The TruthlessSage fic only ever grows longer the more I write it, imagine that. Here's another little snippet, I might post the first chapter on Ao3 soon.
"Which ones are we moving? Where would you like them to go?" Sage asked, his tone almost excited as he surveyed the land.
Truthless hesitated again for a brief moment, then sighed.
"Grab one of the stones around this bush, and move it to the side," he explained weakly. "We'll reroute the walkway so that its not in the middle of one."
"Makes sense," Sage said.
He leaned over and brushed the compost off of one of the large, flat stones making up the walkway. He heaved, slowly lifting the rock until it was just barely above the ground. His arms were shaking. He took a wobbly step to the side, then a second one.
Truthless put a hand over his lower face, covering his mouth.
Sage groaned, hefting the stone up a little bit higher, maybe a centimeter, and made it one more step before the stone fell from his grasp. He leaped away from it, hands raised out of fear of it smashing his fingers.
He turned to Truthless and smiled expectantly. "Is that good?"
Truthless remained silent for a moment. He was kind of overwhelmed by how pathetic that display had been. It was, quite frankly, adorable. The stone had barely moved ten centimeters to the side. This was the cutest thing he'd ever seen and he kind of wanted to make Sage lift all of the rocks in the garden just to watch him struggle some more.
"Yes," he eventually said stoically. "That works."
"Are you sure?" Sage asked, entirely innocent and unaware of the evil thoughts lurking within his head. "Do you want me to move it over some more?"
"No, no, that's fine," Truthless insisted.