Tags: M/M, Night's Cavalry/Tarnished, Non-Con, Size Difference, Anal Sex, Blood, Rough Sex, Oral Sex, Multiple Orgasms, Male! Tarnished
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Torrent is felled when the enormous, black glaive overhead catches its flank and the spectral steed’s rider, a Tarnished known as Wren, gasps sharply as he plummets to the ground, the last thing he hears before his temple knocks into cobblestone the pained whinny of his companion as it dissipates into celestial dust.
The blade of the glaive lands centimeters from where his face is and the strike carries so much force the blade partly embeds into the earth. His robes have bunched up messily and are stained with the blood that is freely seeping out of his palms and forearms, which had been scraped raw as he slid across the cobblestone on his way down.
It is negligible compared to his sprained ankle and what he assumes is a broken wrist. He can’t even turn his right hand without pain jolting through his entire arm. The only thing keeping his seal to his hand is the frayed loop around his finger. Looking up, the larger, black steed stomps its feet impatiently near where he remains on the ground, unable to right himself.
It calms when its master sets a hand on its neck, and to his horror, the Night’s Cavalry dismounts from their horse with the tell-tale clang of armor and walks over to tower over him, emotions utterly unreadable with their face hidden behind their helmet. The decorative black ponytail adorning the back of their helmet is situated at a comfortable eight or nine feet.
It could be a man or woman under that black regalia. It was difficult to tell.
Not that Wren cared, either way. Their intention was plain as day—in the next moment, they would pull their weapon from the ground and cut his head off. Perhaps they’d be crueler and slash his front so he can bleed out as he watches them ride off in the distance. He is not as used to dying yet as the other Tarnished, despite perishing far more frequently. The pain never gets easier to block out and the process of returning afterwards is eerie; leaving him unsettled each time he reawakens.
Wren lowers his head, face bowed to the ground, and silently prays to himself that Torrent will forgive him for allowing them to be harmed so carelessly. He shuts his eyes, waiting for a blow, but one does not come.
Cold steel, stained with dirt and his own blood, brushes against the underside of his jaw. Opening his eyes, he finds the blade of the Night’s Calvary’s glaive at his throat. If he startled at all, the tip would lodge in his throat. He has no other choice but to allow the glaive to lift his face, forcing him to look at his foe.
Very, very slightly, he can see eyes looking down at him from the inky depths of their helmet.
There is a coldness to their gaze that pierces him down to the marrow. He cannot make out the color of them.
Their glaive lowers from his throat without a rhyme or reason.
“W-What?” Wren says, breathless in his confusion, and is stunned further when the Night’s Cavalry lowers their weapon to bend down on one knee before him, still looming over him considerably despite their height being halved.
Without a word, they capture his face roughly in their large, gauntlet, the metal bruising against his jawline. His face is turned this way and that, as if being inspected. He knows what they see: a man, brown skinned with brown eyes, wearing nondescript fundamentalist robes, the only thing worth looking at for more than a second being his hair, which was a rich, yellow shade that contrasted heavily with the rest of his coloring.
It's thick and wavy, with many small braids intricately woven all over, decorated with beads carved from rainbow stones. It ends at his lower back, all of it held together neatly with a thick scrap of fabric tied into a ribbon. Or it was held together neatly. The ribbon had been lost somewhere during the fight and his hair was now loose and tumbling past his shoulders and front in disarray.
“What?” He repeats, startled, and tries to shake off their touch. The Night’s Cavalry’s grip tightens, more than just bruising now, and Wren winces and stops struggling immediately. The metal claw of their gauntlet tugs at his full bottom lip, irritating the split towards the center that was still wet with blood. “Finish the fight—kill me!” He demands with a hiss, eyes narrowing.
The hand gripping his jaw drops, to his relief, but it’s only so that the Night’s Cavalry can snake an arm around his waist and heft him frighteningly easily over their shoulder; their black armor digging roughly into his injured, unarmored body.
Fear quakes through his body and spirit.
