Chapter Text
“Again.”
A Strike.
“Again.”
Another.
“Again.”
“We should stop.”
“Again, Tommy. We stop when I say stop.”
“Dream—”
Another strike.
Dream had been sparring with Tommy for hours. Both of them were sweating under the sun but neither of them had yet to take a break. It was still early. It was still the morning. Their typical training time.
The time before the yard was full of people to witness.
The Leading Knight of the Kingdom and his primary squire. Ranboo and Tubbo were out there with them too. They were sparring with each other. Training as knight and squires and trying to simply learn and get better.
But that wasn’t the only reason.
It had been three months since the start of the war. Since their allies became enemies and their enemies became allies. Three months since the Central Kingdom had nearly lost their darling knight.
Three months since Tommy thought he would lose the man he called his hero.
He’d grown up in the first war. He grew up watching the knights moving back and forth. He’d watched their war with the East and he knew what knights looked like when they were fighting through pain and fighting through injuries. When he was eight he heard stories about a new knight hitting the war Fronts. The Prince’s knight, carving through their enemies and never once being touched.
When he was nine he saw the man leading soldiers and other knights through his home towards the bloodiest Frontline of the war. He watched the smile mask and the white horse he rode. The bright green cape that hung instead of their Kingdom’s signature light blue. Tommy thought the stories were going to be proven a myth. That he was going to see the man fall or that he was going to see him get hurt. That the illusion of the Kingdom’s Jewel was going to be broken. Their Untouchable Knight.
But it hadn’t.
Tommy had watched him return unharmed. Blood on his armor that was only from the enemies and none from him. Black leather gloves holding tightly to the reigns of his horse while the massive battle axe stayed strapped steadily to his back. Tommy had seen others heaving through broken lungs and he’d never seen Sir Dream so much as twitch when in the face of life or death.
When he was ten the war with the East ended. He’d watched his hero go back to the palace and he’d heard the rumors of people trying to become his squire and him refusing every one of them. He’d heard stories of the fights and the things he was capable of. How the Prince’s Guard Dog was one of the scariest threats in the realm. How every single knight respected and cared for him.
When he was eleven word reached them that Sir Dream was the new Leading Knight of the Kingdom. That he’d taken over the position and that it was certain now he would never take a squire. That he would never continue the legacy that was the line before him.
The Kingdom’s Bloody Jewel, the Untouchable Knight, the Phantom Knight, the Scourge of the East, the Rose Knight.
The stories had been true.
They had been awe inspiring. From that moment on Tommy had turned his life around from simply being a thief on the streets to wanting to be a knight. He’d met Tubbo. He’d met Ranboo. He’d brought them to the palace on what he knew full well was a pipe dream.
Tommy had been fourteen.
And yet somehow they’d passed their trials. Somehow the man who was notorious for never taking a squire and his feats of combat had found something in them and taken them to be his.
Somehow Tommy found himself learning from the very man he’d idolized as a child.
All those stories had a new face. He saw the compassion Dream used when he taught them lessons. He saw the humanity and care he had when he was working through tasks with the other knights. When he was checking on them or when he was handling issues that came up. How he would prioritize the people over his work like it was simply his nature. How he was one of the bloodiest knights of war but when Ranboo almost worked himself into a panic after messing up a swing and almost hitting Dream he hadn’t been angry. He’d simply taken the sword from his hand and sat with him in the grass. Talking to the three of them gently and telling them it was alright. Guiding them through breathing and then sending them to do chores for the day.
He thought it would have stayed that way forever. That the three of them would learn under Dream and that they would be knighted by him and their Prince and that he would get to be a knight right along his hero and make all of his childhood dreams come true.
Tommy was fifteen when they were betrayed by their allies.
“Again.”
“Dream, we really need to stop.”
“I told you no.”
Tommy was fifteen when he’d watched Dream fall the first time. When he hadn’t been able to pick up his body to save him and had ended up screaming for help instead. When he’d found nothing of his knight but blood and corpses and his sword lying on the ground.
When he’d taken the rose sword for himself to keep it safe until his knight was back. It was three weeks after that when Tommy actually began to believe things would actually be okay again. Going into a war but he had his knight beside him.
He’d started off with not being able to move him. Now Tommy had been his crutch while he tried to learn to walk again so often that he had lifted him up more than once.
Three months was all it had took.
