Thanks to BottledStarlight, Myherogal22, and Toaneo07 Ver2.0 for reviews and support over here on FF! And thanks to nostalgicbookworm and bertazsleepyhead for supporting this story!
"You're upset with me" Escanor says; no remorse, just a matter of fact. His eyes are narrowed and his brow twitches in a nearly annoyed way as two large fingers play with the edge of his stache. It is still early in the midday, and his confidence is hardly wavering.
He'll usually waver for Merlin, though. The singular woman that throws his mental swings of pride off their usual pattern: she manages to make him submissive at his prideful peak, and confident and proud into the nights.
"Yes." Merlin states, also matter of fact.
Escanor turns away at this, huffing and red; he'd rather have his eyes plastered out the window into the cloudy endlessness of the fields than on the extremely displeased woman sitting at her desk, eyebrows pulled together in her frustration and she toyed with some magical artifact more roughly than usual. Anger and anxiety came off her in a blended wave of negative energy, and Escanor could hardly handle the twitch in his fingers as he longed to reach out. His pride, however, holds him back; that, and his stiffly folded arms, his muscular day-form planted stubbornly to the ground.
"I respect your anger," he begins, letting his eyes move to her. Though he didn't understand her anger, not really. But he respected her, and thus respected her emotions, though he disagreed with them. "But I won't take back what I said. That little boy isn't worth so much of your stress, nor your-"
He smacks his mouth shut at the look of coolness in her eyes. She'd never, in most of their years together as fellow Sins, shown such frustration and coldness towards him. His insides tremble in nervousness, and the nervousness then makes him chagrined and frustrated. It is midday, and he is near at the peak of his confidence and pride. And yet, the hours of the clock don't affect his personality nearly as much around her. With her, he is more consistently... himself: at night she gives him strength and the willingness to fight beyond his doubt, and in the day… Well, here he stands, shaken on the inside. It was difficult for him to conceptualize which personality is more 'him', and yet she keeps him at a consistent middle-ground.
It makes him feel somewhat infuriated. But never at her: merely at himself.
She has already turned back to her work from her silencing look, not paying him any more words nor glances. Escanor reflects on risking another interjection. His pride allows it.
"Do you love him, Merlin?"
Her eyes widen and blink. She, so composed and unreachable, is off balance. Yes, this is the game they play, Escanor ponders to himself: she shakes him at his most composed, and he too can sometimes manage to break through her steely resilience. Not as often nor as readily, but he can nonetheless.
She spins fully in her chair, crossing her ankles. His eyes roam on her short cut ensemble of the day. Composing poems in his head to her and her beauty, yet he knows now is not the time to recite them.
"What are you implying?" her eyes narrow.
"It was a simple question," he mutters.
They meet eyes for moments that seem eternal.
"Well," she begins, pompous and judgement laced in her tone, "it nearly sounds like you are envious. But I refuse to humor the idea that you are so foolish as to be envious of a child when it comes to my affections."
Escanor twitches at that response, feeling properly dismissed and foolish: her intention. "He'll be king soon enough. Almost a man."
"Emphasis on almost."
"We are all children in your eyes, are we not?" He feels more frustration now. Couldn't she see him as a child? Barely in his 20s when they met, while she has lived centuries if not millennia. She had time to spare and wait if she was waiting for this ideal king of hers.
She stands quickly, and Escanor flinches. In a flash she teleports in front of him: she could have walked the few feet, he internally notes, but of course she must find use to show her power in her anger. A thin finger is pressed against his chest, and Escanor flinches. Her eyes are black fire, burning and deep. "Your foolishness knows no end. I raised that child, I formed him into the king he is meant to be, destined to be. I saw his potential with my own eyes years ago, and I raised him to fulfill it. He is not a man, he is a child: my child." Quickly, she realizes the implication of her words and corrects herself, "I may not have birthed him, but I raised him and taught him everything he knows, and I believe that is enough…" She taps against his chest again, pressing, "To not" another stab "want to see him injured or dead!"