“Leave me! Put me down at once and finish this!” Wren continues, even though all his words thus far have gone on deaf ears. He grows emboldened and starts to kick and lash out against his captor, but it agitates his injuries, and he lacks the endurance to keep it up for long.
Instead of being tossed unceremoniously atop their steed like wild game, the Night’s Cavalry slips masterfully onto their horse and settles Wren in front of them, his back against their breast plate. Their hefty arm stays looped around his waist, keeping him from throwing himself off the horse and chancing sprinting across the grassy field with a sprained ankle.
It is far too intimate of a position for strangers, let alone adversaries.
“Where are you taking me?” Wren asks while the Night’s Cavalry readies the reigns. The answer he gets is the massive horse suddenly breaking out into a gallop, the momentum throwing him back against their breast plate, knocking the wind out of him.
Wren was considering jumping off the horse before, but he almost slips off by accident several times now due to his growing blood loss, his mind beginning to spin like a gyroscope. It’s only because of the arm around him that he’s prevented from falling to the ground for the second time that day. He isn’t going to thank them—he wishes he had the energy to grab the reigns and loop them around their neck and strangle them.
All he manages to do is a pitiful mixture of a gurgle and a whine.
The arm around him tightens.
He isn’t sure how much time passes. His vision blacks out a few times. Soon, Wren finds himself being lowered from the horse and carried into a small cave. The Night’s Cavalry’s steed settles in front of the cave’s entrance, succinctly blocking anyone from leaving or entering. There is no grace visible nearby, presumably deeper in the cave somewhere.
There are a few gaps in the ceiling of the cave that allow a few beams of light and some air flow. There’s a water source somewhere—the air is humid, and he can faintly hear dripping, not to mention all the stones were covered with soft, green moss.
“Why have you taken me here?” He tries stubbornly, words coming out slurred as he’s set on the ground.
The Night’s Cavalry crouches before him for the second time now, untying a round flask from their hip. It doesn’t look like crimson tears—Wren isn’t sure what it is. The cork is popped off and his jaw is gripped so that he can be fed the mysterious concoction. He purses his lips and tries to turn his face away, but the drink goes down before he can spit it out.
Wren panics. It could be a tonic to make him pliant and willing to go along with whatever scheme his assailant had in mind, but to his relief and utter confusion, the only effects he feels are the worst of his injuries healing. He’s still bruised and aching, but his brokens bones have been mended and he can think with clarity now.
Death is leagues away from him now, but he isn’t sure yet if that is a good thing.
He backs away a little, but only because he’s being allowed to, he thinks.
“Why did you do that?” Wren asks, completely out of his depth and starting to lose his wits now. None of the events up until now made sense other than his initial defeat. That blunder he could understand perfectly, much to his shame.
The emptied bottle is carelessly tossed to the side and the Night’s Cavalry sets one hand on his chest before shoving him roughly backwards. He falls onto his back, bumping his head, and yelps loudly when he opens his eyes and sees them crawling over him.
Their helmet is shoved up the slightest with one hand—just enough to show a man’s jaw peppered with pure white stubble. The Night Cavalry’s skin is pale, a stark contrast to their armor, and their lips are thin and chapped, a vertical scar cutting across both lips and towards their nose. Despite the white hair on their jawline, there aren’t all that many wrinkles or fine lines.
“What is it that you want?” Wren says, desperate, backing away again like he would with a bear hot on his trail. “Why did you bring me here?” He moves away for as long as he can, which isn’t long at all.
His back bumps against the wall of the cave.
The Night’s Cavalry doesn’t crawl the rest of the way over to him. They simply grab one of his legs and drag him back over, his robes being pulled up inadvertently as they did, exposing his legs and thighs, and almost more before his arms shoot down and Wren pushes it back down. His face is burning with humiliation, and baring his teeth, he whips his face up and glares at them.
Before he can speak, the Night’s Cavalry swoops down and captures his lips with their own. Wren squeaks, scandalized, and tries to push them off with all his might but it amounts to nothing—they don’t even budge. He’s going to break his hands before he manages to push them off.
