N/A: Fic. Kent and Lyndis. Some of the conversations are from the game, which you should be able to tell. This is a very pretty pairing and I don't think I will live up to it but I have tried. Thank you for reading!
Hoofs On The Ground
(Her life was a search, he was searching)
(Kent/Lyn)
~oOoOo~
"What are you searching for?" she once asked him with mild curiosity playing over her features, like she wanted to know, like it was important for her to drag the answer out from his stiff lips.
The problem is that the answer will always be the same and when his red eyes met her green he could only say this:
"I don't know."
~oOoOo~
He always thought honor would be enough and for most parts it was but honor could never replace content in life, when you know what you're fighting for and that's the only thing you need. It wasn't like that and it could never be like that. He understood it now and that was when his whole life started to disappear under his feet.
Because, without honor, what would he do? What was worth to fight for? Was it anything? His duties was ingrained in his mind, he moved and lived and breathed with it and when it wasn't there to shove him from behind – he would crumple and diminish under the lack of use his present had. And he couldn't tell anybody this. Who would listen? Who would understand?
Who would comprehend the meaning of the term "useless?"
~oOoOo~
Still, something was different since the day he met her. He didn't know what it was, maybe it was the fact that she turned out completely different from what he was expecting. She was the heir of the throne and he greenly (Sain too) throught that she would be a brainless doll without resourcefulness and understanding what laid ahead in her way.
(It was wrong, wrong, wrong, she knew it better than they did and she knew how to turn the stone to gold.)
The first impression of her was that she was beautiful and she was, but soon enough he found her courage and ability to spot the glass as half-filled despite the demons of her past tailing after her greater than her stunning looks and he swore himself that day (that time, that period, he didn't even remember) that he would protect her forever. He was a knight and couldn't do much but he could do something. Slowly but steadily he found purpose. This was what he wanted to do.
(It was later he understood that nothing had changed.
He only wanted it to have.)
~oOoOo~
Like Sain had told him countless of time before, he could not speak to women. Not in a way that enhanced their interests, not in a way that made them stay, not in a way that made them understand what he meant.
(And Lady Lyndis was no exception.)
That was why it was easier to treat her like Lord Hausen's granddaughter and not the woman whose eyes always appeared when he tried to shove them away from his mind. Inside, he didn't want to because it was shameless, awful and most of all disrespectful to her. But he couldn't stop. When he tried the words got stuck and his tongue felt like pebbles. No matter how much he tried they wouldn't come out.
(But he wanted, oh, he wanted, he wanted to color his history with hers and make her understand that she was more, more, more.
But the words wouldn't, wouldn't come out.)
~oOoOo~
It was easier to speak with Sain, since he knew him and didn't have to analyze the content before it left his mouth. He often treated Sain like a little brother, scolding him and tried to change him to someone that understood the true dangers on the battlefield (which uncovered that he did care, that he wanted to care.)
But in reality he knew that he couldn't trust Sain with this. It was bigger and stronger and more important and he knew from the bottom of his heart that Lady Lyndis meant more for him than she did to Sain. The boastful and (according to himself) the perfect replacement for Don Juan knew how to change the terrain so that it suited him. He knew where he belonged and knew how to use that to his advantage.
(Kent didn't.)
~oOoOo~
When Lady Lyndis (or like he preferred to call her in his head –Lyn–) preformed with her sword it was like a dance. Smoothly she ran over the field with her pale, bare feet and used the surroundings to make up a plan as she moved. She surely knew how to change a strategy even in the eye of the battle and no matter that he didn't appreciate war and fighting and deaths, he couldn't stop looking. He couldn't stop looking when she amazed him with her grace, with the frail feet entangled in the grass, when her blade licked the opponent's skin and she ended it with the least pain caused. Of course he saw that something lay hidden and she learned this to get revenge. For what, he didn't know as she didn't want to talk about it. He often thought about this but so long his tongue knotted itself when he tried to bring that question out in the air he could only keep guessing.
He didn't like that. Guessing was like lying, it was a play of risks when it was impossible to foresee the future. He liked fact, he liked being right and when he swore himself to rise, to fight, to regain the only thing important to him, nothing could stop him. (He thought.)
(But when it came to this everything changed.
It changed and he saw it and he couldn't do anything about it. Just watch. Watch and wait. For nothing.)
