Honor the Blade
Log Info
- Title: Honor the Blade
- Emitter: Andelena
- Place: Andelena and Dolan's apartment
- Summary: Andelena and Dolan are relaxing in their home after recent events, which has the Daeusite couple talking about Dolan's face and what happened with confronting Mortin. The Daeusites realize something incredibly precious and wonderful has happened, and they grapple with the implications. Eventually, they decide to spend their quiet morning together.
The fair spring day brings soft rays of morning light to the Donnelly residence, and unlike the rain from days prior, the weather today promises to be lovely and mild. There's a particular calico kitten nose peering at the windowsill, her bright and wide eyes taking in the world outside--
Which her mother so cruelly denies, as Andelena snatches up Spot and plants a kiss on her head. "Hi baby," she murmurs softly, before putting Spot back down so the kitten can resume her longing to play with what she must surely view as very large kitty toys (clouds) rolling along in the sky. The Sunguard's changed out of her armor and into her tunic, having just returned from morning prayers and breakfast out.
"Day off. I don't even know what to do with myself," Andelena remarks to herself. "Could go bug people at the forge--"
"Or you could memorize your wedding rites," Deliverance offers helpfully from the wall. "So you don't marry a horse instead of Brydion."
Andelena snorts a little. "Easy to mistake. They both hang the same." That one earns a sigh from Deliverance.
"Only if all you want to do is take me for a ride," Dolan counters, wandering out of the back room after having similarly changed. The difference is that he skips the armor, and seems to have decided for now to skip the brace, because he flexes his shoulder experimentally as he walks, to the sound of multiple pops. "I've got a few more uses than that," he adds with a chuckle, leaning to steal a peck on the lips from the Sunguard. "We really ought to work on the wedding rites, and remember we'll have Zeke to help us, too. Had you intended to wait for full summer?"
Andelena leans into that peck, grinning widely at Dolan as he approaches her. "You're so fun to ride, though," she says, poking him playfully and lightly on the chest. "Honestly, I was thinking--maybe three or four months from now? That gives us time to prepare and it'll be perfectly warm by then. I wanna make sure you're comfortable on our wedding day, or you're going to end up telling our children that their momma put you through hell."
She looks up into Dolan's face and reaches up with her hand to cup his cheek on his scarred side--probably the only one who could ever get away with touching him there. "How's your face feeling, baby?" she asks, inspecting him again like she's done several times in the time that's passed since the encounter with Mortin.
Warm affection and a touch of wickedness colors Dolan's laugh, and he even doesn't flinch at the cup of the chin, allowing her to inspect. The bruising has been healed, and it looks just about normal. The nose will never be straight, but it isn't the first time he's had its nose broken, and chances are that it will not be the last. It will just have to heal on its own, but it at least looks normal. "It's a little better. Hurt like shit with all the rain yesterday, though, and then those two assholes showed up when I was having the artificers look at the eye." He shudders in her hand. "Assholes. High summer, then? We'd best set a date, and not cause a stir by setting it too close."
Andelena lovingly strokes her fingers against his skin, looking at him with the sort of warmth in those steel-grey eyes of hers that she reserves only for him. "I'm sure it hurt--those two assholes, you talking about the makari? They'll get their due."
But she seems more concerned with caring for Dolan than the wedding date, as her gaze goes from the rest of his face to his eyes--both artificial and real. "We'll set a date," she says gently. "But... speaking of the makari, Bry. Morning prayers were making me think about what happened the other night. Your sword glowed like I'd never seen it before."
"They ain't makari, baby. They're fiends, too, and some other fiend is pretending to be Mortin now," Dolan's affectionate gaze vanishes into a particularly nasty scowl. "We're going to have to find out where the money is going." He turns his face away, pulling himself gently from her hand, the scowl still very much alive. Someone had a bad day yesterday. At least it's improved?