Their lips are warm and unyielding. When he purses his lips and tries to turn his face away, his jaw gets grabbed again, and it fills him with such ire that he opens his mouth so he can try biting their hand, but the Night’s Cavalry sticks their tongue in his mouth and he immediately forgets everything, so shocked by their crudeness that his mind stutters to a halt.
He whines in complaint, squirming, and they break away to watch him for a moment. Wren sees them lick their lips, tongue curling over their sharp canine as if they’d just tasted something delectable. They take off their gauntlets, and to his shock, their helmet, both of which get tossed aside as carelessly as the flask from before.
Their face is wide, with a strong jaw and deep set, gray eyes. There is something disturbing about their gaze. There was an empty, almost animal-like dullness to their eyes. Their nose is crooked at the bridge and scarred on one of the nostrils, the end of that scar almost connecting with the one on their lips.
The only thing paler than their skin was their hair, which was the same ivory shade as their stubble. They didn’t look much older than him, so the white hair was a natural occurrence. Their hair is choppy, with uneven lengths on every layer and the tips sticking out wherever they pleased. It looked like a knife was used to simply shear off the parts of their hair that grew past their ears.
Their ungloved hands, large and scarred like the rest of them, start to caress and squeeze at his thinly robed body.
“No, no, no please.” Wren says with growing panic, eyes shutting tightly to rid himself of the sensation of being pawed at like he would a nightmare. It backfires. With his eyes closed, all he can focus on is their touch now. Everything about them was warm, teetering on hot—their mouth, their hands. They’re still touching him from over his robes, but he can feel their heat bleeding through the material.
It took only one of their hands to cover his entire chest. It makes his stomach knot with fear. Even with his eyes closed he isn’t allowed to forget how much bigger the Night’s Cavalry is. The front of his robe is unbuttoned ravenously, a few of the buttons popping off, and the sleeves are pulled down his shoulders in one go, exposing his torso fully to the humid air of the cave and his assailant’s hungry eyes.
His unimpressive chest is groped at more freely now, and the Night’s Cavalry pinches one of his nipples roughly and makes him gasp sharply at the sting. He flushes with humiliation as another pitiful sound escapes him. A kiss is pressed to his eyelids, his cheek, his jaw, all while the Night’s Cavalry’s hands continue to perversely toy with his nipples until they’re aching and stiff between their fingertips.
Wren’s stomach traitorously burns with arousal and his length starts to stir underneath his robes. Like a hound sniffing out blood, the Night’s Cavalry notices his reaction immediately, backing off again so they can observe him. His robes are suddenly pushed up and the top and bottom half are now bunched together at his waist, the entirety of his body now in plain view, save for his privates, which were tenting his thin undergarments.
The Night’s Cavalry’s hands grip the inner curve of his dark, silky thighs and spread them apart crudely and without warning. He yelps again, horrified, and starts to shake from the fear, humiliation and anticipation all at once; face turned to the side and eyes clenched so tightly he sees shapes. His undergarments are slipped off. Wren fully expected them to be cut off. He hates that he cannot tell which touch will hurt and which will have his knees shaking, but he hates the feeling of his erection now hanging between his legs freely even more.
He tries to close his legs, but it’s futile like everything else has been.
There’s some shuffling of armor as the Night’s Cavalry readjusts. Wren doesn’t have the stomach to look at them or see what’s about to happen, so he keeps his eyes closed and face pointed towards the wall of the cave. He feels something warm fanning his stomach and erection—breathing? The sensation disappears, and there’s nothing, until Wren feels their tongue lick a stripe up his length suddenly, starting from the swell of his balls to his tip. His back arches and he cries out; eyes flashing open.
Wren tenses against the sudden jolt of pleasure and cannot help but look down and see exactly what is being done to him: the Night’s Cavalry meets his gaze, unblinking, and opens their mouth the slightest before swallowing his length completely. They take him in so deeply that their nose buries into the blond curls at the base of his erection.
The scandalized, breathy half shout that tears from his throat is loud enough it reverberates against the cave walls. The pleasure is gutting, feeling too good and too much, and it is as inescapable as much as the man currently burying their face between his thighs. Wren is fully hard now, his length sheathed completely in the Night’s Cavalry’s throat as they continue to shallowly bob their head, although they seemed to prefer just keeping him in his throat to swallow around him.