Three months of watching Dream struggle. And now they were out in the yard again. Swords in hand and sparring against each other. Dream’s lungs were working. His pants were short and heavy as he moved. Sparing against him like he would with any of the others. Sparring with him because right now Tommy was the safest bet against him. Sapnap was away in the fighting. Punz was resting having just returned last night. Technoblade, well, Dream wasn’t ready for a spar with him yet. Not when he was shaking and sweating and breathing hard just by swinging his blade over and over again against his own squire. Dream needed to stop. He needed to rest. He was going to overwork himself and he was going to hurt himself.
He was still healing.
Tommy blocked another strike. He felt the vibration run from his blade into his arm. He was still using the rose sword. He was still using Dream’s blade.
“Dream.”
“No.”
His words were clipping. Tubbo and Ranboo were watching them despite being in their own spar. All of them were worried about Dream. He’d nearly died. He’d been tortured for a week and they’d watched his heart stop multiple times. They’d almost lost him. They weren’t willing to lose him during his recovery just because he refused to let himself be anything less than perfect.
“Dream—”
The sword swing came heavy. Tommy lifted his own to block it and almost fell from the amount of force in it. It was a stark reminder that a sword was significantly lighter than the axe Dream was accustomed to using. The Nightmare axe was heavier than he was. Dream’s lessons about wielding it were something he wasn’t sure he could forget. The swing he’d used just now was one that was meant to have her weight behind it.
He was about to yell at him. About to demand that he stop. And then Dream was stumbling. Dropping to a knee and letting the sword fall from his hand and breathing hard on the ground.
Tommy followed him instantly. Ranboo and Tubbo both came over to check as well. They were getting him water. They were trying to help. They just needed Dream to let them.
He remembered at the start of all of this. He remembered how much stronger Dream had been then all of them combined. How he was the man that took down armies. And now their enemy had brought him down to this when they thought they were still friends.
The Central against the West.
Tommy checked Dream for a fever. Dream swatted his hand away.
“I’m fine.”
They’d just had a funeral a week after the start of the war for the knight that died to be posed up like Dream as a decoy. Those images were running rampant in his head and he wasn’t willing to believe Dream when he said he was fine.
Tommy remembered them finding the body. He remembered asking George if it was him. Thinking that his knight was dead and that it was because he hadn’t been able to protect him. Now he was crouching in the grass in front of him watching him struggle and saying that he was fine.
Dream could lie to himself all he liked but he wasn’t allowed to lie to them. Not anymore. Not after what they’d all been through almost losing one another.
“You’re holding your chest and this is the first time you’re training with a weapon.”
Dream shot him a glare but Tommy didn’t care. He didn’t care that his voice was deadpan or that he could have worded it better or been less blunt.
A knight cared for their squire. A squire cared for their knight.
Dream had been at death's door for the first month down in the infirmary. For the two months after that he’d been up in George’s bedroom. Holed up with their Prince and sleeping away most of his days in bed. Relearning how to walk and how to start to run. He couldn’t go for long. He couldn’t do any kind of long distance yet. But he was trying. And now he was finally in the yard and he was going to push himself too far.
Tommy wouldn’t let him.
Fair would be fair. In a perfect mirror to what happened before Tommy was going to lecture his idiot of a knight.
Three months turned into six.
Tommy watched from the grass where he was sitting eating an apple as Dream ran the training course over and over again. Early in the morning again. Too early for almost anyone else to be up. He was trying to get something quick to eat to ease his stomach and caught Sam and Dream walking out together and decided to join them. He’d gotten so used to seeing Dream as the knight in charge and the highest of command that he wasn’t accustomed to seeing Sam give him orders and Dream react on instinct.
The power of a knight and their squire. The bond between a knight’s line.
Tommy stayed beside his Grandknight while Sam called out fumbles Dream was making. Part of him wanted to scold him for being so harsh on him and pushing him so much when he was still clearly recovering from what all had been done to him but on the other side he understood.
Dream didn’t need to be coddled. He’d been coddled for the first months of his recovery and he was too proud to let it go for longer. Either they could push him safely and with guards in place to make sure it wasn’t too much or they were going to find him collapsed in the grass one morning and have to worry about his body shutting down on them again.
Tommy was going to choose his safety. So was Sam. So he let the orders keep going. He let him keep pushing Dream.
Even injured and recovering Tommy watched how impressive his knight was. Famed for his agility in combat and not a single story exaggerating. Even while healing Dream was running the course better than most of the knights. He was only in leather armor and padding. He wasn’t ready for heavy plate yet, certainly not for his normal netherite.
