A Dog Among Princes

Chapter 11

Shit, Guts was lost. He barely knew his way around inside, up here it was significantly harder to find his way around. Not to mention he was distracted. Was he really that obvious? It was probably just because Casca knew him too well. That had to be it. It had taken him a long time to extricate his feelings about himself from his feelings about men he’d met in the past. Hands around his neck. He shook off Donovan’s ghost. He knew his experiences weren’t that uncommon among mercenaries. But not everybody was forced to reckon with their prejudices in the same horrifically intimate way he had. If he was anything less than perfect he could’ve put himself at severe risk. Especially during those four years alone when self hatred was his only companion. Fuck it, he might as well try to find the highest peak to go sort out his thoughts. He didn’t know why but being up high, away from everything but still able to spectate, made it easier for him to think. He spotted a tower higher than the rest, topped with a steep spire. That would do. He clambered up. The pieces of stone ornamentation that stuck off the sides made good hand holds. This place wasn’t designed well for raids was it. On his way up he passed by a window. Through it he could see a mostly empty room save for a single object covered by a tarp. That was weird. A whole room just for one thing? And it was covered up too. He felt around the edge of the window and pulled it open. Bad security too. Although he supposed nobody else would’ve gone through the effort of doing something like this. He ducked through the window. Dust hung in the air. A cloud of it slowly rose from the floor as his boots hit the ground.

The edges of the tarp seemed to move as if caught in a non-existent breeze. A chill ran up Guts’s spine and he felt his hair stand on end. There was something here, something dangerous in that dark undefinable way that usually made the little voice in Guts’s head tell him to run. However now he moved as if hypnotized. It was as if whatever was under that tarp was calling him. His fingers brushed the fabric. He pulled the tarp to the floor and another cloud of dust erupted briefly blinding him. He wiped his eyes. A black iron helmet met his gaze.

On second look, Guts wasn’t exactly sure it was iron. Something about it seemed wrong. It was also designed like no armor guts had ever seen, with plates layered over on top of each other to cover the wearer’s entire body. It didn’t seem possible to move in but an insistent voice in the back of his head told him he could. Guts tentatively reached out a hand to touch it. The surface was warm despite it having clearly been alone in this room for what could have been years. He felt something call to him from deep in the back of his mind. Put it on. He didn’t remember anything that happened after that.

“Oh, I see Guts found the roof.” Griffith pointed towards the dark figure crawling around on the roof far above their heads. The king squinted in the direction of his finger.

“What in god’s name is he doing up there?”

“Guts likes to climb up onto high places to think. He must have needed to consider something important. He has been doing that for as long as I’ve known him so I’m not sure when he picked up the habit.”

“You don’t know much of his past, do you.” Griffith sipped his tea. This was a bizarre situation. He was being interrogated about his lover, by a king who may be his future grandfather in law, in the royal gardens of a country he’d barely known existed a month ago drinking the best chamomile blend he’d ever had.

“No, he never told anyone anything and nobody ever pried. Very few people become mercenaries by choice. If you wish to preserve your relationship with a fellow soldier it’s best not to ask them what drove them to that path.” He placed his cup down. “I suppose that means you were unable to come up with any information yourself?”

“I was able to find some, but nothing substantial, most of it from after he joined your band. It is as if he was born fully formed from the blood of the battlefield itself.” The king stared into the cup in his own hands. “Even what information I have from when he joined you is so muddled with rumor and hearsay it is difficult to parse what is real and what isn’t. I even briefly suspected him of having communed with the Godhand based on descriptions of his battles.”

“He does fight like a monster but I assure you he doesn’t act like one.” Griffith laughed. It was nice to have his mask down for once. He could laugh without having to obscure the sharpness that lurked just below his soft skin and large doll-like eyes. He didn’t think himself cruel natured, but his tight, spring-loaded aggression was often mistaken for veiled cruelty in speech. “If anything, and do not take this as me speaking ill of him, Guts acts more like a kicked dog. He is nervous and short tempered around anyone new, but fiercely loyal to those he believes he can trust. Whenever he has a problem he would rather crawl into a hole by himself and die than ask anyone for help, especially those dearest to him, and has to be dragged out kicking and screaming to accept help. Sometimes literally.”

“Something must have happened to him to make him that way.”

“Most likely yes, but something happened to each and every one of us.” Griffith took another sip. He didn’t see Guts on the roof anymore, perhaps he went inside. “But once again, I do not wish to ask. It must be his choice to tell me. You said before that it is as if he was born from the battlefield itself. He occasionally speaks of a father, when he’s too drunk to guard his tongue, but never a mother. He may be the son of your daughter, but even so, War was his true mother. He uses his sword as a child might use a blanket or a doll. I would ask you to consider if you even want to know what kind of past would create such a man. It may do you more harm than good to hear.”

“And what of you? You claim to love him and yet you do not wish to know?”

“I know enough. As he is now he seems almost mythic to me. A giant raised by the sword who can crush men with his bare hands but yet, would also allow me to take those same hands in my own. He is like some hero of the old stories. However, when he finally allows me to embrace him as a man rather than a myth, I will still gladly accept him into my arms.”

