[Legend of Sun Knight] fic: Bittersweet Sweetness Part 21
Title: Bittersweet Sweetness Part 21
Fandom: The Legend of Sun Knight
Words: 1,851
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: This was originally supposed to be from Grisia's POV and was slated to be part 18... haha, that didn't work out at all! *rewrites*
Previous Part
Part 21 - Judgment
Grisia was still complaining about his sandwich when we made our way out of the Holy Temple. We donned our cloaks as we left. Thankfully, we met no one else on our way out, or else many people would have dropped in fright at the Judgment Knight's sudden fascination with sandwiches.
"So you told Adair?" I asked as I pulled my hood up. I paid extra attention to tucking away the golden strands that threatened to escape from my hood. They stood out a lot.
My words immediately shut Grisia up. I glanced over at him, curious at his sudden silence, but his hood hid his face too well for me to see his expression, his dark hair blending right in with his cloak. However, his tone told me all that I needed to know.
"It wasn't just me, okay? You slipped up too in front of him!" he exclaimed, voice rising until even my normally deep baritone sounded quite high pitched in his indignation. I did not even know my voice could go that high.
I breathed out and looked up at the afternoon sky. The sun is still high up. We should be able to get back before nightfall if we don't dally. "I'm not blaming you," I said, attention still on the sun, "I think it's a good idea, actually."
With how perceptive Adair was, it would have been monumental not to slip up in front of him. Still, a single day had been all it took for us to trigger Adair's suspicions and for Grisia to change his mind about not telling anyone. That was far too short a time.
I had also confused Vidar greatly, but given how I had tried to avert his suspicions with that horrendous nickname... I did not want to reveal the true situation in front of him anymore unless completely necessary. He was a good vice-captain, but he was much more rigid in his thinking than Adair, and his admiration for me could be said to be even greater than the admiration Adair held for his captain. He had certain expectations of me that I did not want to let down.
That included letting him know that I was the one who had called him such an appalling nickname.
I placed my hand on the Divine Sun Sword. Now that Adair knew what was going on, I could even approach him about Sun's training. I meant it when I said that Sun needed to spar more. Lifting a sword shouldn't feel all that taxing, yet I had felt muscles straining when I fought in Sun's body. He really didn't have the right muscles even though he was supposed to be a holy knight.
"Since Adair knows about us now, he can even train with me while we're stuck," I explained when Grisia turned toward me inquisitively. I hoped, however, that we would not be stuck for much longer. I didn't have many candidates I could spar with since everyone would be in too much shock over "Sun's" sudden skill with a sword to spar with me, but thankfully Adair was one of the best swordsmen in the Holy Temple.
"Hah, I knew it would be a good idea to tell Adair!" Grisia boasted, immediately changing his tune.
"This is why I wanted to tell everyone from the start. You know they could actually help us," I said plainly. We didn't need to tell the general public, but the Twelve Holy Knights could have lent a hand, and they had the right to know.
"No!" Grisia protested right away. "Adair is Adair, but everyone else... I don't want them to find out!"
I thought he would say that, so I didn't press the matter further. Despite how Grisia always appeared like he was fooling around and making people's lives miserable -- well, he actually was fooling around and making people's lives miserable -- but part of that was also because he didn't like involving others or telling them what was going on. If he could keep you ignorant, he would, and you'd be none the wiser about what was going on behind the scenes...until he returned injured. That always frustrated me.
This was why I had never been so glad for this untimely switch of ours. If nothing else, it made it so that Grisia had to accept my help and keep me in the fold.
Our first destination was the popular sweets shop Grisia always asked me to frequent for him. He always went on about how only the Judgment Knight could terrify the crowd enough to buy blueberry desserts without waiting in the ridiculously long lines. I didn't believe in cutting in line, but the lines always parted for me whenever I visited, and with how frequently I visited, I couldn't say that they didn't save me a lot time by doing that. Today, we decided to pay a visit to Grisia's favorite shop so that we could buy some lollipops to, in Grisia's words, "bribe" Pink. It was either lollipops or shaved ice from none other than Ecilan, but as we had already left the Holy Temple, and it had taken us quite some effort to do that, we settled on buying strawberry lollipops.
However, I thought that Grisia probably just wanted to try intimidating the crowd at the shop himself. He had looked positively delighted when he suggested buying lollipops, like a child let loose in a... well, we actually were visiting a sweets shop. I could only shake my head at the completely foreign look of delight that Grisia had made with my face. Like many of Grisia's mannerisms ever since our switch, that expression had looked incongruous on my face, like it didn't belong. It was not an expression I usually allowed myself. In fact... do I even know how to make such an expression anymore? Have I ever?
