#gepard drabble

Summary: You're trying to train with Gepard but he can't seem to focus. Little do you know he's harboring a massive secret from you...

Pairing: Gepard Landau X G/N!Reader

Genre: Fluffyish Drabble

Word Count: 797

Warning: N/A

Masterlist

A/N: The way i started typing and didnt stop, im literally just rambling towards the end.

I hope you enjoy

ପ(๑•ᴗ•๑)ଓ ♡

when it comes its advent is undulating roars of fire, withering skin that curls in on itself, brittle and black. it’s his comrades dying one after the other in quick succession. he has enough time to seize an opening, to give them the opportunity to rally their remaining forces, to gasp in respite and arm themselves for the onslaught. he had not left home that day knowing it was the final time, had not greeted familiar faces at the barracks and warmed his hands around a blazing flame knowing that would be his last day. when he braces for impact, serrated limbs ending in hooked talons, he spares a solitary, fleeting glance over his shoulder and commands his men to retreat. they look upon him, astonished, exhausted, covered in slick sweat and drying blood. there’s an understanding that passes between them, wordless and pervading with the knowledge that he would not be following them.

the blunt impact against his shield is so immense that it sends shudders to his bones, his teeth clacking, a lance of excruciating pain surging through his arms, burying itself in his shoulders. he sinks his boots deep into the snow, ice swelling upwards as he was plowed backwards, his entire body keens beneath the force. the monster opens its jaws, rows of serrated teeth incandescent with heat, its eyes buried deep into its carapace skull. It retracts its long, spinose pincer and brings it down again, the pressure fractures bone, he can feel the pain of it towing him backwards, forcing his senses to remain alert, to push back against the barrage of strikes. its frustrated wail carries on the wind and the next time it withdraws, inspecting him with its bulging, rotating eyes, he launches his counter attack.

the shield wedges itself under the creature’s limb, a strident crack of impact that has the monster reeling, ice burgeons from the wound, rushing up its flesh, solidifying around it. gepard heaves a searing breath in, all of his mustered strength going into holding it in place, suddenly, a sharp, blinding agony erupts from his shoulder. it had brought down its other claw, punctuating the juncture between his throat and shoulder. blood rushed to the surface, blistering against his cold skin, surging from the wound, filling the dip of his collarbone, sousing his proud, white clothes carmine. he is the last bastion between this monster and his men, so he endures with unfaltering resolve. the ice is like a starved beast, rapidly swallowing the creature, limb after limb, until it splintered the hard, outer shell of its skull and the pincer embedded in his shoulder went limp.

he sinks to his knees, it were as if all the vigour had been drained from him, his shield hitting the ground, burying into the snow. he presses his hand to the wound, staunch the blood, he remembered that, even in the amorphous haze of his wavering consciousness. but it keeps flowing, the gash is so deep it’s carved past bone, if he were to wrench it from his body it would tear open a gaping fissure in his skin.

send SOBBED for a scene from my muse's past in which they broke down in tears.

the tutor’s wizened face was twisted with disdain, from beneath her long, angular nose she griped about the children of the noble house and their incessant, tumultuous mutiny. her lectures were monotonous, vast expanses of history cast in the washed out, anemic light of a participant. in spite of her gnarled, spindly fingers and her deteriorating eyesight, they had been entirely convinced she had deluded herself to its grandeur. serval had stated, rather astutely, that in her senility she had mistaken herself for an illustrious soldier, rather than an old, barbaric educator. swept up in his sister’s maelstrom, gepard had eluded her hawkish, bespectacled gaze, his sister’s hand firm around his wrist, a marshal of fictitious expeditions and elusive treasure. their footfalls echoed through the estate, resounding with the thrill of the unknown, suffused not with old dust and desiccated narration. his sister had all the proclivities of a leader, the sort of person other’s amassed before, charisma, one of their teacher’s had called it, rebellion, his father had, less pleasantly. 

the two dashed along the long, sinuous corridors, condemned by the captious scowls of their predecessors, painted in superlative detail. his wrist bobbed with each stride, still clasped between her willowy fingers, his lurching a little to keep pace with her longer, adrenalized ones. his sister was wise beyond her years, peerless in her ways with mechanisms, many days had he spent in awe of her as she dismantled and remade things over and over again, each time with ineffable improvements. he trusted her to carve a path through their world of aristocratic propriety and the antiquated chronicles of their ancestor’s grand achievements. they would laugh in tandem, their elation a polarity to their father’s stringent regulations. he had not intended to, but as they bustled through the halls, past closed, imposing doors and their father’s study, ajar but only just, his shoulder collided with a pedestal of lacquered wood. the bust, proud and diligently sculptured, tilted precariously as pain burgeoned from the impact, staring at him grimly before it crashed to the floor in a raucous, fracturing annunciation of their presence. 