~oOoOo~
"Lady Lyndis, how fare you?" he asked and rode his horse alongside her path and she smiled when she noticed him, one delicate hand resting on the blade, her messy ponytail dancing when she moved her head to give him a look.
"Hi, Kent, I'm good," she answered and he wondered if she too felt the air tensing and slowing down until you could cut down the cloud with a knife. "How are you?"
"Everything is fine," he assured her and knew that she wouldn't trust him because it was not his duty to spit personal grief over her – he would fight for her, he would protect her and… and…
(Nothing more.)
Her lips parted and she clipped with her eyes, her irises more green and lush than he remembered them so be – but then again, he never really look at her after all – and he found himself sinking, sinking and sinking. "Kent, can I ask you something?"
The answer was clearly "yes" but he rather wanted to say "no".
"I appreciate than you're here. With me," she mumbled and licked her sundried lips. Even her shadow seemed to shrink as she continued with the question. "But do you want to? It this only because of honor? Or do you want to?"
He knew the answer to that one, he really did. But surely, he couldn't say it to her. Of course it was because of the honor, of the duty but as time passed and rolled away from the hourglass it became something more. Bigger. Different. He tried to say it to her, let the letters merged to words but nothing came out. He couldn't tell her the truth.
"Why, Kent," she continued and to his dismay he noticed tears in her eyes. "Why do you stay with me, by my side? It it because I am granddaughter to the lord of Castle Caelin?"[1]
Cowardly he only managed to spit out: "Lady Lyndis?"
"You are… I am… I am sorry. Please, forget what I said."
Then she left.
(And took a big part of him with her.)
~oOoOo~
It was hard (impossible, devastating, ruthless) to know when he went too far. He didn't want to go too far but understood that he probably did it anyway.
(Because when you think too much your mind gets blocked, then you can't think anymore.)
He wanted to tell her that she was wrong.
He wanted to tell her that he was sorry for not correcting her.
He wanted to tell her that he didn't do this because she was the granddaughter of lord Hausen.
He wanted to tell her that he did this because she was she (she was Lyn.)
(But he couldn't.)
~oOoOo~
The war went onwards and he looked with a knot bigger than Etruria in his stomach of what the world (they) had become. It wasn't about peace, it wasn't about smiles and laughter, it was about might and power and injustice. They fought because of jealously, they fought because of shame, they fought for achieving justice with injustice.
He couldn't look more of this but he had to. This was the world. This was the reality. He had to swallow with and pretend it tasted like berries (instead of ash.)
Later he heard footsteps from behind, quiet, quiet footstep from someone that had learned to hover above the ground and he turned around surprised.
It was Lady Lyndis. Or Lyn… no, he had to call her Lady Lyndis.
(He thought he had to.)
"Isn't this depressing?" she retorted and stopped beside him, arms crossed over her chest like she was freezing. It was a rhetorical question but he still answered (as usual when he didn't have to be too personal.)
"It is," he said and gazed over the plain, from the hill it looked so small and vulnerable, with corpses of living men, laughing living men who couldn't do anything anymore, and he felt something hug his heart. "Ik now we have to do this, Lady Lyndis, but still, I feel regret. This can't be right. And I must protect you from receiving the same fate." He didn't catch himself with the last sentence before it was too late and a bright blush played over his overall pale face. He nervously ruffled his hair and she merely smiled at him, as she was thinking about something.
"You don't have to doubt my skills, Kent," she assured him and looked away, the smile still playing like a ghost in front of her fully lips.
"I don't, m'lady," he spitted out before he thought about it. "But sometimes, skills are not enough."
She merely nodded at this.
(She was beautiful, she was honest, she was everything. How could everything not be enough?)
~oOoOo~
"Lady Lyndis, look out!" he bellowed and steered his horse onto the field where she barely dodged the arrow from one archer behind in the enemy force and her blade cut in half due to too long use. Blood poured from one fresh cut on her right leg and it slowed down her movement drastically. She wasn't ready for the battlefield right now and when he trusted the lance into one of the mages' forehead and braked at her side she gave him a look of relief. Sweat dropped from her forehead and she was much paler than usual and with one arm occupied with the lance to keep enemies on a certain distance from them he used the other to scoop her up behind him. He didn't have time to cheek if she was alright and when the enemy troops walked closer he raised the bridlers and the horse started to sprint over the high grass, as Sain and three others on the front line took place for this battle where she couldn't participate anymore. The hoofs danced over the field and he could tell that she wasn't that used to mounting since she quickly circled her arms around his waist to assure herself that she wouldn't fall off.
