Chapter Text
Sylnan Vengolor wakes up with a headache.
He was up drinking late last night, as has been usual the past few weeks, and so the pounding behind his temples doesn’t come as a surprise. Or, well; it doesn’t in concept. In reality there’s a weird edge to it that confuses him, and then he stops being confused by it because thinking makes the pain worse.
Everything is sore, which makes sense considering he probably slept sprawled in some ungodly position against the wall of the factory. On the bright side, he’s long passed the point where the floor started to feel comfortable, but on the other hand he has a splitting migraine and stiffness that starts somewhere deep in his bones. At least, he thinks, his back won’t protest if he stays prone a while longer.
It isn’t his back that proves the problem in the end—it’s his pupils. A light shoves its way between his eyelids, keen and cold and unexpected. Sylnan can’t remember the last time it was this bright in the factory. The lack of east-facing windows means that usually the only illumination comes from sunshine that trickles through the ceiling to cast lazy, long beams across the room. After dusk the darkness becomes almost tangible, and the only indication of daybreak he’s used to is the icy humidity of morning air. He wonders now if he fell asleep outside, somehow, but he hadn’t been that drunk. He doesn’t think. The problem with alcohol is that the more you have, the harder it gets to remember how much that was.
Drowsily, he attempts to block out the unwelcome light with his hand, but when it fails to relieve the ache in his skull he starts reluctantly to sit up. It takes several seconds for his eyes to fight themselves into focus. When they do, he sits up much faster.
The room around him is not recognizable in the slightest.
He drags a mental hand through his mind, trying to sift out an understanding of the situation, but the fog of sleep is slow to fade and, coupled with the hangover, makes that kind of thing even more difficult than usual. He scrubs his face with the heel of his hand in a futile attempt to shove his brain into gear. Instinct starts to take over, habits drilled into him by years of work on the far side of the law. Check yourself, check your surroundings .
He’s on a bed, metal frame and plain covers. There’s a brief flash of irrational fear that he’s afraid to acknowledge, a similarity to beds he slept in years and years ago. He doesn’t want to think about it. He forces himself to move on.
His feet are bare and he’s wearing different clothes than he fell asleep in, a cotton shirt and breeches that are almost offensive in their simplicity. The shirt, especially, is cut a little looser than he likes, with billowy sleeves in a style that would be better appreciated by- again, he catches the train of thought at the last second and redirects it, pushing his hair away from his face in a very deliberate motion. There, two more points: his hair is free around his shoulders, a soft weight he isn’t used to; his left hand is, worryingly, wrapped in bandages, bandages he can feel continuing all the way up his arm. It doesn’t hurt at all, which is even more alarming. He tries to remember what that means in terms of injury. He wishes, not for the first time, that he had a better memory for that sort of thing.
He turns his attention to searching everything else, which isn’t the most time-consuming task considering how plain the area is.
A long room, white walls, the same basic beds in rows. All empty.
An open window, steepled at the top.
A door, shut, maybe twenty feet down the center aisle.
If analysis takes perhaps a little longer to kick into gear, it’s only by a few irrelevant seconds. The room looks like some kind of infirmary, which explains the clothes; it’s definitely not morning, judging by the intensity with which light is beaming through the window; he has no idea where he is or how the fuck he got here.
Still on autopilot, albeit an autopilot that hasn’t fully finished booting up, Sylnan moves to the window. Paranoia checks him sharply as he starts straight towards it, and he pulls back before approaching from the side instead, pressed against the wall. The bottom of the window is a couple of inches lower than average. Crouching slightly, to maximize cover, he looks out and down.
The view confirms a worry that had been creeping around in the back corners of his aching cranium. For one thing, the glaring sun does nothing to ease his headache. Even worse is the completely unrecognizable city whose rooftops pose tauntingly out of his reach, familiar in the way all rooftops look alike and unfamiliar in the way that, well, he has no idea where he is. Despite the foreignness of the skyline, he’s spent enough time around wealth to recognize the signs. He’s in a castle. An unknown castle, presumably in a different country, presumably as a prisoner. His limited experience with castles is enough to know what they imply, which does nothing to settle his stomach—even being outside the Wharf, for the first time in his life, is enough to make him panic. The only reason he isn’t panicking now is practice. He can feel hysteria building deep in his stomach and covers it up with effort, substituting a kind of visceral detachment on top. In the very back of his mind a part of him knows it’s temporary; at some point the reality of the situation is going to wriggle its way out, and then he’ll have to actually deal with it. For now he lets himself finish the switch into survival mode.
