A Dog Among Princes

Chapter 31

Griffith squeezed Guts’s hand. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” Griffith had seen a lot of him. Not all of him but still more than Guts had ever been willing to show anyone else. He, more than anyone, knew why this was going to be so difficult, but Guts was ready for this.

“I want to.” He squeezed back.

A tavern owner, an apprentice, a chronicler, a knight, a king and a layabout all walk into a conference room. Sounded like the set up to a bad joke to Corkus. And yet for some reason, that was the exact situation he had walked into.

Pippin nodded along as Rickert showed him a new mechanical project he was working on. Just listening to it was making his head spin. Had something to do with gunpowder and compensating for recoil but that was about all he could get. Judeau seemed to be nodding along, offering the occasional question or suggestion. Wasn’t surprising that he got some of it. He picked up a little bit of everything.

Casca on the other hand had her arms crossed and was rapidly tapping her foot. She seemed to be having the same thought as him. Why the hell were they all here? The King seemed calm enough, despite having to deal with the fall out of the stupid stunt Casca had pulled (seriously! Why the hell had she gone and grabbed Charlotte? They didn’t owe her shit! They were dead fucking meat, he was sure of it!), but he kept sneaking glances around the room and towards the door. His wheels were turning too, trying to figure out what he was doing here. Not exactly a promising sign if not even the king knew what they were doing.

Griffith entered the room with Guts. Corkus shuddered involuntarily. He was getting better about not immediately shitting himself with time, but his former commander still gave him the creeps. Him being here made the whole thing make a bit more sense though. Probably meant they were finally doing a fucking intervention. Though if he remembered right, usually you got told that you were doing an intervention before it happened.

“So I guess you’re probably wondering why I asked you all to come here.” Guts began. Wait, shit. Was Corkus the one getting the intervention? He wasn’t drinking that much was he? “I’m gonna guess you’ve all figured out that there’s a lot of shit I don’t talk about. Most of you probably don’t know anything about my life before you met me, and probably don’t even know about a lot of the shit I did after.” Oh shit. This wasn’t what Corkus thought it was, was it? “I really only want to say all this shit once alright, so I asked all of you to be here so I could get it out in one go.” Guts pulled up a chair for himself. “You can leave if you need to, I won’t be offended. Especially you,” he pointed to Rickert. “Not that I don’t figure you can take it, it probably just isn’t something you should hear. Still, that goes for all of you. If there’s something you can’t take, get the hell out, maybe come back later, alright.” He looked around the room as if he was explaining battle plans and looking for assent rather than preparing to bare his soul. Nobody dared to say anything, worried they’d spook him. Casca nodded. “Good. And if you’ve got any questions just keep your mouth shut until I’m done. I wanna get this over as soon as possible.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and began.

Besides Griffith, who’d already seen quite a bit of it, Pippin was the only one that managed to stay the whole time. Cadogan left and came back when Guts got about halfway through talking about his childhood. Based on the crash he heard coming from outside, it seemed like despite Guts’s initial impression, hot tempers did run in the family. Rickert left at about the point he thought he would, luckily returning in time for when he shot the bastard. For some reason, Chitch was what did it for Corkus. Guts hadn’t really expected that. Seemed like the type of thing he’d be told to go fuck himself if he asked about it though. But then again that was just kind of their relationship. Just depended moment to moment who was being told to go fuck themselves. Casca left when he got to Julius’s kid. He figured part of it might’ve been guilt for not knowing. Wasn’t her fault, it was an assassination, it was supposed to be secret. But that on top of them both walking in on Griffith having that conversation with Charlotte, she was probably only now just getting why that fucked him up as much as it did.

Griffith squirmed a little uncomfortably at that bit too, but he didn’t leave. It was his responsibility to bear. He’d hurt Guts, if he couldn’t own up to that and accept the consequences, he didn’t deserve to be with him. Griffith had slowly been realizing something. He didn’t just have one dream anymore. Certainly he still wanted to be a king, but as he was now, he could probably fly back to Midland, kill the king, and declare himself ruler within a matter of days. But that wasn’t all he wanted now. He’d always thought of Guts as the man that could make him forget his dream, but that wasn’t exactly true. Being with Guts was an aspiration for him, just one he had always foolishly believed he could never achieve and thus decided he could never pursue. Now, he realized that Guts was just as important to him as any of his longer held ambitions. He would have to work and atone to keep him, but he was willing to do that.

Judeau left for a brief moment when Guts started telling them about the time he spent in the cave with Casca. He figured it wasn’t because of him, but more because of how he felt about Casca. It was a time he couldn’t be there for her. He’d gotten there in the end, after searching for almost a day, but Guts had been the one that jumped off a cliff to save her. Sure you could say that was because Guts was a fucking idiot. That’s what he would say, but he’d found that for some reason people tended to take his impulsivity for bravery. It was easy to be brave when you didn’t care whether or not you died.