"What about it? I'd - been meaning to ask you about it." He hesitates. "I know there was some kind of light, but I couldn't really see where it came from. I was fighting half-blind, baby. Whatever field that was, it completely disabled my eye, like it wasn't even in, and then he punched me. I couldn't see shit. What actually happened?"
Andelena looks just as displeased as Dolan does when she's told exactly what the sith were. "At least I'm not going to feel anywhere as bad about beating the shit out of them if we encounter them again," Andelena replies with a little sneer. "That is, at least, one small mercy--they're demons and not innocents. Those scars that they were wearing was making me not want to engage them at all in case they were being forced into something they didn't want to do."
But her expression changes to a more thoughtful one with Dolan's question. "After he punched you--you reached out with your sword, and it went in him. I skewered him from the other side, and your sword started glowing when Tel cut the carpet--I guess it was where the field or whatever was coming from. It... It felt supernatural, of some sort, the way you got it to connect. I couldn't stop thinking about it during morning prayers."
"I sure as sunrise didn't do that, baby. I was - pretty much praying at that point that the Knight would guide my blade." Dolan's response is equally thoughtful as he wanders over to the sofa and throws himself on it, much as he is often wont to do. His gaze still follows her, though, with both eyes. "Was that what he did? I couldn't see, but my eye came back, and then it was still hard, because what I was seeing was all scrambled. I saw the light, though - was it my sword?"
Dolan slows down, his lone brown eye blinking slowly. "I - I don't know, Andie." He gets himself back up again and wanders over to their mutual gear pile. "It sure as shit worked, I know that. Good riddance." He goes fishing a little, then pulls out his own, new blade, not the one he'd conjured. This one has a light enchantment on it, and he draws it, turns it over, studying it.
"It was your sword, baby," Andelena says, and a wide, wide smile settles on her face as she watches him inspect the blade. "If you uttered a prayer to Him..."
There's a moment where a sheer look of awe dawns on her face, and she struggles to find anything to say--anything at all. She lifts her hand up slowly to her mouth. "And the sword glowed with your prayer, and made it so you and I both could skewer that demon. He heard you, Bry. He heard you. He answered. Him and none other."
Tears well in her eyes, and she lifts her hand to try and brush them away. "We're--we're on the right path. We're doing the thing we're supposed to be doing. That's proof of it right there."
The words fall like a ton of bricks on Brydion's ears, and he continues to examine the blade, but goes very, very still. "You think - you think He answered directly?" It's said in a very small, very stunned voice. "He - guided my blade?" There are no glib words to be said to that, and he doesn't try. He just continues to stare, in stunned silence, at the blade in his hand, and after a moment, bows his head, murmuring a prayer of gratitude.
He stands there, for several moments afterwards. "Yeah," he manages finally, opening his eyes and staring at the blade. "We're on the right path, and we're doing His work, going after these bastards. Justice - for my family, for the artificer Schara, for - however many other people they're harassing and threatening."
He doesn't move. It is almost as if - he cannot let the blade go.
As much as she tries to wipe away her tears, Andelena finds that they keep coming. She decides it's just better to let them flow, and she walks over to him, looking down at his blade with reverence. "I can't think of any other reason why your blade would have done what it done and why your blade struck true. He answered, himself. He guided it. There was a reason it was on my mind during morning prayers and that has to be it."
She smiles widely as she looks down at the blade. "Justice indeed, Bry. Maybe... Maybe this is His way of saying He's looking after you while you wield His blade. I can't say for sure. But that feels like... the sort of Compassion He espouses, you know?"
Dolan looks up when Andelena approaches, then back down to the blade. "I - maybe." He finally, slowly, sheathes the blade again, and sets it gently and reverently among his gear. "His blade is meant to be used to dispense His justice," he murmurs. "I had been working so hard to get the greatsword back. To be able to wield it again. It's getting closer, but it's just not stable yet. But - is that really what I should be doing? Or -" He stops, then shakes his head. "No. I'm not giving it up. I can't," he repeats, stubbornly. "But - maybe they both have a place."