Her finger twists against the thinness of his shirt, and her eyes continue their endless blaze. Shivers pass through his frame; he'd hit a sore topic he should not have.
With a flip of her raven locks, she made her way back to her seat, shoving a variety of trinkets off her work table with a metal crash as she pulled out another gadget to work on. The silence punctures him, hanging in the air like fog.
For too long, the quiet dwells.
"I suppose I've... misunderstood the situation." He relents in a huff. His pride roars in betrayal within his chest and mind, but his heart quells it. His affection for her, his love for her, is above any foolish sin of his. She lets her eyes linger on him from the side even as her hands continue to move on the table. "I apologize. It was wrong of me to be so arrogant about someone you care about. I should... support the people in your life, outside of myself."
Her hands pause on her work, and he sees some of the tension and anger slip from her. Relief slips through him, but he knows he must go on.
"I don't always…" he pauses, tasting different words with his tongue, "I am never quite positive where your affections lie. You are a difficult person to read. Mystifying, radiant, beautifully mysterious - but difficult nonetheless."
She rolls her eyes, but with considerably less animosity. Though she knew her own beauty, it did not hurt for him to repeat it out loud. He lacked confidence in his worthiness of her in many ways, but he does know that she enjoys his words. While the others tended to believe his poems were foolish and mostly ignored him as he recited them, Merlin asks for him to speak. She appreciates what he has to say, his odes to her, his odes to them.
Her fingers tap against the table, endlessly moving in her thoughts. An intrusive thought stabs his mind as he wishes to hold her restless hands. He imagines the pretty vision in his head and is cut off as she begins to speak, "I thought I had made my feelings… somewhat more clear to you."
His lips twitch upwards, and he lets out a somewhat happy sigh. "No I… was foolish. I should never assume of you. I let my envy get the best of me," he pauses, "And that isn't even my sin." He reflects on his acquaintances and their given sin, and how he may, in this form, encompass more of their supposed "sins" than the rest of his friends combined.
"And I," he continues on, "I do feel bad for having so many… negative feelings, for the boy. He is young."
"Yes" she agrees.
"I do hope he will be… well." He cringes as he thinks of the battered state of the boy, stabbed through the middle, self-inflicted and bleeding out. He cringes even harder as he thinks of the haunting way Merlin crumbled and yelled out. Selfishly enough, he does wonder if Merlin would have so much care for him if he was so drastically injured. He doubts he ever could get to such a state, a pompous conclusion, but still he wonders.
He focuses again on Merlin, who is now eyeing him with more wonder in her narrowed eyes. Again he turns away, not wanting her to pry into his shameful thoughts.
"Foolish man" she mutters to herself, as if able to read his mind. He reddens on the tip of his ears at the statement; yes, she knew him too well. She pushes out her chair once again, walking towards him rather than her blinking teleportation. She rises on her toes, trying to get eye-level with his tall physique, and he maddeningly reddens more (oh, the power she had over him!). Pleasantly, her eyes hold less of their previous fire and more of the endless onyx that is her infinite mind. There, he is lost for a moment. Gazing at her, he is always lost in the endlessness of the enigma that is Merlin; and yet, he is found within her as well, rooted to a purpose.
Quickly she pecks his cheek, the corner of her lips brushed with his. A moment that is over as rapidly as it came, and as the blood flushes across the bridge of his nose he tries to mentally solidify the faintest of kisses, hold it close in his mind and deep in his memory. Every touch between them is like a spark of light that he tries to hold onto, a drop of sunlight the spreads from his heart and through his veins. Warmth.
"Foolish man," she repeats in a mutter, though he sees the pink in her cheeks, rose petals against her pale facade.
Yes, they may have their differences and misunderstandings, but he has tried to figure out the mystery of Merlin for many years before. And she too has tried to discover him. He hoped they'd spend years and lifetimes discovering each other. His heart warms at the thought.
It feels like the sun.
So I guess I'm continuing this! I'm not sure for how long or how often, but Escalin is getting a lot of cool canon moments, so here I am to rant about them! If you have any prompts suggestions or thoughts, please let me know :)! Thanks for reading!