lower landing and cast down onto the food laid in front of him; he doesn’t know whether he should be soothed by the red-orange colors or not.
Schpood had insisted that they eat dinner here. He’d cited that “we can see everyone that comes in, but they can’t get to us,” with an evil grin and some fly handrubs. Honestly, Saps thinks the man just believes he needs to be trotted around like a weakening plant that needs more sunlight and fresh air.
“I…” In a move he can’t feel ashamed of, Saps pulls at the beef until it separates into more and more strips like he’s unfurling knitting. “Schpood, what are you going to do?”
The man sitting across from him flashes him a wolfish smile. “War, of course.”
At this point, staring into potently sky blue eyes, Saparata could recognize that look from a hundred feet away.
Schpood is unsure.
Why wouldn’t he be? The whole reason they hadn’t done a full-on attack on the Commonwealth before was because they thought it’d had a bigger force, and Schpood is many things, but a stupid emperor is not one of them. Westhelm cannot afford to go against allied Pandorans— even with Tricolor and the Cass Coalition as a tenous yes in their favor— already planning and arming to cross the ocean.
War is off the table. And if he wants to stay a protected asset of Westhelm…
“I can talk them down.” With a shuddering breath, Saps places the cold metal utensils back on the plate— no less filled than it was before— and stops moving. Stares at the emperor right in the eye.
With his veil gone because of dinner, Saparata knows Schpood can tell now.
“You saw me with Yggdrasil’s leaders that day in the snow. If… if I can look them in the eye and tell them my story, I can reach them.”
Saps has his hands planted on the table now. Back straight and gaze unyielding, Saparata realizes he hasn’t felt or looked like this in a very long time. Not since… He doesn’t like how it feels like settling into old bones or slipping on his veil.
“Believe me, Schpood.”
For a second, the words hang in the darkening air around them. Without his grin, without a hint of playfulness, Schpood smiles.
Saps swears he can see the emperor’s eyes sparkle.
Face morphing from almost sweet to quickly concerning, he barks out a laugh.
“Huh, I always wondered why Turntapp didn’t boot you after the diamonds.” He… looks maniacal.
Saps is starting to regret this.
“Why he, you know, took care of you like that.” —Saparata pushes his hands onto the table harder and does not blush. Doesn’t even need to try to fight it because it’s not there— “And of course there’s the whole thing with Fluix—“
Schpood, thankfully, cuts himself off there. Unfortunately, he starts to talk again.
Leaning across the table, in what could judgementally be called a leer, Schpood looms over him. “You, mister Saparata, are captivating.”
Saps pushes off the table.
No.
The clatter of porcelain and silver deafens him, and the lack of iron in his system blinds him.
Through it, Saparata grits his teeth. He is not continuing this conversation, Schpood throwing him to the Commonwealth and Aperion wolves be damned.
“Air. I need to get air.” Without turning his back, he takes big, long strides away from the table.
“Eh, have it your way. I’m going to my office for the night.” Schpood shrugs a shoulder and points with his thumb behind him. He’s back to teasing, he thinks; that familiar lilt and lightness in his voice returning. Should… should Saps be offended at his dismissiveness? He doesn’t… Ah, whatever.
He grasps for his veil and shoves it back on. It does less than it should.
In that time, Schpood dabs his face clean and, with a quick wave and “see ya, later.”, turns on his heel to his office. He’s about to leave Saps in the dust before he turns back and shouts over his shoulder:
“Take your food out with you!”
“Or, uh… Don’t! Just don’t forget to eat it. You’re gonna need the energy, mister diplomacy!”
After that, Schpood breaks out into a full jog, sandals thumping against cobble. Saps presses the heels of his palms to his eyes before raking them across his face to cover his mouth. Practically eating his own hands, he screams.
Screams it all out, until his larynx bleeds and the chords snap. Because he. Needs. Out.