He watched Dream throwing himself over the bars and lunging toward the posts. Jumping on the beams and bricks and hurling forward and then starting again. And then he saw him stumble. He saw his legs shake and his body fall.
Sam had gotten to him first. Holding him and coaching him through breathing and holding his head back to keep his airways open. Talking to him even when it looked like Dream fainted for a moment or two in between.
He’d listened to the lecture. He’d listened to Sam telling Dream they were going to wait for a while before he allowed him back out to train. He’d expected a fight. He’d expected resistance from his knight. But instead Dream had relented and nodded into Sam’s shoulder.
Six months became nine.
Dream was wearing his armor again. He was kneeling to the throne. Their King and Queen sitting comfortably in the throne and George standing beside them. Tommy didn’t miss the way their Prince stared at Dream. He didn’t miss how he was watching him like a hawk or how he was visibly stopping himself from going out to be beside him on the floor.
Dream asked them for permission to fight. To leave Sam in charge of the royal guard at the palace and dispatch himself to their Frontlines in the West and fight. To bring an end to their war that he had yet to be with.
Tommy heard them decline. He heard them give the reason that Dream was still recovering. That he still couldn’t hold his axe as he had just yet and that they wouldn’t risk him if he wasn’t ready yet.
They didn’t think he was ready.
When Tommy found Dream training in the middle of the night that night he didn’t say a word. Simply picked up a sword and worked quietly beside him.
Nine months turned to twelve.
Tommy was sixteen. Sixteen and he was fighting against his knight again in the yard. This time Dream with his axe and Tommy borrowing one of Techno’s old ones. He’d called it the Axe of Peace when he used it in the war. A weapon to go right against the Nightmare blade.
They’d been at it for almost an hour now. Dream had yet to falter once. His hits were hard and they were heavy. Tommy had just made himself enough to learn to block them. Putting up a good fight but he was starting to give way and Dream wasn’t slowing down. Not until Techno came up to them and asked if Dream thought he was ready for a real test.
If Tommy wasn’t giddy to watch two of the coolest knights fight each other he would have been insulted.
Instead he’d handed Techno the axe. He’d watched Dream tighten his armor on himself. It wasn’t that it was loose before, it was his way of making his moves more restricted. His way of keeping himself in place. Making it more difficult.
It was a test. One that Tommy could see through so plainly it had him looking for Tubbo and Ranboo so that the three of them could team up against Dream at dinner later and make sure he actually rested himself.
The images of him almost dead in the infirmary were still too fresh. Even a year they were too fresh. He didn’t want to see Dream bloodied like that for as long as he lived. He had the feeling if his knight got the things he wanted that he wasn’t going to get that wish.
Dream would say it’s because wishes are magic. That magic isn’t real.
Tommy would call him an idiot.
He watched them trade strikes back and forth. Block and parry and footwork that was getting faster by the moment. He would be concerned if he didn’t know how well trained the both of them were.
The heroes of the Front of Fronts. The two knights who ended the war. One, Tommy’s hero. The other, a knight from the very same town as him. A knight he’d aspired to be like.
Rivals that were friends who would do anything to protect the other. Techno wasn’t even a knight anymore but he still drew a crowd when others realized what spar was happening in the yard. They weren’t holding back with each other.
As much as Dream was trying to test himself Techno was testing him back. All of them knew what would happen the moment Dream knew he could do it again. He was going to put another request to go fight in their current war. He was going to throw himself into battle.
He was going to leave him.
The axe blades made a screech against each other. Curves latching and hooking and for a moment the crowd watching them stilled. It was a draw. Their weapons were locked. But then Dream was spinning. Using Nightmare’s momentum and weight to push the Axe of Peace to the ground. Turning and moving over the handles of them like they weren’t even there. Ripping the weapon from Techno’s hands and using Nightmare as a support as he did it.
Both of them were panting. Staring at each other with enough battle heat in their eyes that if someone didn’t know they were friends they would believe it was a real fight meant to kill. Despite Dream’s face being masked Tommy could still see it in him. In his shoulders. In the way he held himself. In the way he gripped the shaft of his axe like he was ready to swing her back up.
And then they laughed.
“Well done.”
“You’re just sloppy.”
“I’m retired, I can be whatever I want.”