A roar rang across the grounds and Griffith leapt to his feet. No man could’ve made that sound. It sounded like a wound torn in the fabric of the world. His hair stood straight on end. Griffith felt every hair on his body stand up. He recognized that voice.

Don’t worry you’ll be safe. I’ll protect you. All you have to do is let it out. Just release your anger. Let go of your pain. Let me take all of it from you. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. Become carefree. 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With Everything.

The roar shifted in tone, morphing into a howl. Casca rushed to grab her sword. It was so loud, nearly deafening. She couldn’t imagine him ever making a noise that loud in the past. Although he spoke as if he growled, Guts was usually so quiet. Worst of all, despite how it sounded like every organ in his body contorted itself to force that horrible sound from his throat, he sounded happy. Deliriously so. She practically kicked her door down to run outside.

Griffith saw a dark shape begin crawling down from the castle’s highest tower. It moved kind of like Guts. Like an extrapolation of him formed from the fears of everyone who had ever faced him in battle. He was fast, far faster than he should be. Like a spider the size of a man. The shape crouched and then leapt down from the roof, landing with a horrible crunch. Its legs were broken. Griffith could see the way they bent. Armor wasn’t supposed to bend like that. Everything he knew told him the bones should have shattered the plate as they were crushed. The shape stood on those ruined legs as if they weren’t broken at all. Griffith could see the blood leaking through the plate but he was still standing. He was standing and not screaming and crying out in pain. No, he was still howling. The helm of the armor warped and twisted as he stood, forming the shape of a dog’s head with cropped ears, a war hound. As he watched the armor began to set the ruined legs back in place.

“Guts?” He heard heavy breathing echo through the oddly shaped helm. Guts turned towards him. The speed should’ve broken his neck. He stared at him through the glowing red slits of the helmet. Then came that horrible roar again.

There was a point at which a soldier reached a certain level of fear and mental anguish where in the moment their mind snapped in two. When this happened there were generally two reactions a person could have. The first was a complete shut down. This is what happened to Griffith most often. The mind would shut down and the body would take over, working through its memory of motion with tight precision, while the mind of the soldier remained elsewhere, watching themselves as if behind glass. The second reaction Guts had described to him in the past. The moment things became too much he would feel his mind slip away from him. However, unlike Griffith, he would not become a passenger in his own body. He described it as the feeling of everything slipping away, leaving nothing but the moment of danger. It was the feeling of complete freedom from responsibility, from consequence, even from life itself. It was the greatest euphoria Guts had ever felt. So powerful you wouldn’t realize you’d been gutted until you woke up and realized you were holding in your own entrails. Griffith had never seen him like that before, Guts claimed the only thing that had ever pushed him to that brink was the 100 man battle. This thing in front of him wasn’t Guts, it was the embodiment of the hideous glee that came with relinquishing everything. And now it was advancing on him. Cadogan backed away.

“We need to get that armor off him. Can you hold him here while I get help?” His eyes darted to Griffith. Guts was unarmed, but the way he growled through that helmet, Griffith was certain those teeth weren’t just for show.

“I can certainly try, but you’ll need to move quickly.” He was going to die if he did this. But if it could save the others, prevent more from being sacrificed, he would gladly do it.

“Griffith!” That was Casca.

“Stay back! That thing isn’t the man we know!” She tossed something and a sword landed at his feet. Her sword. He quickly grabbed it and the thing lunged, its mouth closing around the blade.

He was wrong. That was Guts. For the first time in his life, Griffith felt paralyzing fear. This was what others saw on the battlefield. This terrifying warrior who would not go down no matter what you did to him, who would impale himself on a spear merely to tear out the throat of the man on the other end. A wave of possessiveness broke through the fear. This was his love, his soldier and he’d never been able to see this side of him. He felt cheated in a weird way. Guts had seen him at his worst and only now Griffith got to see the beast that Guts could become. He couldn’t defeat him like this in a straight on fight, but that wasn’t his goal. He tightly grabbed the other end of Casca’s sword and shifted his grip on the hilt. He wasn’t stronger than Guts but he understood leverage. He forced the sword upward, opening the armor’s jaw. Guts continued trying to lunge forward to attack, helping Griffith force the helmet back off his head. When the helmet finally came off, Guts collapsed. Griffith worked as fast as he could, undoing the straps of the armor and ripping it off. Casca rushed over and began pulling off his arm guards.

“Leave the greaves. His legs are badly injured but the armor is holding them together.” He warned before yanking off the base of the helmet and breastplate. He was still alright thank god, but a white streak shot through his dark hair. Now that the armor was off the helmet slowly warped back into the shape of a skull. The thought crossed Griffith’s mind,if he was armed there wouldn’t have been anything I could do. Cadogan came running with the young witch. She tapped his legs with her staff, her eyes closed.

“It should be safe to remove them.” She pronounced. “He’s been healed.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Schierke.” Griffith pulled off the greaves.

“It wasn’t me. It was the armor.” She shuddered. “It, it seems to like him.” The group turned to the black armor lying in pieces on the ground.