He turns then to Andelena, and smiles tenderly, reaching up to brush her tears away with a thumb. "You, me, and the Knight. Looks like He's in, too." He falls silent, then, looking up at her. "I - I don't know what to say to that. Other than to thank Him. And serve him to the best of my ability."
She puts her hand on top of his--the one that reaches up to brush her tears away, warmly embracing him in a sense. "I don't think He would ask you to give up on the greatsword for a moment," she says. "But I think He is telling you that as a Redeemer, you will always find a home with the longsword if you need it. That it's always there if you're willing to use it."
Andelena smiles so warmly at him, tears glittering in her eyes. "You, me, and the Knight," she echoes back. "We've been saying it all this time, so... Of course He had to start paying attention one way or another. I mean, you got His totem, baby. He was bound to notice eventually."
"I didn't get it," Brydion corrects gently, still with that tender smile, the sheathed blade still in his left hand, the weapon belt it hangs from draped over his wrist. "I accepted it. The way I see it, I accepted His task when I did that. I guess - I guess that's still true. It's an important task, too. I think - that whoever is behind this bullshit with my family is part of that task, too. You should talk to your brother and see if anything new's happened."
He doesn't try to pull his hand away, accepting the intimacy with warm ease. "Maybe you're right. I'm not going to put aside the greatsword. But maybe - maybe it doesn't do His work. It's there to clear a path. What more fitting way to honor Him than to use His weapon to dispense His justice?"
"I'll send him a letter and ask if he's willing to come visit," Andelena says with a smile regarding her little brother. "Tell him I'm getting married. That will get his attention and he'll probably be right over. Besides--I want you and him to meet. I know you two have technically met before, but... Not exactly in the most ideal of circumstances." The other redhead child of the family would have been overshadowed by Andelena's parents and her older brother, after all.
She strokes at Dolan's hand gently, just brushing her fingers against the back of his. "The choice is yours what blade you use, baby," she says, "and I'll support you no matter what you decide. The Knight's blade or the greatsword--one is honoring our faith, and the other is a tool. I think that's probably something I've come to realize the more time I've spent with Deliverance, funny enough."
The idea of meeting up does cause Dolan to hesitate for just a minute, but at the reassurance, he nods, his full face turned directly towards her. He essays a quirk of a smile at her in return. "I'm willing to do that, although he might be pretty shocked." The smile fades, acknowledging the truth about his changed visage, but the hand stays where it is, the thumb gently stroking her cheek.
"I like that," he muses after some thought. "One honors our faith, and is a symbol of his justice. The other is just a tool. A useful one, and a mighty one. I've worked my ass off to master it, and I'm not giving it up so easily. It's still just a tool, though. Maybe -" He looks down, turning his face towards the sheathed blade in his left hand. "It's for dispensing justice," he decides firmly.
"He might be my baby brother, but he can deal with it," Andelena insists. "Besides--he deserves to see what Mother's actions have led to. He won't openly rebel against her, because he needs the power of a noble family name for his businesses..."
She trails off in thought. "I should ask him if he knows anything about Mortin, too. See if he's had any dealings with him, or if it's all been through Mother."
Finally, Andelena looks at Dolan, and she smiles again. "I've got time to figure that out later, though," she says. "For right now, Bry, I just..."
Her hand squeezes gently around the hand on her face. "I wanna be yours and I want you to be my man. Just us two and the Knight. We don't get quiet mornings like these together often, y'know?" Her voice is warm and inviting.
Dolan's answering grin holds just a touch of wickedness, a full thing for the first time today. He reaches to set aside the weapon belt with its blade, back in its place, then straightens back up and reaches to Andelena's waist to pull her close. "Never doubt that both are true, baby. You're mine, I'm yours, we both belong to the Knight, and I intend to make the most of that morning."
So much for "quiet".