It happens in a blur. He’s in the Citadel one moment and out the next. With a plate full of shredded beef and cabbage.
Chest heaving, he climbs the Citadel, all the way to its steeple.
It’s fucking easy too; he should bring up the safety concern with Schood. A swing with one hand; a push against rough wood with a foot; a porcelain plate bit between his teeth— and he’s up. He lands with a huff, steadying himself on the strangely warm roof.
He feels rabid— frayed. Like he’s run out of places to hide.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he knew this would happen; he knew no matter what, no matter where he hid, it would always catch up to him— his Acropolis, the Covenant, Westhelm. It. Didn’t. Matter.
He brought it with him. This— this inherent wrong he had. The one that twists his every happiness into ruin.
Because he was a bad person. A walking omen. Death.
And he doesn’t get to keep anything good.
“Saps, what are we doing here?”
Fuck. Ish.
He flings the plate off the steeple. The ringing of it shattering against polished brick isn’t close to enough. What a fucking waste.
He breathes.
“Saps…” The god touches him. Hah. Who else can say that? Somebody not cursed?
“I can’t, Ish. It’s happening again.” His face burns.
“What is?” Like he doesn’t know.
“I’m not strong enough to—“
He breaks off into an enraged yell. He wants to rip the veil off his face and throw it off. To— to what? Have his life up for grabs a third time? See purple in black eyes and black in blue? Stop fucking around and just—
Ish tugs at his shoulder and faces him. “Are you really having this fight again, Saps?”
“Shut up, Ish.”
“This isn’t the end for you.” Saps looks him in the eyes, and knows he’s trying to speak it into truth. “Remember the promise you made, and the one before that, and before that one, too. Please, Saparata. Remember.”
“You’re not going to kill yourself. You have a life to live. Monarchies to overthrow,” Ish says that with a sly smile, eyes flashing. And he’s right. He can’t die. He needs to throttle Ish first—
“Rest tonight, Saps. Stop running, and let it all come to rest. And then in the morning, see it through. Your dreams will be kind tonight if you sleep, I promise.”
“Fine. Dreaming might be good. To just… get away from all of this.”
“Sleep with something sharp. For safety, of course.”
— — — —
.
.
.
When Turntapp bursts through the door, his first words are:
“I’m sorry.” Breathy and panicked. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Saparata stares at him, halfway done taking his veil off.
“This is a sham.”
Ah.
Tapp looks near to tears, and Saparata thinks his entire body is numb with nerves and cold, sickly realization; Turntapp has come to his senses. Saparata is dead in the water. Again.
Ditching the veils, Saps quirks his lips up, going for cheeky, “We made sure it wasn’t.”
An eternity passes between them. Saparata would believe time had stopped if not for Tapp’s heaving chest and his overworked panting. He came here in a hurry— was it really so urgent to tell him he was unlovable?
The birds are chirping a morning song.
Turntapp crosses the ocean between them and takes him by the shoulders. He looks at Saps with the intensity of a man going to war. He’ll shake it out of him, it seems.
“I love you.”
Oh.
Oh.
“You love me?”
“I love you. I think loving you has made me love everything else less. “
Wincing, Turntapp bows his head; it’s a breath away from his own. “— That’s wrong.” Tapp presses his thumbs into the meat of Saps’ arms. “I said that wrong.”
“All of it… matters less. The Covenant is still dear to me, and I hold my loyalty to the council and our citizens— but.”
Sap watches, in a daze, as Turntapp slides his hands down to slip into his own and lift them up between them.
“I love you. I believe you. I want you to have a life to live in the light. I want you to be warm.” For a second, his eyes flick away from where they were locked with Saps’, down to their held hands. Turntapp brings them up to his lips. “More than anything else.”
“You love me.”
It’s a revelation; Saparata thinks this is what the admins feel when they speak worlds into existence. He could close his eyes, and radiance would burn in the black of his eyelids. This is it— and there are no words for such a thing.