Looking at them again, Wren sees that there’s some life in his assailant’s eyes now. Was this how they found joy in life? Kidnapping and overpowering men so they could suck their cocks? He has no doubt that they’ll be doing something less pleasurable to him at some point, but what was the point of giving him any pleasure at all?
He doesn’t understand any of this.
Yes, as someone with zero experience with this sort of thing, he can rationalize how the littlest of touches could feel euphoric, but the Night’s Cavalry was paying particular attention into making him feel good, which was the part that deeply confounded him. His pleasure should be a byproduct of their abuse, not a focal point.
Self-loathing cuts through him like a blade for even admitting he found this pleasurable at all.
He was pathetic in all senses.
As pathetic as Wren feels, he only feels worse when his pleasure climaxes after only a few more bobs of the Night’s Cavalry’s head, and his hips lurch erratically as his cock spills seed down their throat. He makes a slew of unforgivable sounds as he twitches and spasms, and the Night’s Cavalry takes it all greedily.
When they pull their face off his wilting length, they make sure to lick the remainder of his seed from the corner of their lips. He scowls, disgusted, but something within him stirs at the sight of their vulgar display. The Night’s Cavalry reaches for something on their hip—not a flask, but a vial. One filled with something thick, like oil.
Virgin though he may be, he knows what that item entails.
He was frightened of being brutalized for acting out earlier, but he is going to be brutalized by that thing between their legs just as well, so he abandons fear and tries to make an escape, flipping over and crawling on all fours like an animal towards the cave’s entrance. His leg isn’t yanked. This time, one of the Night’s Cavalry’s hands curve under his belly, pulling him back towards them, and Wren feels them slowly add their weight atop him until he’s pinned to the ground, unable to move, but able to breathe just fine. From above, he would be completely hidden by their much larger form.
A hand pushes his robes up again, baring his ass. The entirety of his ass can be cupped with one of their hands, the callouses on their palm not feeling off-putting like it should. Fingers glide and dance up the back of his thighs, ghosting, and he twitches, probably looking like he was shaking his ass, and his face burns with embarrassment.
The hand leaves, and he hears a cork being popped again, before another piece of armor is removed and set aside. Something hot and hard presses against his thigh. Wren cannot see the Night’s Cavalry’s member, but he can feel its intimidating weight now.
Fear spikes through him profusely.
He crosses his arms over one another and buries his face in the cradle of them; beginning to sob.
“I have never lain with anyone!” Wren admits, panicking, and his words shake as badly as his shoulders.
He doesn’t know why of all things he said THAT. It was far more likely that the Night’s Cavalry would be crueler now—taking glee in the fact that they would be despoiling him for everyone that came afterwards.
Perhaps he should have just offered his mouth to them instead. It was too late for that, now that he was forced onto his belly and had their cock pressing against him. It’s so horrible it makes him cry and he doesn’t care if they hear or see it.
What difference would one more humiliation make on the mountain he’s accumulated?
The Night’s Cavalry’s hands pause exploring the planes of his ass and thighs, considering something, and their armor makes noise before Wren feels them start to pepper kisses across his shoulder blades and spine. The softness of the touch is disarming, enough that Wren stops crying momentarily. He is stupid for doing that of course because the kisses were to distract him from the way his ass cheek is spread apart with one hand and a thumb settles against his entrance.
It does not press inside him, and it’s not even slick with oil. The thumb slowly circles his hole, massaging, and it is weird, but the gentle kisses pressed against his back and the drag of stubble on his skin buffers the weirdness.
He almost likes it.
Wren can still feel their massive cock poking against his thigh, the tip wet with precum. He feels it twitch with interest when he whines as their crooked fingers drag up and down the back of his balls, teasing the delicate skin that sat between his sac and hole. When their thumb returns to his hole, this time it’s slick with oil, and while it rubs against his entrance like before, it’s not long before it slips inside the littlest, the sudden pressure surprising him and making him gasp into his arms.
