[Legend of Sun Knight] fic: Bittersweet Sweetness Part 9
Title: Bittersweet Sweetness Part 9
Fandom: The Legend of Sun Knight
Words: 1,738
Summary: Instead of receiving a brooch that dresses him in an assassin's clothes, Sun receives a trinket that switches his consciousness around with Judgment's. Now, Judgment must find out the mystery behind the Death Knight in Sun's stead. Problem is, imitating Sun's poor swordsmanship is no easy feat, and who knew what Sun was doing with Judgment's body in the meantime? Alternate telling of the end of volume 1 of the novels.
Notes: Some notes at the end. ;)
Previous Part
Part 9 - Judgment
Our walk back to the Holy Temple was no short walk, giving me plenty of time to “talk” with Grisia. We walked at a snail's pace as he supported me. His support was the only thing that was keeping me upright after my adrenaline from battle had faded, leaving me exhausted and aching. Even though it was a rare sight to see the Judgment Knight supporting the Sun Knight, my current state of appearance would be explanation enough for everyone to keep their thoughts to themselves.
After a bout of silence, I opened my mouth to break the standstill.
“I'm sorry-” We both ended up saying at the same time.
We were such a priceless pair.
“What for?” He asked in bewilderment, in a tone I didn't often hear from myself.
“For getting injured so heavily,” I replied right away. For being unable to prevent you from having to go against your friend, I added silently to myself.
I glanced at him just in time to see him roll his eyes. He'd understood what I meant by "getting injured". “You forget that I'm like a cockroach that'll never die. Stab me a few times and I'll come bouncing right back after a single day of rest. Ugh, I can't believe I called myself a cockroach.”
I smiled at his frank words, though I'd never liked how at ease he was about getting hurt. He was letting it become a habit. What if one day he took it too far, being too assured that he would be able to recover? “And you're apologizing for...?”
Since he currently had one of my arms draped over his shoulders and one of his arms around my waist to support me, I easily felt it when his shoulders tensed. “For...this,” he mumbled, but I'd heard him loudly and clearly.
“Ah,” I replied. “It is problematic. How did this come about anyway?” I had been about to drink a cup of much needed tea when I got whisked away from my room. Merely thinking about it was making me yearn for a cup of tea at this very moment. I think I would have been more exasperated about this entire situation if I'd run into Grisia earlier, but now I was more tired than anything, both from the drawn out battle that had resulted in my injuries, and from being confronted by an old friend of Grisia's.
"It's because you didn't-" Grisia started in a defensive tone before pausing, his sentence dangling in the air.
"I didn't what?" I asked, not believing for a second that Grisia could keep whatever complaint that was on the tip of his tongue to himself.
He sucked in a deep breath before forging on. "Because you didn't trust me! I wanted to find evidence to prove you wrong." In a guiltier voice, he added, "Pink said she had something that could help me investigate. I know I was wrong to accept, okay? But it wasn't entirely my fault. She threw the dratted thing at me!"
I let his words wash over me, not quite sure what I should be feeling. Should I feel angry that he was trying to blame me? Or guilty for making him think I didn't trust him? No, perhaps I should be feeling stupid for letting something like this happen, or even pleased that he thought so much of me that I was his motivation more than clearing his name? I didn't know what I was feeling, just that Grisia always made me feel too many emotions all at once.
The most prominent one at the moment was this stinging feeling in my heart.
"There is no one I trust more than you," I said quietly.
"...I know," he replied in an equally soft voice. "I'm sorry."
We left it at that.
After a short moment, Grisia cleared his throat and asked, “Did you meet Pink?”
“Yes,” I answered, recalling the devious little girl who had been utterly delighted at our switch. She was not someone I would normally choose to associate with, but at least she hadn't lied to me. Grisia's explanation matched what she had told me.
“What did she say?” asked Grisia slowly, as if he didn't want to find out.
“Time limit is three hours," I explained. "But she doesn't know if we'll switch back automatically after that.”
“Three hours, huh...isn't it past two hours already? Then we should be switching back soon."
I nodded. “Let's head somewhere to wait it out.”
We fell silent after that. Even though we had been talking in quiet tones, our conversation wasn't fit for the public. It was late, so we hadn't come across that many stragglers, or else we'd have needed to put on a show. As it went, we merely spoke quietly to prevent our conversation from drifting over to unwanted ears.
Since I was the one who was injured, Grisia walked me towards his room so that "Sun" could rest. We almost made it without running into any obstacles, but when we reached the corridor that led to Grisia's room, we got stopped by the person most likely to realize something was off about us.
"Captain!" I heard a male voice gasp. "Are you okay?"