There were people who thought that he’d retired because he was tired of following the rules of a knight. That thought he left his knighthood because he was tired of the rules and regulations and obeying the code. That he was just wanting to carve without mercy into their enemies and their crown wouldn’t allow it.
Everyone in the palace knew otherwise. They all knew that he’d left because of the bloodshed. Because of the killing. Because he didn’t want his hands to be more stained than they already were.
Tommy let his eyes go back to Dream’s hands. Gloved and holding tightly to Nightmare.
Hands stained in blood no matter how much he tried to get clean.
He squeezed his hands into fists. He felt the stains in his own palms. He felt the itch beneath his skin. It wouldn’t matter how much he scrubbed it away. It always came back.
The sounds of horns stopped anymore banter before it could come. Almost immediately they were all turning back towards the gates and seeing the group of soldiers and knights coming back in. Almost immediately Dream was running to them.
Punz and Sapnap were home.
Ranboo and Tubbo barreled into them first. Clinging onto the two with such tight hugs that it almost looked like neither of them could breathe. When they pulled away Punz started coughing. Shaking his head and gesturing to Sapnap to explain when all of them looked at him with concern.
“He’s fine. There’s just, we found out some stuff.”
“Stuff?”
He almost couldn’t tell from his voice that Dream had been fighting for so long just moments before. It made pride well in Tommy’s chest.
“I’d rather give the report once. To all of you.”
Tommy watched Dream nod. He watched him clench his fists and he heard the creak of the leather under the grip. He heard Techno’s huff.
“I’ll go find George.”
The light that glittered in through the windows to the throne room was beautiful. It was one of Dream’s favorite things in the palace. When he would be stood behind George for meetings, listening to his Prince and lover debate and discuss with nobility that were far too snobbish for his tastes, he would watch the light. He would watch the way it turned and dimmed as the clouds in the sky passed over the sun. How it would shimmer in reflections off something outside in the yard. How it would show the beauty of things even when the words or events inside the room were anything but.
This was where their war started. This was where they gave larger reports. Reports that would change how they moved forward. Reports that would modify what they did to try to win and live.
He was trying to keep his nerves at bay but he knew he wasn’t really succeeding by the way Tommy kept sending him looks. The boy had barely left his side in the last year but Dream was fine. His wounds were healed. They were nothing but scars if he ignored the way they ached sometimes. He was okay if he ignored the panic he sometimes got if he was handed a glass of water. Ignoring the nightmares he had that left him choking and sobbing into George’s arms begging him not to let go. Ignoring the dizzy spells. Ignoring—
“The West has a fucking arena.”
Dream almost felt his heart stop.
The confusion that broke out in the room was immediate. Sapnap and Punz both looked stressed. They were in their battle armor still, they were dirty and scuffed and while Dream couldn't’ see any visible wounds on either of them it still didn’t stop him from worrying. He could see Sam and Bad both reacting to the news as well. If he pulled his three squires closer to him then that was his own business.
“What do you mean an arena?”
George’s parents had been doing their best to guide them through this war but the things that were happening were things that had never happened before in the Compass. The West and the South allied against Central and East. The North maintaining a silence that left them all feeling slightly sick.
Dream pretended that he didn’t get letters from the Northern Lead in the same batches George got letters from Princess Hannah. He pretended that the letters he got were nothing but statistics that were of no importance. Not that the Northern Princess and her Lead were sending silent and secret aid against what the rest of their Kingdom thought.
“Punz got in close to a group of them. Before we took them down we heard them talking about an arena. Some ‘Devil Knight’ or whatever they called him is in charge of it. A fighting ring.”
“Why would they—”
“It’s where they’re taking their prisoners of war.” Dream felt his stomach drop. “They’re forcing them to fight in the arena.”
Dream wondered if there was laced water like what was given to him. He wondered if the prisoners had a choice. If they had any will left to go against the commands. He wondered if that was where he was meant to be right now. If he was meant to be their Devil. He wondered what poor person had been sacrificed to be given that title.
“There’s more.”
Punz’s hesitance made Dream feel worse.
“When we took the camp we found alchemy books. We think that they’re trying to make something.”
Dream didn’t believe in magic. He stubbornly and wholeheartedly refused to believe in magic or any of the supernatural. Despite the East being their current allies and their past enemies. Despite the fact that they were known for ‘mystic’ abilities. Dream didn’t believe.
But alchemy was a science, not a magic. If he was remembering his history correctly then the nation that the West had been created from was fond of alchemy. They’d even had a set of knights specifically trained for weaponizing it.