“The Berserker armor,” Cadogan finally broke the silence. “It is able to draw out the violent emotions within its wearer to such a great extent that it completely overrides pain and fear. It allows the body to push past the natural limits it sets to prevent itself from injury and holds everything together inside. You can break every bone in your body and still move. You will likely bleed to death afterwards but it will let you fight regardless.” He kicked at the dirt. “Ill fated thing. I never thought anyone would find it all the way up there.”

“Well that’s Guts for you. You always have to shape your plans around him.” Griffith surreptitiously ran his fingers through the white streak in Guts’s hair. It felt the same as the rest of his hair, smooth and stiff. He noticed Casca watching and swiftly withdrew his hand. She gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s alright. Guts told me this morning.” She whispered. Ah so that’s why he was on the roof. She glanced at the king to make sure he wasn’t listening in.

“Oh, he knows too, don't worry about it.”

“Why the fu-” she caught Schierke out of the corner of her eye, “fudge does he know?!” Now it was Griffith’s turn to whisper.

“Well if I play my cards right he might be my grandfather in law soon. There’s some really quite fascinating historical and legal precedent on my side if you want to hear about it.” Casca was going to have an aneurysm. Just a moment ago Guts had nearly killed him and now he was already back to talking about policy? She swore he was crazier than Guts in his own way. Why on earth had she been so obsessed with him? “Here’s your sword back by the way. Thanks.” He presented the hilt to her. Oh right. She took it back in her own hands. Well now she supposed they were even.

“Guts!” That was Rickert.

“What the hell was that noise?! Were we attacked?” Corkus had somehow managed to get on a full suit of armor with the wrong greaves on each foot.

“Casca, is everything alright?” Judeau already had a knife ready to go.

“We’re alright!” She shouted. “Guts passed out but we think he’s fine!” Pippin knelt down and placed two fingers on his wrist. He waited for about a minute and gave a thumbs up.

“Pulse is regular.”

“Holy fuck he’s turning into a badger.” Corkus pointed at the white streak in Guy’s hair.

“Corkus, there’s a kid here.” Casca scolded.

“Rickert’s heard me curse before.”

“Not him, the girl!” Schiercke’s face was bright red under the brim of her hat.

“I’ve heard people curse before.”

“It’s still rude to do it in front of children.”

“Did somebody attack Mr. Guts!?” Isidro heaved. He’d come running, dragging the biggest sword he could get his hands on.

“No, he’s fine. He just took a bad spill.”

“What’s this?” Isidro pointed at the skull shaped helmet on the ground.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you, young man.” The king held him back from the helmet. Guts moaned and began to stir.

“…Griffith… What happened?” He shot up as the pain hit him. “Agh my legs!” They hadn’t hurt like that since he was twelve. He had woken up screaming for days and hadn’t known why until an older mercenary told him it must’ve been the bones growing. Judeau slid next to Casca.

“It was him wasn’t it. Who howled like that.” He whispered.

“Yeah it was the armor. The thing’s cursed or something. He probably would’ve taken Griffith’s arm off if I wasn’t here.”

“Good thing you were.” The way his hand fell, their fingers brushed against each other. Judeau put his hand in his pocket. The tips of his ears burned red. “So what happened?”

“Well based on how the King described it the thing is supposed to make the wearer so pissed off they can’t feel pain.”

“Which isn’t hard to do in Guts’s case.”

“Right. But to the point where you stop listening to your own body when it tells you you can’t do something.”

“Like that time we saw that woman lift a cart off her kid by herself.”

“Yeah exactly. So Guys found the armor somewhere and put it on and then he jumped off the roof.”

“Shit,” Judeau winced “He doesn’t look like it.”

“He landed legs first. Looked like they shattered on impact but the armor, it put them back. He stood on them first though. His foot was practically backwards and he still got up.”

“Holy shit,” Judeau whispered in awe. “That’s insane even for him.”

“I tossed Griffith my sword and he managed to pry the helmet off him. But it was pretty touch and go for a bit there. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if Guts was armed, or Griffith wasn’t.”

“Well then good thing they had you on hand right?” He smiled.

“Yeah I guess you’re right.”

“There was a room.” Guts got out through his teeth. “There was nothing in it but a suit of armor. I remember feeling like I should put it on and then nothing. What the h-” he noticed Schierke and Isidro, “heck happened?”

“You fell off the roof.” That would explain why his legs hurt so goddamn much, but not how he was still in one piece.

“Griffith, that doesn’t make any sense.” Griffith kissed him to shut him up. Corkus hooted and hollered in the background.

“We’ll talk about this later away from prying eyes.” He whispered in Guts’s ear. “There’s something I have to tell you, urgently.”

“Are you alright Casca?” Wow that was quick. Judeau figured they would’ve at least taken another week.

“I’m over it.” She ran her hand through her hair. “Guts told me this morning. It’s not like we didn’t all expect it to happen.”

“Miss Casca was it?” She hadn’t noticed the king behind her. “I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced.”

“Your highness,” she curtsied quickly. It was too late to kneel at this point.
“There’s really no need, my dear. I was wondering if you would be willing to do me a favor in a few days.”