Slowly, I looked up at who had stopped us. There, in our path, stood Adair, Sun's capable vice-captain. He was looking at us intently, eyes darting between me and Grisia. I glanced at Grisia too. He looked like he was bursting to say something to Adair, no doubt because he so heavily relied on Adair to clean up his messes on a daily basis.
"Adair," I greeted with a smile. I needed him to do something, so Grisia would have to save his words for later. I had promised Blaze that I'd send him help. "Our brothers are on patrol tonight because a Death Lord is loose in the city. See to it that the Sun Knight Platoon lends their help to the Blaze Knight Platoon, the Ice Knight Platoon, and the Judgment Knight Platoon."
"Understood, Captain," Adair said, leaving right away, no questions asked. His eyes had merely widened when I mentioned "Death Lord", but that was it. Grisia had often told me that he had Adair trained well. I could see what he meant.
"Oh, and Adair," I said before he walked too far. "Take a select few platoon members and shadow Jacques."
Adair stopped and looked at me, really looked at me, before he nodded and left. I wondered why until Grisia enlightened me and reminded me of just how well Adair knew his captain.
"Who's Jacques?" Grisia asked when Adair disappeared from view.
"...the third son of Baron Gerland," I replied.
"Oh!" Grisia exclaimed. "The bastard who threw his sword at me!"
I shook my head at how I had let myself slip in front of Adair just like that. I thought it wouldn't hurt not to go the full length with imitating Grisia's speech since we were quite alone in the corridors, but even merely mentioning a name was enough to raise Adair's suspicions. If Grisia couldn't even get the majority of the Twelve Holy Knights' names right, then Jacques had stood no chance before this, though now his name would be forever engraved on Grisia's list of offenders. Grisia held grudges for a very long time.
After that, we finally made it to Sun's room. Once we shut the door behind us, I collapsed into his bed, wondering if I should have actually accompanied Blaze and Ice to see the clerics myself.
"Minor Heal!" Grisia murmured, a warm, honey-colored healing light spreading across my chest and stomach. Before I could thank him, he actually started complaining and pouting. Pouting with my face! The image was incongruous… "Lesus, your holy magic sucks. I'm all out of holy magic now!"
I snorted.
"Grisia, you need to train more," I shot back.
Immediately, he fell silent, eyes wide. I continued to speak.
"You're a holy knight, Grisia. You need to have a better build."
"Hey, not everyone can be like you, Lesus!"
I rolled my eyes at him. "The difference is that I train while you don't train enough. When we switch back, you should go up to Adair and ask him to spar with you every day. Even better, you should join your platoon's practices more."
"Spar with Adair?" Grisia exclaimed. "Do you want me to die?"
I rolled my eyes at him some more.
As we waited for the time limit to pass, Grisia peeled my stained gloves from my hands and dunked them into a basin of water, the water immediately turning pink as blood washed out of the gloves. While he scrubbed, he kept complaining about how hard blood was to wash out, how I had it so much easier since my clothes were so black you can't even tell when they get dirty. I listened with only half of my attention, the other half focused on gathering up holy magic to cast a few more Minor Heals on myself. Even though I'd found Grisia's complaint about how my holy magic sucked to be ludicrous -- I wasn't a cleric, nor did I belong to the "warm, good faction" of holy knights -- Grisia's reserve of holy magic was truly impressive. My reserves, although not bad for someone from the "cold, cruel-hearted faction", far paled in comparison with Grisia's.
After Grisia finished scrubbing his gloves and I'd changed into some fresh clothes so that Grisia could now scrub his blood-stained clothes instead, we were still...not ourselves.
I watched Grisia scrub his cloak and his jacket, soap bubbles clinging onto his arms. A dab of it was even on his face. Or well, my face. It made for a strange sight, the Judgment Knight busy scrubbing clothes in the Sun Knight's room. The clothes had a large tear in the midsection where I'd been injured the heaviest, but knowing Grisia and his stinginess with money, he definitely wasn't going to toss his clothes away. An additional ruffle would probably be enough to cover the rip.
"Has it been three hours yet?" Grisia asked impatiently, wiping his face with the back of his hand. More soap bubbles ended up on his cheek.
I sighed and nodded, golden hair falling into my vision in my movement.
"Great," Grisia muttered under his breath sarcastically. "Damn that Pink!"
I was inclined to agree.
-----
to be continued
C-Conversations! Not my strong forte.
Haha...Judgment's sections can become massive too. I was aiming for around 1,200 words, which is what I had before I "edited", but I must have spent too much time editing this part. More stuff always seems to happen when Judgment narrates, and more time passes, while Sun just goes off on tangents with his own thoughts. Perhaps this would have worked better as several separate parts! I was tempted to pull away and just have Judgment summarize some happenings, but I ended up writing all of it out.
