Chapter Text
“What the hell was that ??” Mumbo cries, practically tripping over himself as he and Scar make their way down from the stands.
“What was what?” Grian replies. He’s flushed and panting and giddy, still riding the rush. His armor feels tight and heavy and confining, his pink cloak dragging him down; it’s taking everything in his power to hold onto the back-of-the-brain focus that keeps his wings cloaked and hidden when all he wants to do is let loose and take to the skies in celebration.
“Don’t ‘what was what’ me! You did not just take out * three* of them! Without breaking a sweat!” Mumbo glances over to where the opposing team huddles in their lime-green cloaks. Most are still on the ground, holding their heads and ribs and knees where Grian’s blunted tourney axe had smashed into them. “I don’t think you even stopped to blink !”
“It was great !” Scar cries, grinning. “Mister Mystery Knight’s gonna be seeing double for weeks! How hard did you hit him?”
“The moment of my life,” Grian crows with a grin.
“Did you hear them when they were coming after us?” asks Joel o’ the Wild with a matching grin. “‘Take them out, they’re terrible, they’re no good’. They’ll not be singing that song next time, I guarantee.”
“I’m bloody terrified to travel with you now,” Mumbo proclaims.
“Oh, stop, you are not.” Grian rebuts, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Besides, with our winnings we’ll be able to book passage anywhere we want! The whole world is our oyster now.” No more rickety boats and long weeks on foot, living off of whatever Scar could haggle or scam. They’ll be able to take their time and find the perfect place to make their home.
He turns back to his teammates. They make a motley crew, no doubt about it: Joel in his patchwork of boiled leather and scrounged steel, looking like a ragged peasant next to Jimmy, the picture-perfect knight in shining silver armor, his pink cape embroidered with stars and flowers. Martyn cuts an impressive figure as well, his light armor engraved with runes and seeming to shimmer oddly when viewed from certain angles, although the effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that Jimmy is practically holding him up, his eyes unfocused and blood trickling down his face from the blow to the head that had knocked him out.
Jimmy sees the concern on Grian’s face and smiles reassuringly. “He’s fine. His helmet took the worst of it. Besides, you avenged him. Did you ever! I’d never have thought you had it in you, I’d heard you were an architect .”
“Among other things,” Scar quips from beside him.
“Shut it,” Grian retorts, elbowing him in the side. “And anyway, that’s perfect. I love it when people underestimate me.”
“Keep boasting,” calls one of their green-cloaked opponents, a young woman who Grian thinks is named Sylvie or Sylvia, the only one still on her feet. Like Jimmy, she’s got one of her teammates slung over her shoulder, barely conscious, the mask he’s worn for the entire tournament so far cracked and knocked askew on his face. “I still disarmed you.”
“Fair enough, it was all worth it,” Grian calls back. He can’t stop grinning.
"That's fine, bask in your overconfidence," Sylvie-or-Sylvia snarks, roughly hauling her unconscious teammate higher up on her shoulder. "It won't save you next year."
“I look forward to it!” Grian replies, and he does. He’d never known what he was missing until he’d entered for the first time; combat for him had always been a matter of panicked necessity, of buying time to run away. This time * he’d* been the one in pursuit, a bird of prey rather than a fleeing songbird, and it had been utterly exhilarating. Besides, the Starborn’s tournaments are safe. In the twenty years that he’s been holding them, not a single competitor has ever died.
He turns back to his friends. Scar’s expression is one of slightly unhinged glee, Mumbo’s both anxious and overawed, and Grian feels a rush of love within him that threatens to send his wings flaring from his back in full splendor. It was seeing them cheering him from the stands, more than anything else, that had spurred him on to victory. He would die for them.
“Come on,” he says, wrapping an arm around each of their shoulders before grinning back at his teammates. He hopes he’ll see them again someday, after all this is over. “If we hurry, we’ll be just in time to catch the archery tournament. I hear the two who made it in are something else.”
“Alright, then,” Mumbo replies, a grin of his own surfacing in return. “Let’s see if they live up to their reputations.”
Together, they make their way across the tourney grounds, laughing as they go.