The window is three floors up, jutting out over the ground at a sharp angle which turns to smooth walls. Jumping would be survivable but unpleasant. He goes to check the door instead, necessity honing his focus to dagger-sharp and keeping his pace from quickening past a purposeful skulk. There’s a treacherous flash of dismay as he reaches to try the handle, realizing something that he hadn’t fully let himself notice until now: his clothes are nowhere in sight, and with them his equipment. His belts, weapons, lockpicks. . . He has nothing except his bare hands and an extremely uncomfortable pain in his head that doesn’t seem to be fading. Fortunately, before his forced calmness can slip any further, the doorknob turns and he peeks out into a hallway.
Sylnan has experience with hallways. Long, dark, terrifying hallways with floors that creak, hallways which might be less scary as an adult, although there’s no reason good enough that he would ever go back to check; hallways that twist and tangle deep below respectable streets, crowded with corners to lurk in, to get lost in, to find your coin purse missing in; richly tapestried hallways, decorated with flourishes that could feed a family for years, hallways filled with watchful eyes and bad memories. This hallway is closest to the last kind, all elegant marble and columns. The floor is the sort of cold that suggests it’s been generations since it last saw the sun, so icy against his feet that he misses having shoes. He has no idea where he’s heading other than out . His mind feels like a trapped bird, darting back and forth between walls of a gilded cage, substituting planning with crisp, measured intensity and the type of clarity that is born from desperation. In the back of his mind, wheels are spinning, desperately reaching for answers he can’t provide. Why is he here? Where is here? There’s an awful suspicion wrapped up in there, that the ‘why’ has everything to do with every mistake he’s ever made. If he wasn’t suppressing the majority of thought processes at the moment, he would definitely have one more thing to hate about hallways—the way they go on forever, empty and echoing, leaving you to the mercy of your thoughts.
Nonetheless, there’s something calming about this endless maze of stone passages, a familiarity that gives him confidence despite how little he has to back it up with.
He regrets that confidence nearly immediately. The hallways continue uninterrupted and identical for long minutes before one opens up into a crossroads, the roof somehow climbing even higher than the already vaulted ceilings he’s been underneath so far. The intersecting corridor is wider and lined with a tasteful carpet, the walls arching in a clear suggestion of importance. There’s nothing more important than the exit, Sylnan thinks, and so he steps softly around the corner and comes face to face with a guard.
They stare at each other for a second. The guard appears to be human, but animal panic flashes briefly through her eyes, the hunted look of prey startled by something with bloodier tastes than its own. A second later, however, she apparently remembers that she has teeth as well. She plants her halberd and shifts into a more professional stance, assuming an expression that’s faltering, but almost. . . courteous? Reverential? She gives him a tiny, brisk nod, then makes as if to speak. Sylnan reacts almost without thinking. He cuffs her in the face, surprising both of them, and she falls over hard. The tumble seems more from shock than anything else, but he's still taken aback by the power of his punch. Beneath the soreness of his muscles, there’s a tightly wound strength that he isn’t used to feeling, presumably due to adrenaline. He backs away and circles around the prone woman, hoping fruitlessly for a place to vanish before she alerts others to his presence. The only visible doors are at least forty feet past her. He sucks in a sharp breath, expecting to get jumped, but the guard seems almost wary as she pulls herself up. Her gaze flicks a couple of times, glancing somewhere to his left. He quarter turns, instinctively starting to look over his own shoulder, then changes it to a full turn as the guard finally finds her voice.
“Assist-,” she says, somewhat croakily, then supplements it with a louder, “Assistance! I need backup over here!”
Sylnan takes his cue with the grace of an experienced performer. He cuts across the hall and past the guard at full sprint, takes the first fork he sees, and dives for—not the nearest—the second closest door. For the second time today, it’s thankfully unlocked. It takes everything he has not to crash it closed behind him.