serval ceased in her tracks, gepard, reeling from the injury, almost ran into her. their father’s voice thundered, incensed and impaling, accusatory and withering. he doesn’t hear precisely what is spoken, there’s a strident ringing in his ears but he knows his father’s ire and can see it splotching red along his throat, his thick, dark brows drawn and corrugating. serval shields him almost instantly, throwing her arm out before him and bickering in retaliation, it wasn’t his fault, it was an accident but their father was deaf to her excuses, his wrath far more vehement than her umbrage. gepard cowered in the shadow of that grand pedestal, now shamefully vacant, crouching, pressing his hands firmly over his ears until the ringing and the quarreling was muted. his knees buckle, his hands tremble. he doesn’t want his sister to endure punishment on his behalf, doesn’t want to hear the ruthless malice of his father. he weeps, his palms pressed into his eyes until he sees incandescent flickers in the dark, until they roll down his cheeks, until his father mutters something bitterly and slams the door over his study closed, his sister now hovering over him, a comforting arm slung over his shoulder. her voice was lulling, a soft, dulcet hum he knew well, she’s reassuring him - but he cannot bring himself to look at her in that moment. there was more comfort in the dark, where his father’s encroaching shadow and the repercussions of this accident didn’t feel like a firm strike to the cheek. 

-

the battlefield did not offer clemency to those dauntless enough to walk its desolate, glacial trail. they had thought themselves prepared, in their thick, thermal clothes and their gleaming, silver armor, nothing could have devised a strategy to prevent this. the deathrattles of men rose with the lament of arctic winds, their strident screams of agony coursing through him in unadulterated anguish. the creatures that emerged from the hibernal, white mantle were atrocities, their eldritch forms trudging through thawing snow. the searing, biting sense of flesh broiling beneath armor, of skin splitting and peeling away black and withered, of death in gargantuan waves, towing them under one by one. some men, their wits fraying at the brink of their own demise, stray from the ranks, kicking up spindrifts of white as they, desperately, hopelessly, try to flee. a creature careens after them, too fast to track and lunges at one, dragging him wailing into the banks of white. more surge forward, a torrent of black swallowing soldier after soldier until their proud, reputable legion was but a few stragglers, terror stuttering in time with their pulse. Gepard’s head turns to his men, his shield glowing with heat, repelling burning fire and carving through tough caparace like hides to expose the grotesque, purple innards. those who fight alongside him are tenacious but the cold and torment erode their tenacity, their arms laden with fatigue, their eyes reserved and regarding death with imminence. “ get back, now.” his voice, despite how it wavers, holds the authority of their leader and garners their attention immediately. they gaze out into the frozen wasteland littered with corpses, humans, monsters, blood inundating the white to red. “ we’re retreating, back to cover.”  but their muscles ache in protest and their bones are weary with the weight of their duty, it takes a moment for them to acquiesce, falling back into the snow-drifts, the echo of monsters howling raucous and ferocious. out of the twenty men that had risen to meet the encroaching horde only six were remaining. 

there could never be enough time to mourn properly. amongst the dead were his comrades, his close friends, people with whom he had shared meals with, who he had trained alongside. dread sinks into him, heavy and dismal. this was what it meant to fight for their people, the death it entailed felt like a noose around his throat, he had been the one to lead them, to usher them to their untimely demise. disgrace was nothing in contrast to the despair, to the incorporeal visions of limbs wrested violently from their sockets, of sprays of blood sheening once prestigious scraps of armor. the screams were the worst, besetting him with nights of harrowing reprises of moribund wailing, awakening in a cold sweat. he sat in the shadows of serval’s shop, the sign turned over, closed, it read, even though it was hours earlier than usual. gepard felt like that child again, powerless to prevent the grievous reality of their circumstance. he drew his knees to his chest, wearing now a loose shirt and trousers, hardly decorated for battle - for war, his chin resting atop them. amongst the long, undulating stretches of darkness he was etiolated, his once proud features blanched, his eyes red and rimmed still with unshed tears.