On our way to the shop, I found the sight in the city to be eye-opening, and I knew it was exactly why the Holy Temple had been so empty. We had mobilized a lot more of our knights than usual, and now even the royal knights were patrolling with us, making for quite an impressive and an even slightly oppressive scene. We could have sent out even more knights to patrol the city, but as it was, I could already see citizens glancing furtively at the knights on patrol. It wasn't often that holy knights and royal knights patrolled side-by-side, uniforms contrasting sharply with each others'. Although we had not wanted to worry the citizens needlessly, a tense air had still settled over the city with the presence of all the knights.
With a death lord loose in the city, we could not afford to be anything but vigilant. I surmised that Roland, having only just ascended to death lord status, had retreated to bide his time yesterday evening. I did not think he would attack during the daytime when it was more difficult to hide and to gather the dark element, but once night fell...
We really could not anticipate when Roland might strike. His current silence was but a tenuous peace that could be broken at any moment in time, hence why Grisia and I wanted to lure him out on our terms. Ideally, we would have switched back before then, but if not, I would have to do my best to carry out Sun's part.
"Have you heard?" Someone exclaimed. "I heard that the Sun Knight tortured someone to death, causing that person to become a despicable death knight."
I did not turn in the direction of the voice, but I could already tell that this was a conversation Grisia did not need to hear. However, there was no shielding him, for these rumors were being spoken everywhere within the kingdom. Few could resist the possibility of learning something scandalous about the perfect Sun Knight. Many were even voicing opinions about how they'd known this was coming; the Sun Knight's rumored personality had always been too good to be true.
A gasp sounded. "No way? Our kind Sun Knight would never do that!"
Another voice chimed in. "The death knight must still be after the Sun Knight! Otherwise, why would royal knights be on patrol with holy knights? The king doesn't trust the Sun Knight!"
This time, an entire crowd gasped. Their gossip continued even after that. When the first voice had spoken, I saw Grisia flinch just the tiniest bit out of the corner of my eye. He then pushed past me, leaving me only the view of his back, but I immediately reached out and grabbed him by the arm to remind him of my presence.
"Calm down," I said, stopping him in his tracks.
Grisia blew air through his mouth, posture rigid. "I don't need to calm down. This is just ridiculous. How dare they gossip right in front of me! I'll show them!"
"You knew these rumors were around. It's nothing new," I said. We had both faced worse than this before, and we had both inherited generations worth of rumors from our predecessors. Normally, Grisia would have brushed this off.
"Yes, but that 'death knight' is Roland! I would never..." Grisia abruptly stopped and tugged his arm out of my grasp. I let him. "My reputation is going to be super hard to fix," he said instead.
I looked toward the twittering crowd and the knights on patrol as I said, "The rumors will fade in time. Besides, don't we have a plan for that?"
"If you say so... Let's just head to the store already," Grisia said.
I nodded. It was best if we continued on our way as soon as possible -- those knights looked like they wanted to come over to inspect us. We must look quite suspicious with our cloaks... If none of the knights thought us suspicious, I would need to question their training.
Ah, here they are, heading our way.
If I had been alone, I might have revealed myself, but I was together with Grisia. The Sun Knight and the Judgment Knight loitering around together? I don't even know what the public would make of that, and I don't want to know either.
We quickly got out of there.
When we reached the sweets shop, Grisia unleashed his bad mood on the unsuspecting customers. He walked right up to the front of the line, pushing past a long line of customers. When the man at the front of the line grabbed Grisia's shoulder in anger, Grisia merely turned and glared at the man.
"Got a problem?" Grisia asked in a deep and lethal voice, eyes narrowed. He hadn't taken his hood off -- it made him appear even more dangerous.
"N-No..." the man stuttered. He backed up, bumping into the person behind him. The person behind him even had to hold him up with how his legs no longer seemed to support him.
Right after that, Grisia turned toward the stunned shop owner and said, "Two strawberry lollipops."
The shop owner stared. "Y-You want lollipops, sir? S-Strawberry-flavored?"
"Hm? That's right," Grisia said. "Oh, and add a blueberry pie onto my order as well."
I wanted to put my face in my hand.
Should I be glad that Grisia hadn't taken his hood off?
-----
to be continued
Yes, you should be glad, Lesus. XD;;
Outtakes:
"Since Adair knows about us now..."
