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i. head
Ren's been alluding to it all day, what he has planned, and it's unsettling Martyn.
"I want to send this server a message," he's been saying (whatever that means).
It's no surprise then, that Martyn finds himself summoned to the new stone construction in the midst of the fields of Dogwarts; the moon rises over the home he and his king built together, just visible between clouds that gently spill a flurry of snowflakes into their hair.
Ren clears his throat. Martyn listens.
"Here on Blackheart Altar -"
"Oh, is that what this place is called?" Martyn jokes, and -
"We are here for ye test, me hand," his voice is grave and he tips his head down just slightly to look into Martyn's eyes over the rim of his glasses -
- Martyn keeps joking, because it sets something in the garden right again; it makes Ren laugh. This is Martyn's job, as the jester, and as the hand.
"Tonight we prove our loyalty to one another," his king explains, and Martyn listens.
"What would you propose I do, my lord?" he asks (as he would always ask, time and time again; there is no world or future where he would not run to Ren's side, run to his aid, do what was asked of him; Ren has been kind. Even in this world, amongst ghouls who seek to kill, who have killed, Ren is kind.).
Ren laughs. (Ren is kind.)
"We're also gonna be sending a message to this filthy server, to let 'em know, Hand, the Red Winter is coming."
Martyn jokes again. Ren indulges him, only briefly as he strips out of his armor, but eventually brings him back to the task at hand. Ren stands before him, bare, vulnerable.
"Are ye ready for the first part of ye test, me hand?" Ren asks, and it's so formal that it makes Martyn all twisted up in knots again, and he's too afraid to joke now but he still finds himself laughing, painfully.
"I don't know if I am! Maybe tell me, and I'll tell you if I'm ready." (Ren will hear him.)
Ren looks him in the eyes again, and steps closer to Martyn. He lifts his battleaxe - wooden handle and diamond head, violet enchantments swirling and shimmering just over its surface - and presses the handle into Martyn's hands. Ren, gently, wraps Martyn's fingers closed around the handle and holds them there.
"Me hand, I am going to ask ye, for the first part of tonight's test, to do a terrible, terrible thing." He sounds so mournful that it pains Martyn.
The king bows his head.
Something clicks in Martyn's mind, but he doesn't want to believe it. He turns to the golem in the field beside them
"I know he's stuck but we can get him out of here no problem -" (This has to be what is true, because the alternative hurts too much to consider.)
"Leave the golem alone, he's hurt nobody," Ren tells him. (Of course it wouldn't be the golem. Ren is kind.)
"We're going to send a message. And I'm going to ask ye, me loyal hand, my friend, to slice the head off ye king. It's a terrible, terrible thing -"
"I don't know if I can do it, me lord," Martyn confesses. His hands are shaking, even as he moves to Ren's side. (He will always run to Ren's side.) "It goes against everything I swore -"
"But it must be done. Sometimes in life, we've gots to do things that hurt," and there's such a beautiful grim determination in his king. Even in their differences they are the same, Martyn realizes; unstoppable.
Martyn blinks back tears, and promises to make it as quick as possible.
ii. heart
The Red King rises, scarlet and spectral and splendid. He laughs and it cuts Martyn through to the bone and sets a chill in his teeth. It hurts.
He reminds Martyn of the rule: if you've been attacked, you may retaliate. Martyn's stomach drops and he panics, flees, but -
"But I shan't, Hand! I shan't!" the Red King finishes, and Martyn stops, already halfway to an exit.
"You're a cruel one, milord, funny but cruel," Martyn chuckles it off nervously as he comes closer to his king once more.
He stands in the fields they've grown together and looks up to his king. Blood drips from the king's crown, falling onto his shoulders and, eventually, to the stonework beneath their feet.
"I give my blade to you to the end, me hand." His voice is grave, a vow. Til death do we part, and all that, Martyn supposes. He creeps closer.
"Ye can take me out of the game fer good," his king reminds him. "I'm naked. I stand before ye unarmed -" he opens his arms and spins once, as if to demonstrate how very naked he is (and he did not need to do that because Martyn is very aware of how naked his king is) - "and I shall punch ye in the unmentionables."
