A Dog Among Princes

Chapter 17

“So, you disappear for almost a year, show up on my doorstep riding on a skeletal horse and carrying a disembodied head in your hands, have me work for days making a body for the thing, and now you want to commission another sword?”

“I can pay full price up front.”

“On a mercenary’s earnings?” Godot scoffed. “You’ve always been crazy, Guts, but not that crazy.” Guts pulled a pouch of gold out of his pocket. Godot counted, it was well over his usual rate, even for complicated work like Guts’s swords. He pushed it away. “What is this, your life’s savings? You know I can’t take this.” For all his bluster, Godot had been making swords for the kid since he was twelve. He knew he couldn’t afford to pay that much and still eat.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve had a run of good luck. Consider it compensation for dealing with my crazy ass all these years.” He pushed it back towards the smith. Godot noticed a ring on his finger. Silver, well made, set with a carved onyx stone. A seal? Godot knew he’d written a letter earlier. Guts had given instructions for delivery to the little blue fellow that lived in the forest. He’d probably forgotten to take it off.

“May I see that?” Guts held out his hand. A shield emblazoned with a rose encircled in thorns. A label with three notches ran over the top, the mark of an heir apparent. “Weren’t you an orphan a year ago?”

“Well it turns out I’m the son of a lost princess.” Godot could feel a headache coming on.

“‘Course you are. And the kid who keeps leaving me dead deer as gifts?”

“That’s Griffith, the one I told you about. I think he’s just a little excited right now. He gets like this every once and a while but he should be back to normal in a few days.” That was Griffith? Refined, perfect statesman, could be mistaken for a prince, Griffith was the one running around the woods, buck naked, killing deer with his bare hands? “At least he’s remembering to eat. Sometimes when he gets too absorbed in a project I have to drag him away from his books kicking and screaming so he doesn’t pass out.” They heard the now familiar crunch of Griffith hitting the ground outside. No accompanying thud of a large carcass this time, thank god. “So you’ll make the sword?” Guts asked, his hand on the door.

“Fine, just send me something later proving that I’m your personal armorer, preferably with legal status included.”

“Deal.” He immediately opened the door and slammed it shut behind him. Godot shook his head. Kids these days.

Griffith was covered in blood again. Guts knew it wasn’t his own, but it was still a little bit unsettling. Griffith had insisted that to better adjust to the changes he’d undergone, he needed to live out in the woods for a little bit. He’d said it was to better learn the ways his body wanted to move and to assess his upper and lower limits. Guts figured it was also to help him work out some of the residual mania left over from his transformation. Guts didn’t see him much while he was out there, but he’d found enough trees scored with deep claw marks and half eaten carcasses to track where he’d been and what he was doing. It looked like he was trying to teach himself hand to hand combat.

Normally he would’ve thought that was ridiculous to try against an armored opponent. You’d be better off with a good club. With those claws though, it might actually be a pretty good idea. Outside of straight duels those wings would also be a good asset. He’d hit him hard enough that first night without trying. Guts had seen falconers at work during hunts in the past. If Griffith got to the point where he fully understood the physics of a dive, that power could be absolutely devastating. For now though it seemed he was focusing on maneuverability, figuring out how much space his body took up and how much clearance he’d need to accommodate his wide wingspan, by limiting himself to forest hunting. Based on the number of carcasses Guts had found it seemed like he was getting pretty good at it. It also seemed like he’d developed a taste for raw meat. That probably wasn’t the safest thing in the world to be doing, but he wasn’t sure if Griffith was able to get conventional diseases anymore. Griffith tended to like his meat rarer than most far before his transformation anyway. Perhaps he’d just decided to dispense with any veneer of respectability while he was alone. Although the option of hiding himself behind a charming look and perfect etiquette was likely lost to him forever now. It was a difficult tactic to pull off if you weren’t unassuming and handsome. He’d given that up completely. Instead it was like Griffith had been distilled down to his most basic elements, leaving his childlike curiosity and willingness to learn and experiment, as well as his deadly, now utterly terrifying, grace. The things about himself he actually cared to cultivate for personal reasons rather than political.