If the West was starting to do the same thing, there wasn’t going to be a way to defend against it. Not right now at least.
Not unless they stopped them from progressing with their goal.
Not unless something changed the rules of the fight. Unless they got the one thing they were afraid of.
“Do you have any idea what they’re trying to make?”
“No idea, could be a stronger metal for armor. Could be some kind of mutated weapon. There wasn’t enough there for us to really be able to tell.”
The thoughts nearly made him shudder. He could see that George was looking at him. He could read the worry clear on his face. But the only thing Dream could think of at the moment was if it was meant to be him. If that was the goal the first time. If he was going to have to do it again.
But then Tommy moved. Tubbo and Ranboo were shifting beside him and he looked at his squires and he knew that it didn’t matter. That the only thing that mattered to him was keeping them safe. Protecting them and making sure that they made it through this.
They’d grown up in the war with the East. They’d grown up watching him fight and calling him a hero for the murder he committed. They called him good when he only ever saw his actions as that of a monster. They were going to throw themselves into ruin if they thought it would protect him. It wasn’t their job to protect him.
They’d done it for a year.
It was his turn to repay that favor. His turn to bring them back their peace that they never should have lost.
“When the next deployment leaves I want to go with them.”
He expected the refusal. He expected the vehement denials. He didn’t expect his squires to press closer and tell him they were going too.
“Where you go, we go.”
He’d barely opened his mouth to tell them no when his Prince did it for them.
“Absolutely not.”
“George—” It wasn’t a formal meeting. He didn’t need to call him Highness. He could use his name. “Please just—”
“You need to stay here and lead the palace knights.”
“Sam can handle that.”
He knew he was throwing his former knight under fire with that comment but he also knew that Sam wouldn’t mind. When Dream was away or busy or hurt or anything else it was Sam who took care of things. He was Lead before Dream. He could be Lead when he wasn’t there.
“He’s been doing fine at it already while I recovered—”
“And you’re still recovering—”
“I won against Techno in the yard today.”
All of them knew how important of a mark that was. Aside from Dream himself Techno was one of the strongest fighters in the entire Central army. He was the one that struck fear into the heart of the war before Dream made it to the Fronts. He was the one who got himself titles as The Blood God before Dream had even been knighted. To win against him again felt good.
It was also the proof he needed to show them all that he was okay again. That they didn’t need to be so worried about him all the time. That he could manage things on his own and that he wouldn’t just randomly die on them.
He’d scared them.
Entire days of his recovery that he couldn’t remember, Dream knew he’d scared them. But his family were all here and they’d all survived it.
They could survive this too. Dream just needed to make sure that it ended. He needed to make sure he put a stop to it like he intended to. He needed to make sure no one else was hurt by the West like he’d been. That no other knight would need to suffer the way the rest of them had.
He needed to end this or he was never going to feel like it was over.
He was never going to be free from war. He was never going to be free from the fight. He was never going to be able to see peace like it was truly peace if he was only waiting for the next betrayal. If he was just waiting for the next knife to appear or poison to lace a cup. If he was waiting for a member of his found family to be hurt or worse. If he was waiting with the image of graves haunting the back of his mind.
“Dream—”
“I can do it.”
“If you go, Dream, we’re coming with you.”
Tubbo’s voice left no room for doubt. He could see the certainty on Ranboo and Tommy’s faces. He could see the three of them fully ready to run into a war beside him.
They were the only reason he felt himself hesitating.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
The words from George snapped his heart in half. Looking back to his lover Dream felt himself melt instantly. The worry in his eyes. The way he was holding himself like he was trying not to race to him. The way that he looked at him with love so scared that it made Dream want to run and hold him in his arms and never let go.
“The faster I go,” He didn’t want to leave him either. “The faster I come home to you.”
It was like the promise he’d given at the start of the war. A promise to come home. A promise to come back.
A promise to love him that hung around his neck beneath the heart of his chestplate. A promise he fully intended to keep.
“Let me fight to come home to you?”
He wouldn’t go without their permission. He wouldn’t go without George telling him it was okay and all of them knew it.
Maybe that was why he saw heartache in George’s face when he nodded his head.
“Come home.” He heard the tears in his voice. “That’s an order.”
Dream bowed his head. He lowered himself to a knee. He placed his hand over his heart. Over his promise.
“I swear it.”