The Night’s Cavalry’s hands were large, and their fingers were no exception. Their thumb pushes in and out of his hole shallowly, barely even entering at all, but it’s enough to make Wren squirm, the feeling so foreign. Little by little, their thumb pushes deeper and deeper, until the tip has entered him fully, the stretch burning.
Wren sucks in a breath, body tensing, and it hurts suddenly, and he cannot bear to take it anymore, yet when the Night’s Cavalry begins to litter his back with kisses, he finds himself baring it, even as their thumb slips deeper in him.
“N-No…” Wren groans weakly, both to the stretching of his hole and to the way his softened cock starts to harden with interest. Taking in half their thumb already felt like too much—he can’t imagine another finger.
Or their cock.
When their thumb slips in fully, it crooks upwards, massaging, or perhaps looking for something. Whatever it is, they find it, the pad of their thumb nudging against something in him that makes Wren shriek out in pleasure that was sharp, like lightning, and twice as blindsiding in its potency.
His back arches like a bow, ass presented like an animal in heat, and the Night’s Cavalry starts to drag their thumb in and out of his hole, always making sure to touch that bundle of nerves deep within him as they continue to stretch him open. When their thumb suddenly slips out of him completely, he feels uncomfortably empty, and he clenches in search of any kind of stimulation, much to his shame.
Their index finger slips inside this time, stealing a quivering moan from him as it reaches a little deeper than their thumb. He’s growing comfortable with the stretch, the pain barely there at all, but it returns with a vengeance when the Night’s Cavalry adds a second finger, stretching his hole wider now.
Wren hisses, tears fogging up his vision again. He digs his nails into his forearms, leaving little half crescent indentations. The Night’s Cavalry scissors his entrance with the tips of both their fingers, the feeling not at all pleasurable. When he whimpers from the pain as they plunge their digits inside him further, he feels the weight on his back shift as they readjust to move their face higher up.
The Night’s Cavalry’s nose rubs against his shoulder and the nape of his neck, stubble catching his skin and making him shiver. They suck a wet kiss on his shoulder blade, but it is not enough—they reach up with their free hand to grab his chin from the alcove he’s made with his arms and crane his face so that he’s looking at them over his shoulder.
They kiss him languidly, licking his lips and the inside of his mouth more than they were putting their actual lips to his own. It was like an animal was grooming him, in a way. The thought leaves Wren when the two fingers rubbing inside him delve as deep as they can go inside his ass, and it hurts, it does, bringing more tears to his eyes, and when he breathes in shakily, the tears spill down his cheeks.
The trail is licked away; a kiss pressed to the corner of his eye.
The pain begins to subside, and the simmering pleasure from earlier returns as both fingers in him start to prod stubbornly at his prostate. Words leave him—he starts to babble and moan like a senseless creature. He is drawing closer and closer to euphoria when the Night’s Cavalry’s fingers stop crooking inside him and slip out.
Something far larger than fingers nudges eagerly at his hole.
It makes his heart drop to his stomach. No amount of pleasure could make it possible for him to take such a thing within himself. The Night’s Cavalry doesn’t push inside immediately. They glide their slicked cock between his ass, smearing oil all over his backside and thighs, and when the tip catches against his hole, teasing entry, Wren moans despite himself and his fears.
No—that couldn’t be right, could it?
Wren clamps his jaw shut, refusing to make another sound. The hand cupping his ass takes their cock in hand, steadying it, and this time when the tip brushes against his hole, there’s purposeful pressure being applied, the stretch so much worse than two fingers as it thrusts slowly inward.
Crying doesn’t alleviate any of the stinging pain of being split open on the head of their length and instinctively tensing up only makes the discomfort that much more severe. The Night’s Cavalry’s face moves again, now nosing the long tresses by his ear, a breathy, whistling sound coming from their mouth—were they shushing him?
Was it meant to be soothing or were they signaling that he was going to be punished if he ruined this for them? He doesn’t know. All Wren knows is that their cock is gradually pushing itself deeper and deeper, the stretch becoming worse, and an all-consuming ache starts at the base of his loins and feels like it spreads to his lungs, almost.
