I realised that there is no better way to introduce my freak of an oc, Lohen's boyfriend, than to describe how they almost killed each other the first time they met because they both thought the other one was the enemy. Love at the first stabbing or whatever. Enjoy.
Wind and snow lashed sideways across the ruined pass, feeling sharp as shattered glass. The cliffs of Nod-Krai stood firmly under the storm, ancient pine trees snapping their branches in the air while distant explosions painted brief orange scars across the mountainside.
The camp below was already burning. What had once been a temporary forward outpost of the Knights of Favonius was now a battlefield filled with smoke, and carnage. Supply wagons laid overturned in the snow, canvas ripped open and crates fallen down the slope. Horses shrieked somewhere in the dark. A ballista had collapsed entirely, its splintered arm jutting upward like a snapped bone.
And through all of it moved the thing the enemy feared most: Lohen cut through the battlefield like a winter storm.
A man lunged at him from behind, axe raised, face hidden beneath wolf pelts, and Lohen drove his blade through the man's throat without hesitation. He ripped the dagger free with brutal force, wheeling immediately into the next attacker. Steel crashed, and fresh blood sprayed hot against the snow.
The raiders had struck just before dawn. Nobody knew where they'd come from at first. One moment the mountain pass had been quiet, save for the wind, and the next the camp was under siege by warriors wearing no crest the Knights recognized, fighters draped in furs, moving through the storm with familiarity that gave them a significant advance. They attacked supply lines first, then communications, then the command tents.
Varka had taken most of the expedition force eastward three days earlier, leaving only a smaller detachment behind to hold the pass until reinforcements arrived from Nod-Krai's allied settlements. Those reinforcements had included one name specifically: Daemon, a Snezhnayan fae. Only the message never reached anyone.
The courier carrying Varka's orders had died less than a mile from camp, an arrow buried through his neck before he could deliver the briefing to the remaining captains. By the time the attack began, the defenders that were still standing only knew one thing: Unknown combatants were approaching from the north.
Which meant that when another figure appeared through the blizzard in the middle of the chaos, pale eyes glinting in unnatural silver-blue beneath a fur-lined hood, the implications seemed obvious.
Daemon reached the camp at a sprint, boots barely making noise across bloodstained ice as he vaulted a collapsed barricade. Snow clung to the dark hood over his head. His breath fogged sharply in the frozen air. He came too late. There were bodies everywhere.
The scent hit him first, smoke, too, but mostly iron, the smell of blood so thick it drowned out even the cold.
A wounded knight stumbled toward him from between two shattered carts. The man gasped, not even looking properly at Daemon before an arrow punched through his chest from behind. Daemon caught him before he hit the ground, but the knight was already dead.
A sharp laugh tore through the battlefield, and Daemon's head quickly snapped up.
Across the camp, illuminated by firelight and storm flashes alike, a polearm user carved through attackers with horrifying efficiency. Not disciplined and outright aggressive. Every strike was given excessive force, weapon splitting people apart, enemies driven into the ground hard enough to hear their skulls crack. One raider tried to retreat and the young man cut him down from behind without a second thought.
Daemon's expression darkened, his brows furrowing in confusion. He was killing the men who attacked the camp, but... he couldn't be a knight. Right? No Knight of Favonius fought like that.
Another warrior rushed the young man from the side and was met with force violent enough to leave blood sprayed across the side of a burning wagon. Daemon felt his pulse spike. A berserker in the middle of the camp, of unknown affiliation, killing anything in reach. For a second, he almost hesitated before assuming that this man was the enemy.
And then, across smoke and snow, their eyes met, and Daemon's blood froze at what he saw. That young man, drenched in carnage, was staring straight at him with delight, like a wolf spotting fresh prey.
Lohen saw a stranger with a vision hanging from his belt emerging from the northern blizzard, exactly where the enemy forces had appeared from all night, and he moved first.
He tore through the battlefield toward Daemon with terrifying speed, his polearm dragging sparks against stone as another explosion thundered somewhere uphill. Knights shouted warnings to each other over the storm, but neither of them listened.
Lohen hit him like an avalanche.
Their weapons collided with a crack loud enough to drown out the storm for half a second, Cryo erupting violently from Lohen's spear as Daemon's sword caught the strike sideways. Frost exploded across the steel in jagged blue-white veins. The force drove Daemon backward through the snow, his hood falling off, revealing his face, and he swore under his nose. God, he was fast.
Lohen laughed the moment their weapons locked, bright and sharp and completely unhinged amidst the chaos around them. "Aren't you a pretty one!" he says, eyes glittering inhumanly beneath strands of snow-damp hair. "Someone woke up today looking for trouble, huh? Bring it on!"
Daemon twisted hard, knocking the spear aside before Lohen could drive it through his ribs. "You're pretty too! Maybe i'll hang your head above my fireplace when i'm done with you." He taunted. Then, he vanished.
The air folded around him in a pulse of silver-blue light. Lohen's grin widened instantly. Daemon reappeared behind him, blade sweeping toward the knight's spine in one clean killing strike.
Lohen spun with impossible grace, catching the sword. Cryo burst across the ground beneath them and in Lohen's hand, while Daemon skidded backward again, boots carving trenches through snow. Lohen landed lightly atop a shattered supply crate, crouched like an overexcited predator, spear balanced in his hand. There was blood streaked on the side of his face, and most of it probably wasn't his. He looked beautiful, in a sickening kind of way.