Next Part
Fandom: The Legend of Sun Knight
Words: 1,738
Summary: Instead of receiving a brooch that dresses him in an assassin's clothes, Sun receives a trinket that switches his consciousness around with Judgment's. Now, Judgment must find out the mystery behind the Death Knight in Sun's stead. Problem is, imitating Sun's poor swordsmanship is no easy feat, and who knew what Sun was doing with Judgment's body in the meantime? Alternate telling of the end of volume 1 of the novels.
Notes: Some notes at the end. ;)
Previous Part
Part 9 - Judgment
Our walk back to the Holy Temple was no short walk, giving me plenty of time to “talk” with Grisia. We walked at a snail's pace as he supported me. His support was the only thing that was keeping me upright after my adrenaline from battle had faded, leaving me exhausted and aching. Even though it was a rare sight to see the Judgment Knight supporting the Sun Knight, my current state of appearance would be explanation enough for everyone to keep their thoughts to themselves.
After a bout of silence, I opened my mouth to break the standstill.
“I'm sorry-” We both ended up saying at the same time.
We were such a priceless pair.
“What for?” He asked in bewilderment, in a tone I didn't often hear from myself.
“For getting injured so heavily,” I replied right away. For being unable to prevent you from having to go against your friend, I added silently to myself.
I glanced at him just in time to see him roll his eyes. He'd understood what I meant by "getting injured". “You forget that I'm like a cockroach that'll never die. Stab me a few times and I'll come bouncing right back after a single day of rest. Ugh, I can't believe I called myself a cockroach.”
I smiled at his frank words, though I'd never liked how at ease he was about getting hurt. He was letting it become a habit. What if one day he took it too far, being too assured that he would be able to recover? “And you're apologizing for...?”
Since he currently had one of my arms draped over his shoulders and one of his arms around my waist to support me, I easily felt it when his shoulders tensed. “For...this,” he mumbled, but I'd heard him loudly and clearly.
“Ah,” I replied. “It is problematic. How did this come about anyway?” I had been about to drink a cup of much needed tea when I got whisked away from my room. Merely thinking about it was making me yearn for a cup of tea at this very moment. I think I would have been more exasperated about this entire situation if I'd run into Grisia earlier, but now I was more tired than anything, both from the drawn out battle that had resulted in my injuries, and from being confronted by an old friend of Grisia's.
"It's because you didn't-" Grisia started in a defensive tone before pausing, his sentence dangling in the air.
"I didn't what?" I asked, not believing for a second that Grisia could keep whatever complaint that was on the tip of his tongue to himself.
He sucked in a deep breath before forging on. "Because you didn't trust me! I wanted to find evidence to prove you wrong." In a guiltier voice, he added, "Pink said she had something that could help me investigate. I know I was wrong to accept, okay? But it wasn't entirely my fault. She threw the dratted thing at me!"
I let his words wash over me, not quite sure what I should be feeling. Should I feel angry that he was trying to blame me? Or guilty for making him think I didn't trust him? No, perhaps I should be feeling stupid for letting something like this happen, or even pleased that he thought so much of me that I was his motivation more than clearing his name? I didn't know what I was feeling, just that Grisia always made me feel too many emotions all at once.
The most prominent one at the moment was this stinging feeling in my heart.
"There is no one I trust more than you," I said quietly.
"...I know," he replied in an equally soft voice. "I'm sorry."
We left it at that.
After a short moment, Grisia cleared his throat and asked, “Did you meet Pink?”
“Yes,” I answered, recalling the devious little girl who had been utterly delighted at our switch. She was not someone I would normally choose to associate with, but at least she hadn't lied to me. Grisia's explanation matched what she had told me.
“What did she say?” asked Grisia slowly, as if he didn't want to find out.
“Time limit is three hours," I explained. "But she doesn't know if we'll switch back automatically after that.”
“Three hours, huh...isn't it past two hours already? Then we should be switching back soon."
I nodded. “Let's head somewhere to wait it out.”
We fell silent after that. Even though we had been talking in quiet tones, our conversation wasn't fit for the public. It was late, so we hadn't come across that many stragglers, or else we'd have needed to put on a show. As it went, we merely spoke quietly to prevent our conversation from drifting over to unwanted ears.
Since I was the one who was injured, Grisia walked me towards his room so that "Sun" could rest. We almost made it without running into any obstacles, but when we reached the corridor that led to Grisia's room, we got stopped by the person most likely to realize something was off about us.
"Captain!" I heard a male voice gasp. "Are you okay?"