He flattens himself against the wall, opposite the hinges, and tries to convince his lungs to be satisfied with tiny hushed breaths. The sudden exercise isn’t doing anything good for his headache, either. He can feel blood pounding in his ears, so hard it makes him lightheaded. There’s a sharpness to the pain that makes his brain feel like it’s spinning, a bite that doesn’t seem normal for a hangover, and he adds it to the growing pile of things he’s not allowing himself to worry about just yet.
He gives the room he’s in a cursory look over, even though his brain is so on edge that it’s physically painful to slow down and observe. It’s decently sized, but almost completely empty. The same polished marble walls. The only noticeable features are rims in the floor, forming the outlines of boxes, like the beginnings of tiny horse stalls.
Time stretches like syrup. He knows it’s probably not been as long as it feels, only a couple of minutes at most, but he’s locked up like rigor mortis. His breathing is so shallow that he wouldn’t be surprised if someone mistook him for a corpse; maybe a mummy, with the way his arm is wrapped. The bandages are soaking with sweat, and the salty stickiness of the damp fabric itches like hell. He closes his eyes. Hair falls across his face, tickling as he inhales. He doesn’t try to push it away.
The silence seems to last so long that when he finally hears voices, his ears nearly buzz from the sound. He presses harder against the wall, trying to catch the conversation; the stone is thick and insulating, but pieces drift around the edges of the door.
“Vengolor. . .”
He recognizes the speaker as the guard, although listening to her now, she sounds oddly juvenile.
“. . . a week ago? I think. . .”
The woman didn’t look especially young, from what he can recall of her face. Maybe mid twenties; 24 or 25, if he had to guess exactly. Older than Sylnan himself.
Another voice joins in, this one slightly grittier.
“. . . that thing. . .”
“. . . hunting. . . did punch me in the face. . .normal for. . .”
“. . .out of him, like taking off a suit of armor.”
“. . . tell King Firebeard either way. . .”
“. . .the protocol?”
“. . .look down this hall here. . .mean right hook.”
The sound of faint laughter.
Sylnan has to force himself to pull meaning from the snatches of discussion. His mind feels more sluggish than ever, but he walks back through the few phrases he was able to overhear. Most significantly, Vengolor —they know who he is. So he’s here for a reason, him specifically. And the first guard mentioned a king, Firebeard. He would be pleased that his hunch was proven correct, but the memory of past experiences he’s had with royalty doesn’t leave much room for pride. Other than that, all he can put together is that something happened a week ago, that the two guards are hunting something (presumably him), and that he wasn’t the only one impressed by his unanticipated punching prowess.
He’s racking his brain, trying to remember if he’s ever heard of a King Firebeard, when he realizes that there are footsteps coming towards the room. He scans it again, hoping desperation will reveal something that could be used as a weapon, a hiding place, or any combination of the two. Unfortunately, his luck doesn’t seem to extend that far. The space is nothing but stone. He settles for gritting his teeth, and preparing to launch a knee into the groin of whichever unhappy person next walks into the room.
The door swings open, casually, and Sylnan jabs like clockwork. It’s a hard, fast strike. He winces internally in sympathy, at the same time anticipating the path he’ll have to take around the soon-to-be-prone figure.
It takes him a second to understand his mistake.
The knee connects and he finds too late that he’s misjudged the shot. Instead of the weak point he expects, his leg bounces off a solid, plated chest. Recoil shock arcs through his joint and he staggers very slightly from the impact. The other person steps back in surprise. Through flaring pain, Sylnan realizes that his aim hadn’t been off after all, only his reasoning. If he had targeted half a foot lower, maybe. . .
The dwarven guard goes through a very clear moment of decision. Sylnan can almost feel the wheels turning in his head. Then, purposefully, he lowers his halberd and raises a hand. The way he addresses Sylnan is disconcertingly like he’s talking to a wild animal, smooth and low with an apprehensive undertone.
“Aye, lad, why don’t you come out here calmly and I won’t have to jab ya-” he gestures with the halberd, “- I’m sure the King will wanta talk to you, now that you’re awake.”