And the armor couldn't shield away her warmth, he felt himself blushing slightly as they sprinted toward Merlinus' tent, then scolded himself, he didn't have time for this.
(But he wanted, he needed, he wanted this moment to last forever.
Not in one minute.)
~oOoOo~
He wondered when everything changed or if it had been there all the time, lying under the denial. His denial. He didn't know and he didn't want to either. It was easier this way.
(But it didn't change the fact that he perhaps one day wouldn't be able to be with her anymore.)
It pained him like an arrow through the throat.
~oOoOo~
"What are you searching for?" she asked again, like she really needed to know but the difference was that he now had an answer.
(An answer he couldn't tell her.)
Because of that he simply repeated the previous: "I still don't know, my lady."
But this time she saw that he was lying.
He hated that.
~oOoOo~
"I'm doing this for revenge," she later told him when they were alone, sitting outside the tent, the flames dancing over her beautiful skin. "When I was little my parents died. By a group of…" She seemed to have problem pronouncing the word due to her boiling, festering hatred. "…Bandits. But it wasn't only my parents, my whole tribe. They died. Got slathered. And I remember that. Remember everything. And I only want to avoid a rerun of the scene, but I don't know how."
(She didn't cry, she was too brave to cry, but he was not – he cried. On the inside.)
~oOoOo~
Her life was a search (for revenge), he was searching (for a way to erase her pain.)
~oOoOo~
After that conversation he knew that he couldn't leave her side. She was filled with darkness, with anxiety, everything that had been taken away from her and he wanted to protect her even more. Not only during this war, forever. And what was longer than forever?
(Nothing.)
He always through honor was enough. But it wasn't. Lady Lynd- no, Lyn, had told him what was.
~oOoOo~
He ignored his duty. He ignored that he had pebbles in his throat. Because he had to do this.
(Not only for her.)
She was sitting alone on the cliff, gazing at the deep-blue horizon that she often did when they camped and he walked towards her, slowly slipping down at her right side. She smiled when she noticed him but didn't say anything. Maybe she knew that it was his time. His time to make right. To make the horse walk in the direction that suited both.
"Lady Lyndis," he said in a voice that wasn't like him and she saw her stiffen and slowly sweeping away from him. "There is something about which I must speak to you. If I may-"
She looked at him with something in her eyes that he couldn't read. Fear? Curiosity? Wonder? He didn't know. "I really should be going…" she whispered and then he understood that she was afraid of him. Of them. That he couldn't only be her knight anymore. She was afraid and wanted to run away but he would not let her this time.
"Please listen!" he mumbled and grabbed her hand, and Elimine knew how many times he wanted to touch that hand, with its soft skin, pale, delicate fingers with an urge to kill. To slather. When she tried to let go of his hand he clenched harder and he saw panic in her pretty, pretty, porcelain eyes.
"K-Kent! Unhand me!"
He shook his head and she stopped to struggle. He rested his hand above hers and knew that he couldn't live without those eyes slowly gazing on his, he couldn't, he couldn't. "I am sorry, but I cannot. If I let go your hand now, I would regret it for the rest of my life."
She gaped and the only thing that moved was her hair. "What?"
"I would like to answer your question of the other day. I was foolish and for that I apologize but now I have fully comprehended and therefore I'm able to answer.
I'm here for you. Even where I not a knight, even were you not my lady. My heart would not change."
Tears rolled down her cheeks and her lips shivered. But it was true.
(He denied, denied, denied and when you do that everything comes back eventually.)
"So I hope that you will forgive me, should I continue to stay by your side."
He wouldn't leave. He would stay. And it wasn't about honor. It was about her.
She exhaled, then smiled. A smile that could melt ice, stop storms, create miracles. "Yes, of course. And not as Lyndis, but as Lyn. Yes, Kent, stay by my side, always…" [2]
~oOoOo~
And he did.
~oOoOo~
fin
[1] From the support conversation between Kent/Lyn, B
[2] Support conversation A