Slowly, I looked up at who had stopped us. There, in our path, stood Adair, Sun's capable vice-captain. He was looking at us intently, eyes darting between me and Grisia. I glanced at Grisia too. He looked like he was bursting to say something to Adair, no doubt because he so heavily relied on Adair to clean up his messes on a daily basis.
"Adair," I greeted with a smile. I needed him to do something, so Grisia would have to save his words for later. I had promised Blaze that I'd send him help. "Our brothers are on patrol tonight because a Death Lord is loose in the city. See to it that the Sun Knight Platoon lends their help to the Blaze Knight Platoon, the Ice Knight Platoon, and the Judgment Knight Platoon."
"Understood, Captain," Adair said, leaving right away, no questions asked. His eyes had merely widened when I mentioned "Death Lord", but that was it. Grisia had often told me that he had Adair trained well. I could see what he meant.
"Oh, and Adair," I said before he walked too far. "Take a select few platoon members and shadow Jacques."
Adair stopped and looked at me, really looked at me, before he nodded and left. I wondered why until Grisia enlightened me and reminded me of just how well Adair knew his captain.
"Who's Jacques?" Grisia asked when Adair disappeared from view.
"...the third son of Baron Gerland," I replied.
"Oh!" Grisia exclaimed. "The bastard who threw his sword at me!"
I shook my head at how I had let myself slip in front of Adair just like that. I thought it wouldn't hurt not to go the full length with imitating Grisia's speech since we were quite alone in the corridors, but even merely mentioning a name was enough to raise Adair's suspicions. If Grisia couldn't even get the majority of the Twelve Holy Knights' names right, then Jacques had stood no chance before this, though now his name would be forever engraved on Grisia's list of offenders. Grisia held grudges for a very long time.
After that, we finally made it to Sun's room. Once we shut the door behind us, I collapsed into his bed, wondering if I should have actually accompanied Blaze and Ice to see the clerics myself.
"Minor Heal!" Grisia murmured, a warm, honey-colored healing light spreading across my chest and stomach. Before I could thank him, he actually started complaining and pouting. Pouting with my face! The image was incongruous… "Lesus, your holy magic sucks. I'm all out of holy magic now!"
I snorted.
"Grisia, you need to train more," I shot back.
Immediately, he fell silent, eyes wide. I continued to speak.
"You're a holy knight, Grisia. You need to have a better build."
"Hey, not everyone can be like you, Lesus!"
I rolled my eyes at him. "The difference is that I train while you don't train enough. When we switch back, you should go up to Adair and ask him to spar with you every day. Even better, you should join your platoon's practices more."
"Spar with Adair?" Grisia exclaimed. "Do you want me to die?"
I rolled my eyes at him some more.
As we waited for the time limit to pass, Grisia peeled my stained gloves from my hands and dunked them into a basin of water, the water immediately turning pink as blood washed out of the gloves. While he scrubbed, he kept complaining about how hard blood was to wash out, how I had it so much easier since my clothes were so black you can't even tell when they get dirty. I listened with only half of my attention, the other half focused on gathering up holy magic to cast a few more Minor Heals on myself. Even though I'd found Grisia's complaint about how my holy magic sucked to be ludicrous -- I wasn't a cleric, nor did I belong to the "warm, good faction" of holy knights -- Grisia's reserve of holy magic was truly impressive. My reserves, although not bad for someone from the "cold, cruel-hearted faction", far paled in comparison with Grisia's.
After Grisia finished scrubbing his gloves and I'd changed into some fresh clothes so that Grisia could now scrub his blood-stained clothes instead, we were still...not ourselves.
I watched Grisia scrub his cloak and his jacket, soap bubbles clinging onto his arms. A dab of it was even on his face. Or well, my face. It made for a strange sight, the Judgment Knight busy scrubbing clothes in the Sun Knight's room. The clothes had a large tear in the midsection where I'd been injured the heaviest, but knowing Grisia and his stinginess with money, he definitely wasn't going to toss his clothes away. An additional ruffle would probably be enough to cover the rip.
"Has it been three hours yet?" Grisia asked impatiently, wiping his face with the back of his hand. More soap bubbles ended up on his cheek.
I sighed and nodded, golden hair falling into my vision in my movement.
"Great," Grisia muttered under his breath sarcastically. "Damn that Pink!"
I was inclined to agree.
-----
to be continued
C-Conversations! Not my strong forte.
Haha...Judgment's sections can become massive too. I was aiming for around 1,200 words, which is what I had before I "edited", but I must have spent too much time editing this part. More stuff always seems to happen when Judgment narrates, and more time passes, while Sun just goes off on tangents with his own thoughts. Perhaps this would have worked better as several separate parts! I was tempted to pull away and just have Judgment summarize some happenings, but I ended up writing all of it out.
Next Part