The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

Today on or in Headless Over Heels, Seth prepares to stand against Enna-Belum, even though the acting officials can only offer him a Red Cloth and a pointed stick.

Ofelia stared at the cloth, as Simon handed it off to Seth and Seth tied it to his wrist. “You’re really doing this.”

Seth’s forearm, thin as it was, required a double-bind to secure the fabric. “You don’t need to sound so surprised.”

“I don’t sound like anything,” Ofelia said. “I work very prudently to be as monotone as possible, for the sake of my aesthetic.”

“Well, yes. I am really doing this.”

“It’s a bitter waste of your value if you die, Mr. il Gutierre,” Ofelia said. “Rather like placing a splendid mouser in a swimming competition with an eel.”

“That is the craziest fucking metaphor I’ve ever heard, Ms. al Ydris, and it won’t stop me.”

“Oh, you needn’t stop.” Ofelia’s willowy fingers brushed the knot he’d tied to himself. “Just don’t die, yes?”

“Sure.”

“Good.” Ofelia smiled vaguely. “I would miss you very much.”

“Feeli!” Tiago was descending the palisade. He waved his arms at her. “They found the sorcerer!”

“Ah, Saints.” Ofelia broke into a jog back toward the clustered village streets. “Come on, Seth.”

By the time they’d arrived at the sorcerer’s house—a bungalow that ought to be quite pretty, with dried vines tangling its window and peeling paint on the door—a crowd had gathered. At its fore stood Anna al Ydris, her goliath arms crossed. Little redheaded Riccana and two fellow hermandati were tugging a stubbly, threadbare man out of its darkened interior. “Goodman, come on. Please just see her.”

The sorcerer staggered out the rest of the way, swatting the hands that bore him like they were insects landing on his shoulders. “Off me. Off me, damn you all. I’m going.”

“You’re the Shaheill sorcerer,” Anna said. “Robert il Magnard.”

Yes. I am a sorcerer, yes. Worst fucking thing that ever happened to me.

“Yes. I am a sorcerer, yes.” The man’s bloodshot eyes clambered up Anna then dropped back down to her boots. “Worst fucking thing that ever happened to me.”

Anna’s stone face showed little pity. “Your Legion is calling you again to serve, Robert.”

“I’m not fit,” he mumbled.

“Stand up. Stop muttering.”

Robert made a credible effort at both. “Said I’m not fit, Madam Verdugo. I’ve got a hangover.”

“You won’t, by the time you’re needed.”

“By the time I’m needed I intend to be drunk, Madam Verdugo.” Robert laughed, high and cracked; he sounded like a gamefowl getting run over. “I can’t do it. I can’t. I can’t look at it, I can’t fight it, I can’t do a thing. Cut my fucking head off and be done.”

Anna looked about ready to do just that. Tiago intervened from past the great black scabbard on her back. “Have you forgotten the spell?”

“Have I forgotten. Got your fucking fancy ink crawling around all over your fancy arm and you think you know how magic works. I haven’t fucking forgotten the spell, boy. I dream the spell. I’ll forget my father’s name before I forget the spell. It’s everywhere. Over everything. Like looking at the sun too long. They brand it to the inside of your skull.”

“Don’t be pathetic, il Magnard.” Anna’s murani fangs were showing now. “You’ve got a pension and a house so that the Legion can depend on you for these situations.”

“Aye, a pension. A pension and a jumpy neighbor who pretends he’s not being paid threebrace a week to blow my brains out if I hold my hands out wrong. A pension and a head full of—” Robert’s poeticism tripped over his enlarged liver. “Of shit. Shit and blood.”

“If you won’t serve for the Legion,” Tiago said, “then you—”

“You made a match out of me!” Robert spat a discolored lob into the dirt at Tiago’s feet. “And now you want me normal? To eat three squares and tiddly-um down to the shops and go hmmm I wonder what’s at market today? You expect me to hold a lover with these hands? A child? A fucking job? A fucking life? When all they have to do is—”

His hands shot up and forward. A ringing out of screams and shouts. Tiago ducked, lunged, slide tackled the man to the ground, and wrenched those gnarled weapon-hands behind Robert’s back.

“See?” Robert’s cracked cry was suspended halfway between laughter and weeping. “See? Let me up. Let me saintsfucking up, boy.” He struggled to his feet, though Tiago stayed at his back, still pinning his arms. “You ruined me. You colorless bastards. You made a match out of me and you sent me home to a paper world, and I’m still burning.”

Tears cut through the grime on his face.

“I’m still burning,” he sobbed. “What the fuck do I do?”

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...-red-cloth
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/2385004...r/2550895/