Guts had to take a pause after that. Not because he was tired yet but because he had to ask permission from Griffith and Casca to share what they’d gone through as well. He wouldn’t just come out and tell everybody, they weren’t his stories to tell, but he felt like they kind of needed to be to understand his own. They were the same, all three of them. The exact details may have been different between them, but there was still an unspoken connection, beyond friendship, between them. Even before any of them knew about each other, there was still an unexplained level of understanding between them. Well it was explained now that he’d put everything out in the open.

Casca consented. She hadn’t known Guts had been raped before today. She never would’ve thought it either if she hadn’t heard it from his own mouth. But it made a lot of things make sense, how he hated to be touched, how when she’d told him about herself and Griffith his only reaction was shock that it had happened to Griffith specifically, not that it had happened at all. He’d also been surprisingly decent about it, despite being an asshole about literally everything else she’d been going through at the time. He was willing to say stupid shit about her being on her period, but not about that. Now she understood why, it was because he understood. Casca was a little surprised when Griffith gave his permission as well. He didn’t usually allow himself to be vulnerable in situations that were out of his control, but with how vulnerable Guts had allowed himself to be, maybe this was his way of offering support.

Guts finished with him going to Flora. Even though he felt like he was reiterating a lot of things everyone present had been there for, there was still some shit that he didn’t tell anybody, like the stuff with the armor and all that. When he was done he stood up. “I’m going to give you all some time to react how you want to react. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Corkus was the first to speak after Guts left. “Holy shit.” He couldn’t really think of anything else to say to all that. “I figured it was going to be bad but that was really fucking bad. Shit.” Cadogan stared numbly at his hands.

“Those bastards are lucky they are dead.” He was completely helpless. If only he hadn’t been so paralyzed by grief nineteen years ago, perhaps he could have done something. He could have found Guts earlier, given him a home, a proper education, something, even though his mind told him that it wasn’t possible. He was half willing to track down Gambino the mercenary’s grave just to spit on it. Not that it would be easily found or even marked. That was some comfort at least.

“I can’t believe he never said anything.” Now all the insane shit he did made sense to Casca. All those years she thought he was just an asshole glory hound, all those times she yelled at him “are you trying to get yourself killed!?” he really was suicidal. It didn’t excuse him being an asshole, but she wished she’d have known.

“I can’t believe he did say anything.” Judeau didn’t know how to process the information he’d been given. All that he could really bring himself to feel was surprise. Guts usually never told anyone he was in pain. He was like a dog, crawling under a house to die so that nobody else could see him suffering. Whatever the hell Flora had done for him must’ve worked. Although after all that Judeau probably had to go lie down for a bit and Guts probably felt like shit, he felt happy for him. That was a big step. Judeau didn’t know people like Pippin knew people, but he knew talking to somebody about what was wrong sometimes helped.

“You’re awfully quiet.” Pippin was looking at Griffith. Rickert looked back and forth between them.

“You knew, didn’t you?” The boy put two and two together.

“Some of it, yes, but not all of it.”

“What was new information?” Pippin asked carefully.

“I didn’t know about what happened the night Julius was assassinated.”

“That’s a pretty passive way of putting it don’t you think?” Casca interjected.

“The night I ordered Julius’s assassination. Are we happier with that phrasing?” He affixed Casca with a glare that probably would’ve caused Corkus to spontaneously combust.

“Yes, that’s much better I think.” Casca folded her arms.

“I’ll admit, I didn’t think much of it at the time. Guts is very discrete and, well, an incredibly effective killer so I believed he would be the best man for the job.”

“You didn’t want him to kill the kid did you?” Rickert asked quietly.

“It wasn’t my intent, but it wasn’t… unwelcome.”

“Fuck, Griffith… I knew you were ruthless, but shit…” Corkus muttered.

“My feelings on the matter were purely pragmatic. The boy would’ve come looking for revenge eventually. My only mistake was not considering how it would affect Guts.”

“Especially after that shit you said to Charlotte.” Casca leaned back in her chair.

“Have I done something? Did I offend you in some way?”

“No, but both you and Guts are my friends, and you’re going to end up hurting each other if you’re not willing to accept accountability.”

“I didn’t know either of you were there. I was just spouting bullshit I thought she would like!” Griffith took a breath. “I’m more than willing to accept accountability for my actions, but there’s no need to read malice into them where there wasn’t any.”

“Still kind of fucked up that you didn’t feel bad about the kid.” Judeau mumbled, half under his breath.

“I don’t feel bad about any one I’ve killed.” Griffith responded instantly. “Death is merely a consequence of politics. I don’t take joy in it, and I minimize the cost in human life when possible, but I have no qualms about murder when it is necessary. I would never willingly hurt Guts or any of you, but I would kill anyone who dared to harm any of us, even a child if it came to that. Of course now I am well capable of killing myself, I do not see the need to ask that of any of you, especially if you happen to have ethical objections. Of course you must understand that I have no such qualms. I will always do what must be done even if all of you find that abhorrent.”

As he spoke, it dawned on everyone present that they’d really gotten too used to Griffith. He was good on his word, he’d never done anything to hurt them intentionally, but it was easy to forget just how absolutely ruthless he could be if he thought the situation called for it. He was never indulgent or over the top with the violence he ordered or engaged in, but he also didn’t shrink away from engaging in behavior others might consider immoral. In a crisis it was understandable, maybe even admirable, that he was able to make such difficult calls without hesitation, but it was still unsettling to hear he had no remorse for any of it. Especially when in this case it involved the death of an innocent.