"What? You mean he knows about our relationship?"
"..."
Next Part
Fandom: The Legend of Sun Knight
Words: 1,851
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: This was originally supposed to be from Grisia's POV and was slated to be part 18... haha, that didn't work out at all! *rewrites*
Previous Part
Part 21 - Judgment
Grisia was still complaining about his sandwich when we made our way out of the Holy Temple. We donned our cloaks as we left. Thankfully, we met no one else on our way out, or else many people would have dropped in fright at the Judgment Knight's sudden fascination with sandwiches.
"So you told Adair?" I asked as I pulled my hood up. I paid extra attention to tucking away the golden strands that threatened to escape from my hood. They stood out a lot.
My words immediately shut Grisia up. I glanced over at him, curious at his sudden silence, but his hood hid his face too well for me to see his expression, his dark hair blending right in with his cloak. However, his tone told me all that I needed to know.
"It wasn't just me, okay? You slipped up too in front of him!" he exclaimed, voice rising until even my normally deep baritone sounded quite high pitched in his indignation. I did not even know my voice could go that high.
I breathed out and looked up at the afternoon sky. The sun is still high up. We should be able to get back before nightfall if we don't dally. "I'm not blaming you," I said, attention still on the sun, "I think it's a good idea, actually."
With how perceptive Adair was, it would have been monumental not to slip up in front of him. Still, a single day had been all it took for us to trigger Adair's suspicions and for Grisia to change his mind about not telling anyone. That was far too short a time.
I had also confused Vidar greatly, but given how I had tried to avert his suspicions with that horrendous nickname... I did not want to reveal the true situation in front of him anymore unless completely necessary. He was a good vice-captain, but he was much more rigid in his thinking than Adair, and his admiration for me could be said to be even greater than the admiration Adair held for his captain. He had certain expectations of me that I did not want to let down.
That included letting him know that I was the one who had called him such an appalling nickname.
I placed my hand on the Divine Sun Sword. Now that Adair knew what was going on, I could even approach him about Sun's training. I meant it when I said that Sun needed to spar more. Lifting a sword shouldn't feel all that taxing, yet I had felt muscles straining when I fought in Sun's body. He really didn't have the right muscles even though he was supposed to be a holy knight.
"Since Adair knows about us now, he can even train with me while we're stuck," I explained when Grisia turned toward me inquisitively. I hoped, however, that we would not be stuck for much longer. I didn't have many candidates I could spar with since everyone would be in too much shock over "Sun's" sudden skill with a sword to spar with me, but thankfully Adair was one of the best swordsmen in the Holy Temple.
"Hah, I knew it would be a good idea to tell Adair!" Grisia boasted, immediately changing his tune.
"This is why I wanted to tell everyone from the start. You know they could actually help us," I said plainly. We didn't need to tell the general public, but the Twelve Holy Knights could have lent a hand, and they had the right to know.
"No!" Grisia protested right away. "Adair is Adair, but everyone else... I don't want them to find out!"
I thought he would say that, so I didn't press the matter further. Despite how Grisia always appeared like he was fooling around and making people's lives miserable -- well, he actually was fooling around and making people's lives miserable -- but part of that was also because he didn't like involving others or telling them what was going on. If he could keep you ignorant, he would, and you'd be none the wiser about what was going on behind the scenes...until he returned injured. That always frustrated me.
This was why I had never been so glad for this untimely switch of ours. If nothing else, it made it so that Grisia had to accept my help and keep me in the fold.
Our first destination was the popular sweets shop Grisia always asked me to frequent for him. He always went on about how only the Judgment Knight could terrify the crowd enough to buy blueberry desserts without waiting in the ridiculously long lines. I didn't believe in cutting in line, but the lines always parted for me whenever I visited, and with how frequently I visited, I couldn't say that they didn't save me a lot time by doing that. Today, we decided to pay a visit to Grisia's favorite shop so that we could buy some lollipops to, in Grisia's words, "bribe" Pink. It was either lollipops or shaved ice from none other than Ecilan, but as we had already left the Holy Temple, and it had taken us quite some effort to do that, we settled on buying strawberry lollipops.
However, I thought that Grisia probably just wanted to try intimidating the crowd at the shop himself. He had looked positively delighted when he suggested buying lollipops, like a child let loose in a... well, we actually were visiting a sweets shop. I could only shake my head at the completely foreign look of delight that Grisia had made with my face. Like many of Grisia's mannerisms ever since our switch, that expression had looked incongruous on my face, like it didn't belong. It was not an expression I usually allowed myself. In fact... do I even know how to make such an expression anymore? Have I ever?