Gasping, he says it again, and again, and again. Tapp takes his face into his hands, a warmth that he hopes will swallow him whole, and the disbelieving smile on his face tells Saps he’s being concerning right now. Saps shakes his head.
He’s smiling so hard it hurts, and the words are thready with giggles and snorts; he must look horrible. Turntapp loves him.
Turntapp folds him into the crook of his neck.
“Please,” Turntapp chokes off in a sob; he’s never been one for words— and if anger stifled him into quiet fuming… Love, apparently, silenced him completely. It’s good, though; Saparata isn’t sure what the man would beg him for, but…
He smiles into the folds of Tapp’s shirt and feels the fabric shift with it, Turntapp having opted to shed his stiff, militaristic garb for a more dressed-down, softer, cotton poet’s blouse. It spoke of wealth, still; bells, whistles, and all, but no adornments of gold gleamed, no badges, nothing of the Covenant. Saps had joked of a great tortoise without its shell before, but he knew to appreciate the intimacy for what it was.
With a grin he hopes Tapp can feel, he murmurs into his warmth— eyes closed like he was swallowing the sun, “Don’t cry, dear, philtatos.”
Turntapp laughs.
They breathe. Zynn clears her throat and sends him into another laughing fit. When they pull away, she’s quick to lift a crushed velvet cushion with two daggers and two rings on it.
— — — —
He pulls the chain free, his hairs rising up against the shock of cold metal. Hooked with his finger, the netherite ring settles on top of his own.
Pure, elemental netherite; Saparata can breathe again.
At that, everyone else stops, all the leaders’ breaths catch in their throats, all eyes affix to the primordial ore. He even feels a shift to his side. Mentally, he apologizes to Schpood for not telling him sooner. Then he steels himself.
“The Covenant marries two people by ceremony of promises exchanged and loyalties immortalized.” Two clicks ring out; two people in armor, faces concealed, stepping up beside him. Saparata sneaks a glance at netherite-black eyes. “A ring, and a dagger.”
He nods to each of them, the Commonwealth and Aperion. He needs them to understand. “Your promise, and the assurance you will keep it.”
He drops the ring.
Sorely missed, it thuds against his chest, and for a second, all he hears is his heart beat and his blood rush.
“Turntapp is dead. The Covenant, its high council, and its peacekeepers, all answer to me now.”
This is it; all or nothing. Revelation. He lifts his hand.
A familiar, long-neglected muscle twitches to life. Like dew, a shadowy mist coalesces in the air, and a weight drops into his hand.
It glows, a shadow so consuming it only leaves the light. The dagger drips condensation. Saparata breathes out.
He lays it on the table.
“Turntapp trusted me with this, his nation and his people, because he believed I wasn’t the murderer they said I was. Somehow, he saw a truth he wanted to dedicate his life to in me. He made me promise too, to live in the light, and I will not betray him.”
He’s gone again; he looks into each of their eyes and only sees black-black-blue-until-it-hits-purple. SitzKrieg’s gravelly voice is what snaps him out of it, surprisingly.
“Attero Dominatus Tibi.” He reads out, the other two mouthing along with him.
“That sentimental old man. That.” Schpood says. Saps doesn’t need to turn to know he’s smothering a smile. “I destroy tyrannies for you.”
“I’m innocent. I was framed and forced into hiding,” he says. “Please, listen to me.”
Freshman. SitzKrieg. Zekor. They all look him in the eye.
— — — —
Saparata wakes up. His eyes are stuck together; he has to blink them open, slowly taking in the filtering white light of the stone brick room.
He can’t remember what he dreamed about.
Even so, he smiles up at the ceiling, with no one to watch him and nothing to hold him down. It’s left him settled, calmer than he’s been in weeks. He might grow to love this. But first…
His hand slips under the pillow. Netherite on netherite. Tracing the words on his side:
“O philtatos mou,”