The guard’s voice has a careful edge that suggests he’s trying to pacify Sylnan, lull him into compliance with the steady rhythm of his words. It works to an extent, building off of the confusion that already whirls through his brain. He half worries his head is going to screw right off, with everything that’s happening. Questions and more questions blurring together into bewildering chaos. He doesn’t feel capable of a response, defaulting instead to a shell-shocked stare as he tries to tweak his knee in a way that will make it stop hurting.
The glare appears to unsettle the guard either way. He furrows his brow uneasily. Something about the other man’s expression makes Sylnan feel jumpy, feral, like he could startle at any moment. As the guard makes a decision, reaching firmly to put a calming hand on his arm, he does exactly that.
The touch makes him spring backwards defensively as he circles away from the gesture. The guard moves to follow, stepping out of the doorway, and Sylnan makes yet another break for it. The frenzied speed, which he still isn’t used to, proves less fortunate than before. He outpaces the guard without even checking if he's being pursued, but his adrenaline-fueled haste only makes it worse when he careens back into the main hall and slams hard against a slab of metal.
It’s difficult to tell if it’s his head that’s ringing, or the large metal object in front of him. Maybe both. Do I have any brain cells left to lose? he wonders wryly. The way his skull is swimming suggests otherwise.
“Egads,” a mild, trim voice says, from somewhere vaguely upwards. “Are you all right, Master Vengolor?”
Sylnan isn’t listening, as he is currently occupied by the appearance of a seven-foot-tall humanoid in front of him, glinting like a copper piece.
“I- what?” he mumbles, and gods , does his head hurt. He presses hands to temples for the hundredth time today, trying to squeeze some sense back into reality.
“Oh dear. That doesn’t seem good,” says the metal person. They clamp polished fingers onto his shoulder. The grapple is easy-going and loose, but somehow oddly formal at the same time. There’s a controlled pressure to it that suggests it could get very firm, very fast. Sylnan feels like he’s reached some kind of breaking point, at least mentally. The owner of the hand isn’t quite as towering as he thought initially, closer to six and a half feet than seven, but the height difference is still extreme. It must be a person in armor. A ridiculously tall person with the grip strength of a vice. Still, he’s never seen armor like this; the plate is blocky and paneled, with an ovoid helmet that’s decorated as if it’s a face. It doesn’t seem like a biologically possible fit by any stretch of the imagination. The other explanation, though, is no more comprehensible. A talking, moving, metal creature? For once Sylnan hopes that he’s delusional. He’s never heard of anything like this.
The dwarven guard takes advantage of Sylnan’s dumbfounded, albeit casual, captivity to catch up to the standoff. He starts to say something, running up with his halberd primed straight forward like the prow of a ship, before he sees the situation and lowers his weapon.
“Oh, aye, you’ve got him then,” he says. “Good work, clanker.” He’s breathing a bit heavily from the rapid about-face and subsequent sprint. There’s a notable lack of triumph in his voice at seeing Sylnan caught. Instead, he just sounds. . .troubled. Troubled, and almost as befuddled as Sylnan feels.
Sylnan finally comes to his senses enough to reach up and pry at the fingers locked around his shoulder. The hold doesn’t feel tight, but they don’t budge at all. With an unnaturally smooth rotation of the neck, the entity’s glassy eyes turn towards him. They have something close to a mouth, a rigid slit cut in the metal of their face. It doesn’t move at all when they speak.
“Would you like me to remove my hand?”
The voice is perfectly consistent.
“Uh, I mean,” he supplies eloquently, before the guard interrupts.
“Don’t, he’ll run off and then I’ll have to find him all over again,” the man blurts, and both Sylnan and the metal person turn to look at him, in almost comical synchronicity. He has enough grace to look apologetic.
“Acourse, if you’re not worried about it, then. Just that, yannow, he’s a slippery bastard, fast as hell too. . .” he trails off, seemingly realizing what he’s saying and who he’s saying it to. Flapping a hand embarrassedly, he backs away slightly, muttering something that sounds like “punched her in the face, he did.”
The metal person swivels their attention back to Sylnan, as if the interruption never happened. “You seem disturbed. Would you like me to make you a-”
But Sylnan never finds out whether he would have received a cup of tea or, perhaps equally likely, a knuckle sandwich, because the sentence is cut off by a heavy slam that reverberates down the entire hall. Around the shiny body of his captor, he can see that a pair of huge double doors at the end of the hall have thudded open. Through them walks a pair of figures.