"Oh not there, at least in the gut," Martyn cries, but his king blazes on.
"Now you shall make a terrible choice, Hand. Are you with the Red King to the end, or do ya take Dogwarts for yaself? Make your choice, lad!" And the king punches him, and it hardly hurts, honestly, but Martyn is still shaking and the bloody head of Ren is still on the ground by their feet, he's dizzy and his head is buzzing and he could, he could, he could -
But Ren is kind.
"No! No, I won't do it!" he cries; and "Just as I took life from you, you gave it back to me in bucketsful. This is us, now. This is us." It's his own vow; it's their oath, signed in the blood that runs along the cracks in the stone beneath their feet, ruby red and sickly sweet. It runs down Ren's face when he turns to look at Martyn and he smiles.
There are nightmare-creatures circling above their heads and screaming as Ren laughs, joyous, beautiful, and tells Martyn that "it's you and me until the end".
And somehow, it stirs something in Martyn to laugh, too; and it feels like coming home.
("I was actually tempted to give you a little love tap," Martyn admits sheepishly. "But I didn't want to risk it.")
iii. eye
Weeks later, they emerge from the Nether (a King and his Hand, four Knights to their name - one green, one missing, one traitor, one dead). Martyn looks toward Dogwarts only to see the enemy high in the sky, occupying his home. Zombies lurch forward to bite at Ren.
"Careful milord, zombies," Martyn warns as he lunges forward, swinging his blade to strike them down.
"I don't care about the undead right now, I care about our home, where we forged our friendship!" Ren cries. Martyn only half listens; his eyes survey the land, sword and shield at the ready to defend his king.
Soon enough, Martyn's caution is rewarded; fire is exchanged and arrows shot, but there are just so many of them (men in the sky and men in the Crastle, an endless army hellbent on striking them down), and try as they might to search for an opening, the enemy starts to move in. Martyn grabs Ren's arm, calling "We need to retreat!"
As they run up a hill towards the old abandoned village, hand in hand, Ren speaks: "I have no idea what's going on with the alliances, it just feels like -"
"Oh, it's just - the world versus us, look they're coming up on the right -" and Martyn turns only to see Joel and hundreds and hundreds of growling, snarling, howling wolves, following at his heels, half his height at their shoulders. The beasts look ethereal, unearthly, and for a moment, they find themselves afraid.
"We just need a bit of time," Ren says desperately as they run, "just some time to take cover and think strategically."
Every idea they consider on the fly is flawed, and Joel and his hounds aren't far off in the distance, hunting them down like stubborn rabbits. They're running out of time with every moment, and they just need a chance to build their end crystal.
"Maybe we try to take this fight," murmurs Ren, mulling over his options. But they can't, at least not yet.
Ren leads Martyn down into a cave. They try to take shelter, try to regroup; Martyn and Ren frantically cobble together a furnace hoping beyond hope to be able to smelt the glass they need, but soon enough the wolves have caught their scent, barking and screaming and howling for their master. They sound like thunder above ground and their voices echo and shake the cave and shake Martyn's heart.
Martyn shoves Ren toward the exit and runs, faster than he's ever run before, but the hounds of hell run just as fast and their master is wreathed in a hellish flame as he screams to his fleeing prey, "The Red King dies tonight, fellas!"
Ren, damn him, laughs.
Martyn has never been so afraid in his life.
As soon as they're in the open, Martyn swallows a golden apple and his fear and he turns to Joel, sword swinging but never able to hit, and he's pushed back by the damn wolves, but somehow, in his chaos, Ren manages to kill Joel.
Blood has been spilled; the hounds are sated. The nightmare beasts seem to shrink back into typical dogs; but perhaps they were typical dogs all along, and only in the heat of war did they appear to change.
Just as Martyn thinks he can finally rest, Scott charges in, blade aiming for Ren's head; Martyn screams and charges in.
Scott is burning and Martyn is burning and they're in a desert, and Joel's abandoned dogs are caught in their crossfire. Martyn is trapped between pieces of rubble, pinned against stone, and just as Scott lifts his arm to swing once more an arrow hits its mark and Scott falls, dead.