What little of their cock he’s taken in is easily the width of three of the Night’s Cavalry’s fingers, and Wren makes a noise like a dying animal, the sound long and drawn out and unmistakably distressed. More oil is poured over his hole, and the next tentative push of their length is smoother. The deeper they slip in, the more Wren hears sounds from his assailant, who had been otherwise silent this entire time, even throughout the fight.
The Night’s Cavalry pants like a dog against the shell of his ear but makes no further vocalizations to show that they were enjoying this. It was like they were accustomed to fucking under the threat of discovery. A knight of their station wouldn’t be caught fucking peasants out in the open, willingly or not, and they most certainly wouldn’t be fucking a Tarnished while employed by their current master, Morgott, the Grace-Given.
How many men have you fucked like this; Wren thinks with seething bitterness as a breath is punched out of his lungs by their hips suddenly jerking, forcing their cock deeper, and there is a flicker of euphoria. It is such a relief after the prolonged, core-splitting agony, and Wren clings to the small feeling desperately, even moving his hips encouragingly to coax the feeling again.
It’s not just a haggard breath that leaves the man above him—Wren hears their voice now, ever faintly.
No words, or syllables, just a quiet, masculine grunt.
He almost wishes they were being crueler, just so he didn’t feel so conflicted about how good it was beginning to feel. There’s no way they’ve sank the entirety of their cock into him, but the Night’s Cavalry begins to thrust in and out of him slowly anyways. Whatever amount of their length they managed to stuff inside him is enough to make Wren feel close to bursting. Even just breathing felt like it roused more friction and each thrust hit the bundle of nerves in him stubbornly.
He cries more from overstimulation than he does the pain now, making high pitched keening sounds as their hips slapped against his backside and made vulgar wet noises. The pleasure burns—it starts at the soles of his feet, going up his legs and thighs where the core of the heat is in his belly, coiling tighter and tighter like a serpent.
“O-Oh!!” Wren cries, mouth hanging open and drool spilling down the corner of his lips like a drunkard. He closes his eyes, not out of fear or disgust, but because he wants to focus on the tingling, brain melding feeling that was building up. With a shout, he climaxes for the second time, his length spurting his seed over his belly and the floor, staining where his robes were bunched up in the front.
He can’t think through it—all he can do is feel, and it feels like he orgasms forever, like there’s going to be no liquid left in his body after all the tears, sweat and cum that’s been wringed out of his exhausted body.
He clenches around the cock still thrusting in him tightly. The Night’s Cavalry growls, hips stuttering as they pick up the pace, and they latch their mouth onto the nape of his neck, biting hard enough to bruise suddenly. It makes Wren hiss, and his body tenses, his hole now like a loving vice on the man’s length and with another hard thrust, they suck in a sharp breath and hot, thick streams of seed start filling him up.
Their teeth remained latched to his neck as they orgasm, and when they stop thrusting at last and pull their cock free from his ass, some of their seed spills out in an awful, ticklish way down his thighs. Just like his own orgasm, it felt like their seed was taking forever to leak out of him, and as Wren lays completely flat on the ground, limp, the Night’s Cavalry suckles at the bite they left, licking it as if to soothe.
Their weight disappears, and they flop noisily over next to him, pale face scarlet now, and drenched in just as much sweat as his own. That coldness to their eyes is gone too, and there’s a genuine warmth to their gaze as they watch him. Wren shivers and hides his face back into his arms.
He doubts he could move right now, but he really should, shouldn’t he? The Night’s Cavalry had gotten what they wanted, presumably, and should let him leave now. But they don’t get up to make their steed move from the cave’s entrance. When he does hear them get up minutes later, its to retrieve something from their satchel—a rag, which they’ve dampened.
They intend to clean the mess, and that makes Wren realize suddenly that he IS the mess, and something about that line of thinking, or maybe it’s the gentle way in which the Night’s Cavalry cleans him, makes him start crying again. He gets unceremoniously flipped onto his back, so that they can clean his front and Wren doesn’t bother hiding his face, uncaring if they saw his misery.