“Can I get your help bringing something back?” He shook the blood off his cape. “It was a bit too unwieldy to fly here myself.” He’d calmed down significantly since that first night. He was almost back to his usual levels of composure.

“I’ll see if I can find a cart.”

“No need. I can handle it well enough on foot with a bit of help.”

“Took down something with a big rack?”

“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.” Griffith gave him a mischievous look.

“So it’s a gift for me this time then.”

It took them about fifteen minutes on foot to reach the clearing where Griffith had dragged it. Nothing he’d done so far had really surprised Guts as of yet. Weirdness was just something you had to become inured to if you were friends were Griffith. It was almost easier to deal with. Guts never had any preconceived notions of how strong a demon should be before he fought one. It was a creature from the deepest depths of human imagination, it would be useless to try and measure that against any standard metric. What shocked him so much about what he saw was that he was intimately familiar with what it was and what it was capable of.

It was a bear, and a big one too. One this size might’ve been able to shrug off a cannonball if it was angry enough. He’d certainly seen them keep fighting while shot through with arrows. The only really reliable way to do it without getting injured yourself was with a strong poison. This one’s neck had been cleanly snapped. The giant talon marks on its neck told him exactly how that’d happened. “Holy shit,” he touched the soft fur of its head. It had to be over six hundred pounds. “You killed this by yourself?” Griffith stayed quiet. He didn’t have to say anything. Guts already knew what the answer was. Guts had known mercenaries that were proud to have faced down a bear with help and weapons, Griffith did this alone and bare handed. “Guess I’m the one that needs to train for the tournament now.” It was frankly a little terrifying to see how little a beast like this was able to fight back against him. Then again, Guts used to do shit like this all the time. Not killing bears, but doing insane bullshit that scared the hell out of his comrades.

“I’ll still need to get used to using a sword again, but I think I’ve learned all I can out here.” Griffith kicked around in the dirt, wiping some of the residual blood off his talons. “I could also definitely go for a bath, a warm meal, and some clothes if there’s anything that will fit me.”

“I can always make some if we don’t. I think there’s still some spare fabric from your wings.” Griffith shivered.

“Eugh. That would be like wearing boots made from your own skin.”

“Puck! It’s good to see you!”

“Judeau!” The elf gave him a high five.

“You two know each other?” Casca held Guts’s letter in her hand. They were maybe about a day out from Godot’s now. The members of the band that wished to come, rather than returning to their new homes and businesses right away, hadn’t had the luxury of riding a flying horse to their destination. On foot it was a good week’s journey.

“Yes! This is the elf I told you about, from the circus! What are you doing all the way out here?” Puck screwed up his face in thought.

“I don’t know. I just felt like something weird was going to happen around the eclipse so I left. People can see me really easily now for some reason though, so maybe something did happen?” Casca opened the letter. She’d seen the seal of course but now she was sure Guts had written it. His handwriting was god awful.

“Judeau, can you make sense of this?”

“Give me a second, this is pretty rough.” He squinted at the paper. “He says Griffith is fine, just adjusting to the new body. He looks very different so be prepared.”

“Does he say how?”

“I’m trying to decipher that part. That can’t be right though, Oh! He says there’s a drawing on the back.” He flipped over the sheet of paper. “What the hell?” Puck looked over his shoulder.

“Hey, that’s pretty good! The old grump actually has some talent.”

“Guts is a year younger than me, Puck.”

“Really?”

“Let me see that.” Casca held out her hand and Judeau handed her back the letter. On the back was a lovingly done charcoal sketch of a figure with bat-like wings landing on a pool of still water. If not for his helmet, Casca wouldn’t have recognized it as him. Guts wasn’t the type to embellish, especially not in circumstances like this. She handed the letter back to Judeau. “Does it say anything else?”

“Uh, Guts says Griffith has been spending most of his time hunting. I don’t remember them bringing up any bows…”

“I don’t think Griffith needs one anymore.” Casca suggested gently.