It wasn’t that he was dangerous, exactly. Griffith was dangerous in the way a sword was dangerous, if you left him alone without any interference he was just another sheet of metal, if you held him in your hand he was the best ally you could ask for, but god forbid he was pointed at you. No, that wasn’t it. It was more that they’d all discovered they’d been holding a sword where they’d thought they’d been holding a pen, or at worst a letter opener.

Pippin had gotten the answer to the question he’d been asking. Griffith hadn’t really meant it when he hurt Guts. However as he glanced at the king to try and gauge his reaction to what was said, it looked like they had come to the same conclusion. It was probably best to make sure this particular blade wasn’t left unattended.

“How’s this feeling? You think you’ve got a handle on the motions yet?” Isidro screwed up his face in concentration trying to remember the sequence of forms he’d been shown. It was the most complex one Guts had asked him to learn so far, but he was doing fairly well. He might even be ready to start sparring soon.

“I think so.” Isidro was already less halting with his swings. Guts had always thought dual weapon fighters were pretty impressive, he never really had the head for it though. He could use multiple types of weapons: crossbows, swords, throwing knives, and he even knew the basics of artillery, but he didn’t really have the mental flexibility for using two weapons at once. Guts was skilled certainly, but his focus was narrow. That was part of the reason he’d set this time aside to work on swordsmanship with Isidro. If he was doing this, he wouldn’t be able to think too hard about what was going on in that room while he wasn’t there.

“You’re alright at throwing rocks, right kid?”

“Yeah,” he stopped moving through the forms he’d been taught. “Don’t see how that’s going to make me a better swordsman though.” The kid was still too fixated on that. Why the hell did he want to be a swordsman so bad when he was so much more suited for a knife?

“It’s never a bad thing to have switch up options, kid. Sword isn’t going to do anything to a guy ten feet away from you. Even I carry a couple throwing knives on me.”

“You do?” Guts smiled. Oh, now he’d gotten him interested.

“Here I’ll show you.” He pointed to a target at the end of the practice field. He’d made sure to grab a couple knives before practice, hoping he’d be able to entice the kid to use them. “I’m not the best at this though. Could probably use some practice myself.” Guts tossed a knife the way Judeau had shown him and it hit the target just a ring left of center. Pretty good for a first try. He adjusted his position and the next two hit closer until finally the fourth hit center. Not bad. Not nearly as good as Judeau, but not bad. He handed a few to the kid. “Here, give it a try. Main thing you have to worry about is the edge. With a rock it doesn’t matter what side you hit with, but to get any penetration with a knife you have to…” Isidro threw the knife while he was still talking. Dead fucking center. Holy shit. Could be a fluke though. “Great job, kid! You want to try hiring the target next to it?” Isidro tossed the knife up and down, weighing it in his hand before throwing again. Dead fucking center yet again. The kid was a damn prodigy.

Guts figured it had been about an hour by now. It probably wouldn’t hurt to ask Judeau to give the kid lessons. There wasn’t really much more Guts could teach him.

Guts opened the door and everything suddenly quieted down. He tried not to let himself think about what they’d been talking about. “Alright, any questions you have for me?” He waited for somebody to stab him in the neck.

“This is more for legal purposes that’s anything else,” the King began, “but does anyone outside of this room know that you were the one that carried out the assassination of lord Julius?”

“No, and I'd prefer if everybody kept their mouth shut about it around Charlotte.”

“Excellent, I was just about to ask that your involvement be kept completely confidential. Thank you.” Well that was relatively painless. Guts had kind of expected that one, foundations of an international incident and all.

“Anybody else?” The room remained silent.

“Is there anything you want any of us to do?” Pippin asked.

“Just don’t treat me any different.” That was the one thing he wouldn’t be able to bear, if they started tip toeing around him like he was made of glass. Pippin nodded indicating his understanding.

“I’m going to guess if you told us all this you aren’t doing too great.” Judeau played around with the knife in his hands. “Then again, it sounds like you’ve never been doing too great, have you?”

“There’s been times that were better than others, but no, I’ve never really been doing great. I thought maybe since everything had started calming down I’d start feeling better, but if anything I just started feeling worse.”

“Well, how do you feel now, after putting it all out there? Are you feeling alright?” Casca asked.

Guts didn’t exactly know how to describe how he was feeling. It wasn’t good, it would probably be months, more likely years, before the natural center point of his emotions would swing towards good. But maybe, just maybe, he was feeling a little better. He still felt the weight of life, of pain, of experience upon his back, but the voice in his head that screamed that he needed to carry it alone, that telling anyone else what he’d been through would only give them ammunition for their inevitable betrayal, had quieted. Guts didn’t feel good, yet. That yet was important. It was a promise, to himself, to his friends, his family, his home, that he was working on it. He would be alright eventually. Not now, but eventually. There was a lot of work to do before he got there.

“Yeah, I think I’m alright.”