for the hurt comfort promt thingy: Helsknight or/and Tanguish suffering from the aches of living (getting sick, having a migraine, panic attack, painful cramps, etc) and enjoying the others company whilst suffering.
It hits at odd times, but once, before every match, inevitably, Helsknight has a panic attack. The funny thing was, he never really knew that's what they were for the longest time. There was a disconnect between his mind and the reactions of his body. He would think about the match. He would think about losing. He would think about how that could come about, what would most likely happen. All the terrible little scenarios. It probably started as something more productive, running bad cases through his head and trying to imagine ways to counter them. Then the shakes would start. And the buzzing in his ears. The sudden, blinding desire to break something, or pace in circles. The inability to move to vent the reckless energy.
The sudden, piercing silence of mind; the resounding, thoughtless emotion of danger.
This one happened at another odd time. A quiet time. A time he should have been at peace, but wasn't. He was sitting in his cell, writing. Carding through words and phrases. Not a speech, just possible rebuttals for Red, when they inevitably shouted their grievances across the sand.
The thought struck him: [Would he say something if he was wounded? Dying, maybe, if he could feel that coming? Should he prepare something for that?]
Helsknight scratched a few quick tally marks on the page, doodling neat rows of lines as he tried to think of something worthwhile to say, in the event Red got the upperhand.
The thought struck him: [What would it look like if Red won?]
Helsknight was a vicious fighter, confident in his skills, and EB had engrained in him the necessity of fighting dirty. Not dishonorably -- no kicking sensitive places or punching stab wounds. But sometimes one had to give in to the necessity of ugly violence for survival's sake. Biting, clawing, wrestling.
Red would have to disarm him somehow. If Helsknight had a weapon in his hand, he would find a reason to fight. Once, he killed a rampaging hoglin with just the broken half of his sword. Granted, it had [thankfully] shattered with a sharp end, so it was mostly an unwieldy dagger, but still. It hadn't been a real weapon anymore, and Helsknight had used it.
So, disarmed. Maybe literally. There were a lot of things Helsknight could fight through, but dismemberment was one of those he didn't like his chances against. Losing a hand in the Colosseum had a way of halting the momentum of a fight quickly. Helsknight did not think he would just lay down and die though. Probably Red would stand over him with that massive ax -- Helsknight could see it in his mind's eye, the way Red squared up to people like they were a tree he was proud to fell.
[Red never aimed for the neck. He thought beheadings were cruel, given necks were thicker and more tenacious than most people gave them credit for, and blades had difficulty when bones needed severed. It would be a swing that came for major veins and arteries. His shoulders. His chest. His legs.]
There would be a lot of blood. There might be less blood, if Martyn was still up when it happened. He would spare Red the kill, and his knives were keen and his aim was good. The throat, the eyes, up beneath the ribs, if he could find a parting in Helsknight's armor. And then...
... Nothing.
Respawn, maybe.
Or. Maybe not.
[What would it feel like, when he went back to Wels?]
It would feel like... Nothing. Because there would be nothing left of him to feel. It would be dark. It would be quiet. Logically, it would be like sleep. Timeless nothing, with no dreams and no waking and...
Nothing.
The End of Everything.
It was silly to be afraid. He could not feel fear in oblivion. There would be nothing left of him that could feel fear.
[What would Nothing feel like?]
[Nothing.]
[It would...
[it......
[
[
"Helsknight?"
Helsknight blinked. And he blinked again. His eyes felt dry and itchy, like he was staring too long. His notebook was still open to a half-written page.
His mind was watching an ax swing.
Tanguish's weight was suddenly on his shoulder, arms crossed, looking over at his work. The touch reminded Helsknight, in no uncertain terms, where he was. Not on the sand. Not on the broad end of an ax head. He was in his cell, writing, and Tanguish was here.
"You've been staring for a while," Tanguish observed, his voice quiet and close. He had a habit of talking softly into prolonged silence, like he was afraid of trespassing on someone else's thoughts. The rise and fall of his chest against Helsknight's back reminded Helsknight to regulate his breathing. One deep inhalation after another.
"Do you not like what you've written?" Tanguish persisted.
"No," Helsknight answered, his voice hoarse and strangled in a throat constricted with baseless fear. "I don't like it."
Tanguish watched him, a frown twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Are you alright?"
Helsknight cleared his throat uncomfortably. He felt... Shaky. The need to shiver crawled up his back, and he had to set his jaw to stifle it.
He realized his jaw hurt. Had he been grinding his teeth?
"I'm." [He could not lie.] [He could not admit he was panicking over nothing.] [He didn't want to talk, when nausea suddenly made any emotion leaving his mouth a perilous task.] "Having a hard time coming up with things to say."
His quill was still in his hand. The last few tally marks he has traced on the margins of his page were noticeably jittery. Trying to pick them out from the crowd suddenly had all the little lines blurring together, dancing over top of each other. His heartbeat was too fast beneath his breathing, and he could feel every beat like they were done with intention, like if he stopped thinking about it, the muscle would slow to a stop like any other unused limb. His fingers twitched.
"Have you tried rereading your old work?" Tanguish suggested helpfully, he leaned forward on Helsknight's shoulders, reaching over to the book and turning to a random page nearer the front. "You probably have a dozen good lines here you've forgotten about."
The page Tanguish had opened to was a poem, written a few weeks ago when Helsknight had been idle. He let out a breath, cold against the back of Helsknight's neck, delighted.
"Is that one new?"
"New-ish."
"Can I read it?"
Helsknight laid his fingertips flat against the desk, trying to calm the shudder in his hands. If Tanguish noticed, he didn't say anything.
"It's best if read aloud," Helsknight said, because he realized, somewhere in the back of his mind where rational thought was slowly crawling its way forward, that Tanguish's voice was grounding. Forcing him to recognize the moment, and stay there, and away from perilous thoughts. "Give it a shot."
Tanguish chewed on his bottom lip, suddenly nervous. His tail flicked, a motion that Helsknight felt in the jerk that traveled up Tanguish's spine. He eyes Helsknight's cramped handwriting, and let out a long breath. Helsknight let his breath out too, unaware he'd been holding it.
Tanguish read the poem aloud, wandering through stanzas with reckless abandon, ignoring punctuation like it didn't matter for meter and time. He read the poem like it was prose, one word after another, inflectionless, besides his own reactions to the alliteration.
Helsknight sighed, and welcomed the relief when his hands stopped shaking.
"You're good at that," he said, when Tanguish was done. "Read another?"
Tanguish smirked, aware of his own fumbles. But when Helsknight turned the page with hands that no longer shook, Tanguish humored him.
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If Tanguish and Helsknight could play an instrument what would they play?
Random thought yes but I had the idea of Tanguish playing ether a flute or a fiddle (heh, get it? Cause he climbs on roofs?), for Helsknight something in a low tone but still be able to go into higher notes? Maybe? Like a cello or maybe a trombone or trumpet? '\/( • _•)\/'
I meant to answer this ages ago I'm so sorry!
Not gonna lie, after seeing @cursedthing's doodle of Helsknight playing piano, I can't get it out of my head. I think he would love how dramatic piano pieces can get, the range of motion required for playing more elaborate pieces. I agree Tanguish would have a lot of fun with a fiddle [heh love that reference] or a flute. Something nimble and dexterous and upbeat.