On our way to the shop, I found the sight in the city to be eye-opening, and I knew it was exactly why the Holy Temple had been so empty. We had mobilized a lot more of our knights than usual, and now even the royal knights were patrolling with us, making for quite an impressive and an even slightly oppressive scene. We could have sent out even more knights to patrol the city, but as it was, I could already see citizens glancing furtively at the knights on patrol. It wasn't often that holy knights and royal knights patrolled side-by-side, uniforms contrasting sharply with each others'. Although we had not wanted to worry the citizens needlessly, a tense air had still settled over the city with the presence of all the knights.
With a death lord loose in the city, we could not afford to be anything but vigilant. I surmised that Roland, having only just ascended to death lord status, had retreated to bide his time yesterday evening. I did not think he would attack during the daytime when it was more difficult to hide and to gather the dark element, but once night fell...
We really could not anticipate when Roland might strike. His current silence was but a tenuous peace that could be broken at any moment in time, hence why Grisia and I wanted to lure him out on our terms. Ideally, we would have switched back before then, but if not, I would have to do my best to carry out Sun's part.
"Have you heard?" Someone exclaimed. "I heard that the Sun Knight tortured someone to death, causing that person to become a despicable death knight."
I did not turn in the direction of the voice, but I could already tell that this was a conversation Grisia did not need to hear. However, there was no shielding him, for these rumors were being spoken everywhere within the kingdom. Few could resist the possibility of learning something scandalous about the perfect Sun Knight. Many were even voicing opinions about how they'd known this was coming; the Sun Knight's rumored personality had always been too good to be true.
A gasp sounded. "No way? Our kind Sun Knight would never do that!"
Another voice chimed in. "The death knight must still be after the Sun Knight! Otherwise, why would royal knights be on patrol with holy knights? The king doesn't trust the Sun Knight!"
This time, an entire crowd gasped. Their gossip continued even after that. When the first voice had spoken, I saw Grisia flinch just the tiniest bit out of the corner of my eye. He then pushed past me, leaving me only the view of his back, but I immediately reached out and grabbed him by the arm to remind him of my presence.
"Calm down," I said, stopping him in his tracks.
Grisia blew air through his mouth, posture rigid. "I don't need to calm down. This is just ridiculous. How dare they gossip right in front of me! I'll show them!"
"You knew these rumors were around. It's nothing new," I said. We had both faced worse than this before, and we had both inherited generations worth of rumors from our predecessors. Normally, Grisia would have brushed this off.
"Yes, but that 'death knight' is Roland! I would never..." Grisia abruptly stopped and tugged his arm out of my grasp. I let him. "My reputation is going to be super hard to fix," he said instead.
I looked toward the twittering crowd and the knights on patrol as I said, "The rumors will fade in time. Besides, don't we have a plan for that?"
"If you say so... Let's just head to the store already," Grisia said.
I nodded. It was best if we continued on our way as soon as possible -- those knights looked like they wanted to come over to inspect us. We must look quite suspicious with our cloaks... If none of the knights thought us suspicious, I would need to question their training.
Ah, here they are, heading our way.
If I had been alone, I might have revealed myself, but I was together with Grisia. The Sun Knight and the Judgment Knight loitering around together? I don't even know what the public would make of that, and I don't want to know either.
We quickly got out of there.
When we reached the sweets shop, Grisia unleashed his bad mood on the unsuspecting customers. He walked right up to the front of the line, pushing past a long line of customers. When the man at the front of the line grabbed Grisia's shoulder in anger, Grisia merely turned and glared at the man.
"Got a problem?" Grisia asked in a deep and lethal voice, eyes narrowed. He hadn't taken his hood off -- it made him appear even more dangerous.
"N-No..." the man stuttered. He backed up, bumping into the person behind him. The person behind him even had to hold him up with how his legs no longer seemed to support him.
Right after that, Grisia turned toward the stunned shop owner and said, "Two strawberry lollipops."
The shop owner stared. "Y-You want lollipops, sir? S-Strawberry-flavored?"
"Hm? That's right," Grisia said. "Oh, and add a blueberry pie onto my order as well."
I wanted to put my face in my hand.
Should I be glad that Grisia hadn't taken his hood off?
-----
to be continued
Yes, you should be glad, Lesus. XD;;
Outtakes:
"Since Adair knows about us now..."
"What? You mean he knows about our relationship?"
"..."
Next Part