And something about his misery this time around actually has an effect. The Night’s Cavalry’s face loses what little warmth it had and their thick brows furrow. They toss the filthy rag aside and quickly move to unlatch the buckles keeping their cloak secured to their pauldrons, and the long, tattered fabric is draped across Wren, who barely even registers the sensations as their crying becomes louder.
The Night’s Cavalry looks left and right, visibly panicking, and they leave again to grab something from their steed before returning. Wren is offered their skein of water and some dried meat. He shakes his head weakly at both.
He can’t bare to look at the man.
He can’t bare to be seen.
When even their meagre provisions are rejected, the Night’s Cavalry pulls out a few warming stones and places them around where Wren lays tucked under his cloak, before laying on their side next to him, now carding their fingers through his hair in what he thinks is their attempt at comforting him.
The Night’s Cavalry seemed particularly interested with the rainbow stones braided into his hair, and they turn a lock of his hair this way and that, liking the sound of the beads clinking. Comforting him? How laughable—they were only doing what they wanted, which is all they seem committed to.
‘Animal’, sits on the tip of Wren’s tongue as he feels his ravaged body begin to heal what their flasks could not.
“I’m leaving.” Wren says coldly after the strength has returned to his body; sitting up and tossing their cloak off him, not sparing the Night’s Cavalry a single glance before he stands to his feet shakily and starts fixing his robes as best as he can. He would need to find a river to wash them in, or else the stains would remain, and he wants no reminder of this man or this encounter.
His words make the Night’s Cavalry panic. They stand up and approach him, trying again to give him their food or drink, and he ignores them.
“If you do not move your horse, I will bite my tongue off and bleed myself like a pig until I am no longer forced to look upon your wretched countenance.” He warns, not at all scared.
What more could be done to him? He’d been bested in battle, forced upon, and humiliated in every sense.
The Night’s Cavalry’s eyes lower to the ground. They consider his words for some time, before wordlessly nodding, that blank, distant look to their eyes again. He watches them approach their steed and whistle sharply, and the horse begrudgingly gets up from where it’s been sleeping and moves out of the way.
A breeze immediately rolls into the cave, reminding Wren that there was in fact a world outside of it—that he hadn’t been trapped in some nightmare this whole time. He doesn’t waste any time before briskly walking towards the entrance.
Armored footsteps follow closely behind.
He ignores them.
Wren slips out the cave and sees that its only a little darker outside than it had been earlier. He was only in the cave for an hour or two, at most, but each second had felt like an eternity. He doesn’t have any flasks to revive Torrent, but there’s a familiar grace nearby, he’s certain, and not wanting to give the Night’s Cavalry a chance to pull something, Wren holds up his robes a little and takes off into a sprint.
He does not spare a single glance behind his shoulders. He is just relieved to not hear a horse trailing after him.
It takes a little while to reach the grace he has in mind, because Wren is making doubly sure to not attract the attention of anything while his resources were so depleted. He finds the grace by the small river in the woods, and it’s surrounded by tall bushes that don’t make it immediately noticeable at first. It was the perfect spot for now, until he was stable enough in spirit to return to the Roundtable Hold.
Once Torrent is revived and he apologizes profusely to them, Wren rides his steed towards the river and starts to wash his clothes; his knuckles and fingers becoming raw quickly from how fiercely he scrubs the bar of soap into the fabric. He’s crying again, he realizes when tears fall on his arms as he works.
Torrent nudges his shoulder with their muzzle.
Elden Lord—
A paltry dream.
Yet, when Wren hangs his clothes to dry on the branch of a tree and curls himself around Torrent for warmth in his naked state, he feels the same determination to fulfill his destiny as he had upon awakening.
If anything, his determination burned more fiercely now.
He swears to kill that Night’s Calvary, even if it takes him a thousand tries.
When he falls asleep that night, it is with his back to Torrent and one hand cupped over the nape of his neck, where the indentations of teeth had been.
Even now, his skin burned as if the mark was there.