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As it turned out, he was a collaborative gift from your father and a new alchemist's guild that had set down roots in the city. The product of limitless financial prowess and unbridled research endeavors, which would likely now be funded ad infinitum, as your father's absolute delight and marvel of the knight was unmistakable.

You hadn't understood the reason for his fascination until the knight, still having said nothing of his new oath, looked up into your eyes. No face of a man gazed up at you, only impenetrable blackness surrounding two glowing pink orbs inside the helmet where his eyes should've been. You had expected a weathered but handsome man with eyes the shade of warm honey, or brown, or blue, or just something human.

To sate your curiosity and confusion, you took your fingers away from the knight and lifted the helmet straight up off his head. It was heavy in your hands, yet not enough to unbalance you until you looked inside the armor and saw nothing. There was also nothing inside the helmet. Both were empty.

You gasped and dropped the helmet, eliciting a joyous yelp of laughter from your father and others in his court (who mimicked him).

"What in God's name are you?" you asked on a winded breath.

The knight, unperturbed, retrieved his helmet and replaced it, then bowed to you once more as if to continue emphasizing that he was there for you. Only you.

He was not capable of giving you an answer, but your father was: "He is to be your protection in these coming dark days. I pray that you will not need him. But, it has come to my attention that one of my very own court harbors unforgivable malice towards me and mine. Just this morning, the taster perished after eating the breakfast porridge meant for me. They will be coming for you, too, my precious one."

Whispers in the audience chamber erupted into hysterics that reverberated all around and penetrated your skull. It was an unnecessary act to bring an assassination attempt to light in such a public manner, but your father knew no subtlety, nor did he know kindness in his punishments. Quartering would be a mercy in comparison to what else he would do.

"He is to stay with you, always," said your father, without a trace of humor.

In the distant corner of the audience chamber, covered by a shroud of dark and unnoticed in the uproar, your husband and cousin scowled at the man sitting on his throne of tyranny.

With the knight always only a few paces behind you at any given time, the days lapsed into months; one season seamlessly melding into another. The assassination attempts continued undaunted, and the bodies of tasters were kept in the cellar, frozen on ice, in the hopes of being able to extract information on the poison being used. Perhaps most interesting was that none of the attempts had been directly on you.

"My father is a hated man, Galiger," you told the knight walking in your shadow. It was springtime now, cool in the mornings, the air always full of dense mist and dew on tree leaves. You liked to flick the droplets off with your fingers. "I… you mustn't say anything, but I don't blame the hatred. He commits abominable acts in the name of God. He says God wants war with the Solyites because they're heathens, but is that true? Is that the will of God, or the will of man, Galiger?"

Galiger was incapable of speech, but the soul infused into the armor had once belonged to a faithful knight from another time. He would carefully absorb your every word spoken and take it as his own gospel. Nothing else mattered to him; the world at large was full of trivialities and hatred, none of which directly impacted you because you were sheltered behind walls of stone and metal, and him.

"I don't think my father is long for this world," you confessed, shivering in the morning breeze and thick mist. You tried to diffuse your anxiety by plucking tree leaves and tearing them in your hands. "Once he dies, then what? Mother is dead. I am the only heir, aside from my cousin. My husband is pushing me to prepare for ascension, but I don't want it. I don't want… I don't want to die. My father has made enemies of the world, Galiger."

You startled when his heavy red cloak was draped across your shoulders, his hands lingering on your body. Perhaps it was your insurmountable loneliness; the long nights alone in your chambers while your husband philandered the castle and city for his fill, or simply the pressure of an unknowable future, but you threw yourself into Galiger's cold armor and leaned against him.

He would not push you away; that would've been an offensive act, but you hadn't expected his arms to surround you in a reciprocating embrace. You hadn't thought that he could feel much of anything at all, even with his soul intact.

Enough nights had passed of you divulging your most sinful secret thoughts and desires to him because you believed that he was only an enchanted suit of armor. At no point had it occurred to you that, perhaps, a soul could still belong to a man and that that soul was still the man he had once been while he was alive. Devoted to a fault. Kind. Loving, even.