Martyn scrambles up across the stone and runs, and Ren runs to him, and a part of Martyn is filled with such overflowing joy that he exclaims, "You saved me!"
Ren gives him a smile and a clap on the back, and then they're taking cover.
Just as they're regrouping - because the matter isn't over yet, Scott's belongings are scattered across the ground - Impulse of all people has the gall to show up and try to scavenge.
"He's the traitor, right?" Martyn asks Ren, but he doesn't listen for an answer because he's already seeing red; he grits his teeth and his heart pounds in his chest and he leaps and he's so close to grabbing Impulse but Impulse vanishes instead, slipping through Martyn's fingertips like smoke. Martyn hits the ground and rolls through the sand before coming to a grinding halt, blood rushing in his ears and adrenaline in his veins.
His hands are shaking, but he stands up, dusts himself off, and listens to the next order: "Scorched earth."
As they destroy what remains of Scott's body and belongings, the man himself arrives once again; he has nothing, he stands in naught but iron and has no supplies or weapons on his person, but something has come over Ren, as it has over Martyn.
"Do we take him out the game?" Ren looks in Martyn's eyes even as they're running toward Scott, twin juggernauts of death.
"It's up to you, milord," and Martyn is being honest. It's always been up to Ren, and Martyn would gladly give Ren every choice, every path, every life he has available to give, he would.
The Red King fires an arrow, and it shoots through the air before them, a shooting star in miniature close enough to touch, a trail of flame left in its wake; the star lands true, and Scott yells in pain.
"That's it, I've laid the target! Let's get him!"
Martyn still isn't allowed to kill, but he's faster than Ren and he dogs after Scott, nipping at his heels, taunting him with requests to cuddle. He runs Scott around a tree and tells him he didn't want Jimmy to die (which was true; he hadn't).
"But you didn't stop it!" Scott protests, bitterly. Martyn keeps quiet, and his stalling gives him just enough time for Ren to catch up.
Red Winter is inevitable, and the King swiftly brings Scott's springtime to a bloody end.
So far from where they began, amongst familiar unfamiliar trees, panting and exhausted, Martyn starts to consider how to deal with the matter of Scott's meager supplies. Ren briefly celebrates his victories, but he quickly sours.
Ren sinks to his knees between the birch trees, resting his face in his hands, looking smaller than Martyn has ever seen him. "How many more do we have to kill before all this violence comes to an end, me hand?"
"You're working, my lord!" Martyn rests a hand on Ren's back reassuringly; Ren lifts a hand to weakly grab Martyn's forearm, as if to ground himself.
"The blood is dripping in me eyes! I can't see, I've been blinded by the violence, me hand!" Ren, tears of blood dripping down his grayscale face, turns to Martyn. "Hold me!"
Martyn doesn't hesitate to fall to his knees and fully embrace Ren. Blood smears across his hands, and he feels Ren's hands grab onto his back tightly, gripping into his shirt. He's holding on like Martyn is the only thing keeping him together; Martyn thinks, perhaps, that the same is true of himself.
"What has the world come to, me hand?" Ren asks, and Martyn has no answer.
All Martyn can offer is his hand.
iv. shoulder
The broken remainder of the Red Knights stand on the bridge to Etho's burnt woolen castle. It's all seen better days; each knight has to watch his step to avoid punching another hole to the swamp waters below by accident.
"I don't think I can leave Third Life without at least trying to recapture the capital of the Red King. Are you guys up for one last fight?"
Ren's face is open and honest and there's a touch of pain in it, as if he knows this is a battle there's no coming home from.
Well. If Martyn is never going home, he may as well die fighting for his home. (And that's the kicker, isn't it.)
"Yeah, of course," answers Etho, simply and straightforwardly.
Martyn looks Ren in the eyes, and gives his answer.
"Get me a shield, and I will go to the ends of the earth with you."
And it's true. Martyn would die to follow Ren, if he had to; Martyn has walked into hell with Ren, has followed him into the path of blood and bolt and blaze and he has no intentions of stopping now. He's never intended to stop.
Just before they depart, Ren stops them.