“Right, right. And, um, in non-Griffith news he says he’s going to try and get a sword commissioned while he’s up there. We might need to wait a couple days while Godot finishes it.”

“That’s everything?”

“Looks like it.”

“Why so glum, chums?” Puck flitted around their heads. The drawing still weighed on both their minds. Were they going to be meeting the same man they nearly lost almost a week ago, or would they be meeting the monster they’d hoped would never be born?

“Hey, Puck, out of curiosity, what did you think of Griffith?” Judeau asked. The elf was honest almost to a fault, he’d be able to give them an unbiased appraisal. Guts’s judgement was shaky at best when it came to Griffith, even before they’d started their official courtship.

“Hmm, he’s a little bit weird for a human, I guess. He almost acted like one of us for the first few days.”

“Like one of us?”

“Oh right, like an elf. Usually humans are always so serious, but he mostly seemed interested in having fun. After that though, he spent most of his time trying to learn how to hunt for food again. He’s gotten pretty good at it too.”

“Have you spoken to him? How does he seem in conversation.” Casca interjected.

“He’s very polite.”

“I guess that sounds about right.” Casca muttered. It was difficult to gauge things from this distance. They’d just have to wait until they reached the smith’s.

It took a bit of work, but Guts managed to figure out a way to accommodate Griffith’s wings in the few clothes they had with them. The real problem was how they connected at the shoulder. It was too easy to trap them if you had to pull a garment over his head. Guts found the best solution was to alter the neckline first, widening it so it stopped at Griffith’s shoulders rather than his neck, and then convert the back to a lace up, so that it was easier to fasten it underneath. A skilled tailor could’ve probably come up with a better solution, but that was about the extent of Guts’s skill with a needle. Pants were a bit tricky as well. Hose, or anything else that didn’t adequately accommodate talons, was completely out of the question. That also included the tight riding pants Griffith usually wore. Maybe eventually, when he had better self awareness, but for the moment it was too much of a risk that he would shred them. Guts had the most practice sewing his usual wide-legged style anyway.

Griffith watched him carefully as he worked, a blanket thrown over him just in case Erica happened to walk in. His pupils turned huge and round now whenever he focused on something particularly intensely. It was kind of cute actually. Like he was an overgrown house cat.

“You’re quite skilled at that.”

“At what?”

“Sewing. You’ve got steady hands.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Have you ever thought about taking up embroidery?”

“No, I don’t think I’d have the patience, nor do I really have the passion for it.” Guts paused to test the seams. Good enough. “Try this on for me?” Griffith put his arms through the sleeves. Guts went around to his back and lifted the silvery-white silk of his wings. When in flight, they would connect to his back through a series of magnetized latches embedded along his spine. But when at rest, the continuous fabric membrane looked like a scalloped-edged cape, if you ignored the paper thin veins that ran through it. Guts carefully began lacing up the back. “So how have you been adjusting?”

“It has been as easy as putting on a well fitted glove.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’ve always felt strange in my own body, as if something was missing that I could never fully articulate. I suppose it was because I was always destined to become something inhuman.” Guts put a hand on Griffith’s shoulder and he held it appreciatively. “I was only ever partially formed. I had instincts and urges that didn’t make sense for a human but like this, everything just feels right. From the moment I received that stupid necklace I believed I would have to one day cast that body aside to achieve my ambitions, but I never could have imagined how much of an opportunity that could be. I also didn’t know I’d have such a wonderful partner to share in the experience.” Guts finished tying the laces.

“You’re all done. How does the fit feel?” Griffith moved his arms around experimentally.

“Feels about right to me.”

“Good.” He spun Griffith around to face him. “I’m glad you finally feel comfortable with yourself.” He kissed him on the cheek. “The new body suits you well.” Guts had always been the fucking scary one, with his pointed ears, long canines, and giant frame. Now they were a perfect match. They were fucking scary together. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Griffith grinned into Guts’s kiss.