The man in the lead is the most muscular person that he's ever seen. He’s known his share of powerhouses; strength is in no short supply among the company he keeps, and the demand for it isn’t too shabby either. He could probably introduce an interested party to a ballroom full of brawn-for-hire and still think of a dozen more candidates. But the dwarf striding down the corridor towards him, scowling like there’s no tomorrow, takes the cake and throws it in the face of anyone who’s ever dared consider themselves beefy. He looks like he could rip a person’s leg off with nothing but his bare hands. His formidable arms also explain how the doors, which look really, really fucking heavy, were able to open without a team of drawhorses.
Sylnan supposes he might be exaggerating, just a little, but can he really be blamed considering the circumstances?
(The answer is no, no he cannot, because it’s taken less than forty-five minutes for his hope of ever knowing what’s going on to be smashed beyond repair.)
Behind the scarily buff guy, who, in direct defiance of Sylnan’s deepest desires, is beelining straight towards the little gathering, is a black-haired dwarf with a slightly distasteful beard. As they approach, Sylnan can hear him talking rather nervously in faintly accented Common, although the muscular man seems not to be listening.
“. . .understand the desire to deal with the situation personally, Your Majesty, but I must remind you that handling these kinds of issues is not a king’s job.”
“Yeah, so you’ve been telling me for the past year and a half.” The man (the king? Sylnan hopes hollowly that his ears are deceiving him, and that he isn’t standing frozen right in front of the ruler of wherever this entire goddamn place is) has a very loud voice. It’s deep and gruff, the sound of someone who is definitely done with all of this bullshit. He’s still frowning as he reaches the three of them, but in a way that suggests he put the expression on one morning and forgot to take it off rather than actual anger. Nevertheless, the grimace deepens as he sees the situation: The tall, blank-faced metal humanoid, holding Sylnan in place with a single hand; the guard, clearly out of his element but trying to maintain a professional bearing; and Sylnan himself, sweaty, wide-eyed, lost in a place he has no memory of entering and half convinced of his imminent execution.
“Sylnan? What's going on here?” the king asks. The guard replies before Sylnan has a chance to collect his thoughts, in a stage whisper that echoes off the marble walls anyway.
“He’s being possessed, Your Majesty, so we’re following the protocol. He keeps running away, though,” —he gives Sylnan a look that’s not exactly a glare, but still manages to convey his irritation—“and I was, er, restraining him when the Warforged stepped in.”
“Happy to be of assistance,” says the metal person, in their cheerily flat voice.
“Possessed? He’s not possessed,” the king says, and his brow furrows even further, past what would seem to be physically possible.
“With all due respect, my king, he’s been sprinting through the castle like a madman. He punched Mathilde in the face, for gods’ sakes.”
“Yeah, but is there any purple glowy shit happening?” The king gestures ambiguously at Sylnan. “No. See, no purple shit. So he’s not possessed.”
The guard looks unconvinced, but echoes, “Aye, no purple shit.” A pause. “Do I oughta tell the Captain to cancel the protocol, then?”
“Yeah, you do that,” the king says. The guard drifts backwards for a few feet, then turns and trots down a side passage. Sylnan could swear he hears the king mutter “ idiot ” under his breath.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, my king?” chips in the advisor dryly, sounding none too approving himself. “You have no confirmation that the half-elf. . .that Vengolor isn’t under, eh, demonic influence.”
“I told you, if he was being possessed right now there'd be all sorts of purple stuff going on. Hey, Sylnan, are you being possessed right now?”
“I. . .no?” Sylnan responds, not sure what else to say. Or what’s going on at all, really.
“There you go, he’s not possessed. Like I said. Now are you going to let me talk to him alone, or are you going to keep breathing over my shoulder?” The king’s volume has steadily increased as he’s been speaking, and Sylnan gets the impression that some version of this conversation has played out many times before.
The advisor looks sulky, but bows and starts to back away, glancing at Sylnan as he says, “I’ll call for the healers, King Firebeard.”