"It has been an honor to shed blood with ye all," and he speaks like a warriors' king.
"It's been an honor to serve," Bigb speaks softly.
"I wouldn't have wanted to shed blood with anyone else," says Martyn.
"And I shall see ye all in Davy Jones' locker, and we will have some mead together." Ren is finished, and the King and his Knights laugh. It's all just become fun, now, in the way it's fun to give up in the face of absolute defeat; you might as well have fun with it.
They know they're doomed. Perhaps they've been doomed since the moment the Red King rose; perhaps they've been doomed since the moment the mine at the gate of Dogwarts was detonated; perhaps they've been doomed since the moment Martyn fast-talked his way into being Ren's spokesperson. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Ren turns to Martyn with a look in his eye that Martyn can't place, and then for a moment he looks overwhelmed trying to find his words; he pauses, breathes, and grasps Martyn's free right hand in his own, and clasps it tight. Martyn pulls him in, taps his forehead against Ren's and breathes in, before leaning away and letting their hands fall apart. The ghost of Ren's fingers slipping through his own lingers.
Martyn hefts his bannerless shield onto his shoulder and marches on to battle.
v. hand
Martyn charges through the gate, into his home, with weapons drawn. A hail of arrows rains out over him and his comrades, their blistering heat burning even as they miss him. Bigb, brave Bigb, charges deep into the heartland; Etho hangs back and takes arrow fire.
"I'm in bad shape," Etho remarks (in his way of sounding casually alarmed), and Martyn glances over only to see Etho, burning, be consumed by the fire and die. Martyn chokes, but he swallows his emotion down.
"Martyn, we might just have to charge in here to get past the arrows," Ren calls out from behind.
(Bigb offers instead, "what if we go in underground?", but his words are forgotten. Perhaps it would have done them well, to listen to the man who knew how to avoid battle. But Martyn and his king have always been risk-takers.)
The providence of an angry golem attacking Impulse has Ren and Martyn charging in, hearts pounding and blood boiling, everything in their souls screaming for them to come home. (And they're home now, fighting atop the bloodstained Altar and amongst their crops, breaking through the wall they built.) Bigb follows close behind, ever loyal. They're ablaze with righteous fury and they manage to pin Impulse and take him out, if only briefly; Tango rushes in to back him up, and Martyn sees red and he burns and burns and burns and so does Tango.
The cavalry arrive - from where, God knows. Grian's arrow finds Bigb's forehead. Bdubs chases Martyn across the fields, and Martyn just manages to push Bdubs back.
It all happens so fast.
He's looking over the fields of crops, looking over Blackheart Altar and running back towards the battle, when he sees it: his king, shot dead by Scar's arrow, too far for him to reach.
"Ren, no!" Martyn screams, as Scar and Grian celebrate; they give gleeful and macabre shouts of victory, their war call becoming "Kill the Hand! Kill the Hand!" as Scar sets his sights and bow on Martyn.
"No, never!" Martyn screams back at them, trying to fend off every shot and blow he takes from Scar but it's not enough, it was never enough, he was never enough to save Ren. He failed. He failed. He failed.
vi. null
He is a ghost, he knows this; he watches his killers celebrate his death and destroy his home. They trample his crops. They break the Blackheart Altar. It hurts his heart.
"I tried, I really did," he speaks out into the empty air, his voice cracking, and broken voices call back to him; snippets of laughter, bubbling chatter, jokes shared between friends - a conversation between former enemies, as if they hadn't all just fought a war against each other and died. Above them all, one voice, clear and whole to his ear:
"We fought with honor, Red Knights, we fought with honor."
And he turns, and there is his King, restored, whole, and smiling. The world fades away until it's nothing but his King and him and he runs to him and hugs him so tightly that it almost chokes him and his King laughs and he laughs. He releases his King just enough to rest his forehead against his King's and fold their hands together and he cries for everything he could not do and for everyone he could not save. His King moves and starts to slowly spin him around in a weird little waltz, offbeat and wet-eyed, and he laughs, and they turn and turn and turn in this half of a heartbeat in eternity, their own breath of air between violence and Valhalla.