These revelations made your body burn, gave deeper meaning to the way Galiger held you close in his arms. If he had been an ordinary man, you were certain he would've tried to kiss you, and you wouldn't have been able to find it in yourself to deny him. You had told him once that you sometimes liked to pretend there was flesh and a cock inside his armor, and rough skin to touch you with.

You couldn't believe your own foolish bravery.

Even later that night, while in the bath, your recent past haunted you. Galiger was guarding the room just beyond the white linens hanging from the ceiling. They created a lovely, opaque curtain of privacy that billowed like ladies' party gowns when a breeze trickled into the room.

Ordinarily, knights would never be given the privilege of watching over their liege as they bathed, but, like you, the alchemists and your father had underestimated the human soul and assumed him to be just a suit of armor.

"My husband never touches me anymore. I have not shared a bed with him in over a year. I think that he is in love with my cousin. Interesting, isn't it?" This was said aloud to the room. No voice returned confirmation to you, only the clamor of his armor increasing the closer he got to your linen curtains. "It's okay. You can look at me. I want you to look at me. Please."

Whether as a man or a knight, he obeyed and brushed the curtain aside with one of his arms. You were submerged up to your chest in a wooden bathing vessel. A sickly-sweet floral aroma wafted around the enclosed space in a thick haze that made your head feel a little heavy.

"Touch me, Galiger. I'm… so alone," you said, lifting one of your legs over the rim of the bathtub. "You can do anything to me, and I'll take it. If… if that is your desire as well, of course." Unlike your father, you found no comfort in taking things that did not belong to you, nor what did not want to belong to you.

But Galiger has always been yours. He had been made for you. He wanted you as well.

He placed his leathery hand on the leg you left out for him and caressed your skin as he followed the obvious path up the length of your body to your core. There, he went no further and focused on your face despite how provocatively revealed to him you were in this moment. Your displeasure could not be disguised, even as he touched your face with the palm side of his gauntlet. The sharpened fingertips of steel gently grazed your skin. His leather-clad thumb came to rest across your lips, touching them. He memorized their shape and how you wrapped your hot tongue around his false appendage, mindful of the way his armor protruded.

Maybe even living armor could experience arousal, because he trailed his other hand down the expanse of your body to grope your chest, anywhere else he could grab before plunging into the water and laying the first strokes on you. The abruptness of his touch made you jolt, hands fast to grapple the edges of the tub.

You let out a sigh that quivered from both excitement and relief. His strokes began to smooth out, grew into long, languid motions that you could follow by thrusting your hips in time with his hand. As he worked you up, you tried to imagine what it would be like to have his cock inside of you, what that would look like. Maybe he'd be a normal length with enough girth to spread you wide open. Maybe he'd have just the right amount of curve to hit you where you need it the most.

Maybe, when he fucked you, it was unlike how he would behave while in armor. While he donned his persona and protected you by day, by night, he would be a fervent lover and take you with wild, hard, greedy thrusts that made the room spin around you. He would always moan when he came, and finish on your body because neither of you could take the risk.

It was a delicious fantasy that sent you over the edge. Hard. You had to bite around a wad of white linen to keep your moans quiet as Galiger's hand worked you into a searing orgasm. It was a spectacular light behind your eyes, like the night sky brightening with explosive fire before settling back into darkness.

You held onto his wrist as he stroked you through it, and then slowed once you were no longer writhing against his hand and your moans had slowed, evened into deep breaths.

He took his hand away from your core, but let it linger on your leg hanging off the edge of the bathtub still. You allowed him this as you were satisfied, not thinking that you would ever face qualms of his touching you after this. That was when you sat upright in the bath and grabbed the helmet off his shoulders.

You sank back into the lukewarm water, smiling at the glowing pink orbs staring back at you, and kissed the cold metal visor.

a/n: sorry to the anon whose friend wanted swordplay, it wasn't going to fit in with this particular version of the prompt.

if y'all want more of this, you've got three options:

1) a larger one shot of this specific prompt

2) you're the alchemist who brings the armor to life, except now the knight is loyal to you. possibly swordplay here