"Oh, pretty trick," Lohen purred. "Do that again."
Daemon stared up at him through the storm, expression hardening further with every second. Definitely not a knight. He had no discipline, no restraint whatsoever. This young man couldn't be a soldier, not when he looked like he would be having the time of his life elbow-deep in gore. Behind Lohen, one of the raiders tried to stagger to his feet.
Without even looking, Lohen drove his spear backward through the man's chest, and the body hit the snow with a wet crunch. "Besides! If you wanna mount me somewhere, at least buy me a drink first."
Daemon moved before the last word finished leaving his mouth. He crossed the distance in a blur, sword slashing through the storm. Lohen met him with a delighted grin, spear crashing against that blade again and again in a frenzy of sparks and cryo bursts.
Lohen suddenly hooked the shaft of his spear around Daemon's sword arm and yanked hard, dragging him dangerously close. Close enough to see the carefully masked manic excitement in Daemon's bright eyes.
"Oh?" Lohen hummed. "You've got fangs too? Cute. It's a shame I'm going to have to gut you."
Daemon then slammed his forehead into Lohen's nose. The young man reeled backward, laughing maniacally as blood poured down to his mouth.
Daemon's pulse thundered hot beneath his skin now, all his instincts fully awake. The battlefield around them had become background noise, and all that mattered was the monster in front of him.
"You talk too much," Daemon muttered.
Lohen twirled the spear once, ice spiraling beautifully around the blade. "And you don't talk enough, sweetheart. Relationships need more communication!"
Daemon lunged, and Lohen met him halfway with enough force to split the frozen ground beneath them. The impact rattled through Daemon's lighter frame as Lohen drove him backwards again, relentless now, every strike fueled by vicious, brutal momentum, rather than any kind of measured technique. Cryo burst around the spearhead in aggressive crescents.
Daemon ducked beneath a thrust aimed for his throat and slashed upward in retaliation. Lohen twisted away laughing, but not fast enough. The blade opened a long cut across his ribs.
For a heartbeat, both of them froze. Then, Lohen looked down at the blood soaking through his coat and grinned so wide it bordered on frightening.
The air around him turned even colder, and so did the sparkle in his eyes.
The next assault came so fast it became blurry. It was like getting hit only made Lohen more agitated, more excited to show off, now that he realized that his oponent is strong enough to hurt him. He descended on him like a starving beast. Daemon blocked one strike, then another, realizing that he's slowly losing this battle.
Daemon barely avoided having his jaw shattered when the spear shaft whipped toward his head. He retaliated immediately, teleporting sideways through a burst of silver light and driving his sword toward Lohen's exposed flank, but Lohen anticipated it this time. Cryo erupted beneath Daemon's feet.
Ice speared upward from the ground in jagged shards, forcing him off balance for half a second. For Lohen, half a second was more than enough. He moved in instantly. Not with the spear, but with his left hand. A sharp dagger punched through Daemon's side cleanly.
Pain exploded white-hot through his body.
He choked sharply as the force drove him backward, the weapon tearing through flesh before freezing cold spread outward from the wound. Frost raced beneath his skin like poison. For one terrible moment, neither of them moved.
Lohen stood close enough now that Daemon could see blood splattered across his lashes. The young man tilted his head slowly, almost amused, like he was savoring the moment.
"...There we go," he murmured softly, satisfied.
Daemon looked him dead in the eyes, then dragged himself further onto the dagger, pushing through the overwelming pain just to bring his sword up to Lohen's neck. A sharp laugh escaped Lohen, breathless this time, almost disbelieving. "You're insane."
Around them, the battlefield had started to thin. Bodies littered the snow in crimson puddles. The storm still snapped sharply through the mountains, carrying smoke and the scent of blood into the dark.
Neither man backed down. Lohen's eyes glittered dangerously. Daemon could already feel himself getting weaker, he could feel Lohen preparing to strike again despite the blade at his throat.
One of them would die here. Probably him. For a moment, he was almost fine with that.
"WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING?"
The roar crashed across the battlefield hard enough to cut through both storm and bloodlust. Both of them turned sharply at the sound of a familiar voice, although Daemon's view spinned slightly.
Varka strode through the smoke with a claymore over one shoulder, looking absolutely furious. Several Knights followed behind him, but they quickly scattered around to take care of the wounded.
Varka blinked once. Then, he rubbed a hand down his face like a man seconds from losing his sanity.
"...Lohen," he said slowly. Very, very slowly. "Why have you stabbed our reinforcements?"
Lohen's expression finally flickered. He paled. Daemon blinked.
Varka pointed at Daemon. "Daemon. Fae envoy from Snezhnaya. A very good friend of mine. Sent to help with the defence of the pass." Then he pointed at Lohen, turning to Daemon. "A Vice-Captain of the Knights of Favonius. Supposed to be defending said pass."
There was a long pause after that. Lohen looked down at the dagger buried in Daemon. The first thing that went through his mind was that he was strangely pleased that he wouldn't have to kill that beautiful man, who held his own so well in a fight against him. Then, he realized that his promised promotion was probably going to be at risk. And then, that Daemon probably needs medical attention.
"Okay," He said carefully, dropping his spear and gripping Daemon's waist for support. "Okay, let's find you a healer."
"Awesome. I would hurry, though." Daemon says, weakly, dropping his sword, his bright eyes glazed over. "I'm going to pass out."
Then, a man of his word that he is, he does exactly that.
