Work Text:
Dammon is in love. It’s as simple as that.
He isn’t unfamiliar with the feeling, not in the slightest: there were people in his youth, shy smiles and blushes where the master smith wasn’t looking, quiet trips to the shed behind the forge and small hours of the night spent in hay that smelled of embraces. There were apples, he remembers: ripe and flushed with youth, lined neatly in a row on the old ladder’s steps. They weren’t meant for the apprentices to taste – and yet they would anyway. He would share them with his sweethearts, split the core in half and lick the juice off of the eager fingers. The tartness of apples mixed with the sweetness of thievery, both forbidden and all the better to taste together.
Young love is a stolen apple. But this is different.
“Hey, this one calls my name!”
Karlach reaches for a longsword hanging on a rack and he just sighs: it is not unusual for people to touch his merchandise without asking. The smith within him, the true student of his master, screams – begs – then turns away muttering grumpily about the dents and dings and two weeks of work hanging on a thread. He can’t listen. It’s Karlach. She can do whatever she wants.
She swings the weapon over her head, broad strokes of someone experienced with the blade. Her biceps are bared and the sun kisses them to its heart's content; they flex every time she moves her arms, her body taut, bending and twisting. Strong legs stomp the ground, fierce, fighting the foe nobody can see. She leaps, she crouches, she laughs: he watches.
Then she stops, breathless in laughter. A small pearl of sweat wanders down her collarbone, leaving a glistening trace on heated skin, deftly avoiding the overwhelming swelter of her forge-made heart. It ventures lower and lower – then disappears from view. Still, he observes its journey. He remembers the juices of a stolen apple.
Ripe and flushed with youth.
“Enjoying the view, smith?” she shoots him a cheeky grin, the blade clinging against the rack as she puts it back where it belongs. He tilts his head to the side, then extends a welcoming hand. Nothing is forbidden when youth passes – and the chambers of his rented house, with lock and key and soft sheets, are better than the needles of hay.
He lets himself taste openly, foregoing the thieving ways of the past; Karlach doesn’t need permission – she can do whatever she wants and does exactly that, hands guiding and demanding, heated skin waiting for him to trace the memories of the sun. Her question, however, remains unanswered.
*
Somewhere beyond the bridges and veils, there is another world.
There is a peaceful ending without fire and devastation; no revenge worthy of losing a life, no tragedy cutting the thread short. The universe calms with a sigh after the final scream of pain and the new reality is born, not in the slightest more beautiful or wondrous than the one that came before it, but altogether more hopeful. The wind blows gently as the cities are rebuilt, the last torn pieces of shroud riding its tail before leaving forever. The groves and forest enclaves bloom, moss and fern covering the transgressions with forgiveness green as emeralds. The gates are wide open and people walk through them without fear; steel strengthens the hearts of machines meant for healing and mending, the grim past already forgotten.
In this new world, Dammon is in love. And love smells like an apple tree.
There is a garden in the house they call their own, a patch of dirt neatly outlined with rocks and pebbles. Rows upon rows, things grow and bloom, and bear fruit: blushing apples reach maturity to be plucked and eaten, and seeds are buried deep in the soil to repeat the cycle. There is Karlach, biting into the fruit, bridging the gap between what’s real and what’s dreamt of: she has hay in her hair, but her smile is never shy.
Under the blue sky, clouds heavy with rain, or pale promise of snow – the hearth is warm and the heart ripens.
Somewhere beyond the bridges and veils, there is another world. But it’s not here.
*
In this world, the world that is breaking still, she plants apple seeds in empty cups she finds in his cupboard.
“It’s not like we need so many,” she argues when he sends her a quizzical look. “You never have guests over anyway.”
One by one, she covers them with fistfuls of soil, dark grains painting her hands black. The floor is blackened, the earthy, rich scent fills the room.
Broken circles of dirt under her fingernails. Splotches of mud on her clothes and her forehead. The orchard opens under a roof that isn’t theirs.
The seeds won’t grow. You can’t plant an apple tree in a teacup.
But she wants to leave something – for him, for herself, for the world to remember.
In the evening when she leaves the smithy, he moves the seeds carefully to the more welcoming soil. In the corner of the park, covered in darkness like a thief, he digs barehanded to honour her dedication. The memories fall from the cups, one seed after another, into the hollows in the ground.
He buries them in silence and silence tastes bitter.
*
Unripe apples rest by the crumbling hearth.
In the broken chambers of what could have become home, Dammon gathers his belongings. Then, he leaves without farewell.
The streets are covered in pale ashes, looking festive, almost magical: winter solstice of a different kind, bringing decay to the city walls while nature remains wide awake. Caps of white and grey over the palisades, speckles dancing in the air like snowflakes. Whitened heads among the rubble. Soot resting on eyelashes, lids fluttering. Snow angels outlined in the There is little difference between the bite of frost and the burn of cinders. There is little difference between snow and fire, his memory tells him.
He passes by the town square, eerily quiet in its ruination, with merchant stalls crushed by crumbling blocks of stone fallen off the keep’s towers. The hurricane, unnaturally strong, tore the cobblestone road apart – people around him wobble awkwardly around, hop-frog leaping like children crossing the stream, slipping on the half-frozen mud between the banks of the street. He walks slowly, feet taking measured steps no matter the surface they walk on. The broken road bleeds into the dirt and sand of the footworn path; they both disappear when the blades of grass grow taller. He leaves the city behind. The woods speak nothing of the tragedy.
Snow or fire, in the end there is only dust of the road to be walked, a dagger at the belt and a knife in the pocket. Horns of a bison, a tail with a sharp spade, a tongue that may or may not be forked; the devil walks an earthly path, the human seeks the path to Hells. There are no lost children in the woods, tiny feet leaving prints in moss and mud – and yet he hears their laughter all the same. Where does the soul go, he wonders as his boots stomp the ground rhythmically, never stopping, the echo reminding him of the clop of hooves. Maybe it follows the water veins, twisted, entangled paths underground, leading to the seas beyond.
Astral Sea. The river Styx.
He can’t swim the Astral Sea. He can’t cross the river Styx. But he has his hands, strong and sinewy, his hammer, a handful of tacks.
Bridges are meant to be built, rivers conquered, and seas parted if the conviction is strong enough. You can do anything with a pair of strong hands. He chops the twigs off of the lowest tree branches and lets his feet follow wherever the wood falls; sprig after sprig, the plank is formed, leading him in the direction he dares not ponder.
Dammon is in love. And to be in love means to forego the scent of hay, warm like an embrace, forget the youthful charm of blushes and shy smiles. To be in love means to suffer the pain of paths trodden barefoot and snow-like ash falling on your head; to drink courage instead of water and feed on conviction like fresh bread, and reach the borders of the world where the devastation of the ruined cities gives way to steady indifference of the inferno.
Seeds, unearthed in haste, rest against his chest in a pouch. He may not know it, but sprouts are budding out of them, green and full of hope.
His unripe apples rest by the hearth, never to be tasted. But a new tree can be planted under the red sky. And the fruit stolen from the mortal plane will taste all the sweeter.
Dammon walks and walks, and then walks some more until there is nothing but the road ahead, the crack of twigs breaking under his hooves, and a new tree twining slowly around his heart. Somewhere out there, beyond the bridges and veils, Karlach is waiting, ready to bite into a blushing apple.