The king waits until he’s walked out of earshot before turning back to Sylnan. “Bitch. You know, he only calls me that when he’s really angry.” He chuckles. “So what’s the deal, the guard said you. . .punched someone in the face?”
“That doesn’t sound very polite,” the metallic humanoid adds.
Sylnan is at a loss. His urgent energy has been totally disarmed by the weird, banal conversation happening around him. He can feel the adrenaline fizzling out in confusion, leaving his headache to bounce back at twice the strength.
The king seems to notice the ginger way Sylnan is cupping his forehead. “You good? How’s your head?” he demands.
Finally, something Sylnan knows how to respond to. “It. . .hurts. A lot. Uh, pain. Ow.”
Maybe not.
He laughs a single time, weakly, aware of the internal voice reminding him that this man had probably kidnapped him, probably wants him for something, probably doesn’t have his best interests in mind. Still, he can’t seem to find the energy even to worry. He’s too drained and too bewildered for anything except awkward compliance.
“Oh. Yeah, uh, Arnald said the healers would be coming. They should be able to help with that,” the king says rather flimsily. “You know.”
Sylnan doesn’t know, but his ignorance makes him bold. There’s a silence that lasts a little longer than is comfortable, and then he takes the plunge.
“So,” he ventures, “I should probably know this, but. . .who are you exactly? And,” he gestures limply at the area in general, “what am I doing here?”
Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t the look of absolute stupefaction that passes across the king’s face.
“Who. . .am I?” he asks. He seems completely floored by the question. “Wait. Who,” he points to his own chest as if to clarify, “am I ? Who am I. You’re kidding, right?”
Sylnan hopes his blank expression is enough of an answer.
“Okay, so, you don’t recognize me at all. Not even a little bit?”
More staring.
Firebeard reaches behind him and pulls a longsword off his back. It’s substantial, with runes along the blade and a hilt that seems perfectly sized for the king’s hands. He holds it out in a battle stance, then looks back at Sylnan expectantly. “How about now?”
“Am I supposed to know who you are?” Sylnan inquires, beginning to feel irritated by the abundance of repetition over explanation.
“I mean, yeah,” Firebeard says in frustration. A sudden look of understanding passes across his face, and his eyebrows pivot downwards into suspicion. “Did Br’aad put you up to this? Because this is exactly the kind of thing he’d try to pull.”
What.
“What did you just say?” Sylnan asks, almost fearing the answer for some reason. For better or worse, however, the metallic being—who has been standing so silently that Sylnan almost forgot they were there, despite the death grip on his shoulder—stops the king from speaking.
“This doesn’t appear to be a practical joke,” they tell the king chirpily, ignoring Sylnan. “From my observations, it appears that he has suffered severe mental trauma, possibly leading to memory loss.”
“Memory loss?”
The two of them speak in sync, their tones so perfectly similar that in a different scenario Sylnan would probably laugh. Here and now, nobody finds it funny.
“You’re telling me I’m supposed to know this guy,” Sylnan says incredulously, at the same time as the king blurts, “You mean he actually doesn’t know who I am?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” they clarify. “Would you like me to repeat myself?”
“No, you don’t need to do that,” Firebeard replies nearly automatically. “So. . . memory loss. Like completely. Like his memories are gone.”
“Yes.”
“Well, fuck, I knew it was a hard hit, but not that hard.”
Comprehension is taking a while to work its way through Sylnan’s daze. “Memory loss,” he repeats for the third time. “Jesus Christ.” His hearing feels suddenly muffled. The ground seems far away, and the air is thick and murky. He sinks to his knees, the mechanical fingers releasing gently from his shoulder as he does so. For some reason, his focus locks onto the frigid numbness of his feet against the marble. The lightheadedness only gets worse as he sits. It’s like his mind is drifting away, floating up through the pain in his head and towards the ceiling. At the same time his skull feels unfathomably heavy.
“Sylnan?” says the king, but his voice flutters into pieces and wafts away with the rest of Sylnan’s thoughts.
“I don’t think it’s a hangover,” Sylnan responds blearily, and then he unbalances and topples sideways onto the cold floor. His eyes close; the soft solitude of the darkness is a pleasant surprise. Through the thickness carpeting his brain, he hears his own voice echo back to him over and over, slowly fading towards the sky. Jesus Christ.