“Great job out there as always, Heath! Have you given any thought to my previous offer? The one about joining up with our company for good?”

Heath let out a sigh.

He had barely gotten back from his assignment and he was already being showered with praise by the leader of the mercenary group he was working for.

The stables in town hadn’t been equipped to handle a wyvern so the mercenary troop he was working with had made arrangements for Hyperion to spend his nights on the porch of a deserted house on the edge of town. Heath had, as always, made sure that the accommodations would be comfortable for Hyperion, as while the wyvern had experience sleeping wherever available, he was also incredibly finicky whenever it wouldn’t create a life-threatening situation.

And at the moment? Hyperion was in no danger, and he knew it.

The porch was in pretty decent condition for a building that had been abandoned a few years prior and, as luck would have it, Hyperion seemed content enough to spend his nights on it. It was getting later into the year and from what he had picked up from the locals this valley always saw heavy rainfall during autumn, so while the skies had been clear for the time being, having a roof over Hyperion would sooner or later turn out to be quite the boon.

It took a moment to dismount, a moment that had gotten shorter and shorter in his many years of working with Hyperion, and after another moment spent tying him to a post holding up the roof above them he turned back to his current employer.

“I’ve thought about it, sure, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be saying yes just yet. Let’s head back to the inn, I need to get a few things for Hyperion.”

He gave Hyperion a quick hand signal to tell him as such and the second Hyperion communicated his understanding by resting his head on the railing between them, he left for the inn they were staying in without waiting for the other man to reply. His pace was brisk; slow enough for his employer to be able to catch up without hurrying, but fast enough to clearly communicate that he had places to be.

“‘Just yet’? So you’ll do it, just not now?”

“If I promise now that I’ll agree to joining in the future, how is that any different from saying that I’ll join right now?”

“We pay less for outside mercs, for starters, so your pay will be lower in the meantime. So how about it?”

His current employer gave him a playful nudge as if the two had known each other for years.

Today marked just under a week and a half.

“I don’t know…,” Heath drew out that pause, and punctuated it with a small laugh, “maybe some extra coin will get me to decide faster.”

He wouldn’t be saying yes. Strictly speaking he’d never turn him down either, but his stay wouldn’t be anything other than provisional.

This was the fifth mercenary company that he’d been with since he had left Bern, and while it hadn’t formally started yet he already knew how his relationship with them was going to end.

Wyvern Riders came from only one place in Elibe, and Wyvern Riders worked as mercenaries outside of that country for one reason. Either this man, who was by no means unintelligent and surely had the means within him to paint a vivid enough picture of Heath’s past, would decide the attention they’d get from the strongest military power on the continent wasn’t worth it and kick him to the curb, or he’d find the price on his head to be too tempting to ignore.

Or, as with the past several times, Heath would leave first.

That being said, this playful banter had become second nature by now, and was a useful habit at that. He had learned that being a little friendly instead of closing himself off completely had helped to keep people off his back and somewhat more likely to cover it as well. It was a convenient half-truth, really, since it wasn’t that he didn’t like this group of mercenaries.

He just had no reason to trust them, which made it hard to think of them as friends.

“You have a visitor, by the way.”

Heath’s pace faltered for just a moment, putting his employer a step or so ahead of him.

Perhaps this man had already made his choice. Had he been buttering him up more than usual after this particular assignment to stall for time, to get him further away from Hyperion and from his lance?

He quickly took stock of the situation. The knot he had tied Hyperion with was one that the wyvern could easily pull loose and free himself should the need arise, but if his employer tried to overpower him before he had the chance to signal to his trusty steed there was only a small hunting knife on his belt that he could use. He hadn’t seen anyone else in the sky so it might not even be someone from Bern, but the cave he had been sent to was beyond the horizon and if they had approached the town from the opposite direction shortly after he had left, it was more than likely that he wouldn’t have seen them. It’s possible that this visitor wasn’t going to be unwelcome, but was that a chance he was willing to take?

“Did you get a name?”

“Yeah he said it was…”

His employer had turned his head slightly back towards Heath, but his words trailed off and he came to a stop as he looked back towards Hyperion, far off in the distance.

“Now that’s a sight! I’ve never seen a wyvern do anything to a stranger aside from make a quick meal out of ‘em, but if I didn’t know any better I’d assume he was the rider instead of you!”

It felt like time was dilating as Heath turned to see the poor fool who had approached Hyperion, the poor fool who would either do something to set the wyvern off, or live long enough for Heath to be the one to tear them apart instead. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and while-

The moment the long-haired man tossing some meat high into the air -meat that Hyperion gleefully tore apart before it could hit the ground- entered his view, Heath felt a million and one emotions at once.

“Was his name Legault?”

His mouth twisted into a slight grimace as he felt those million different flavors of exasperation, and that single hint of relief. It wasn’t that Legault was an unwelcome sight, but he had a way of starting each and every one of their meetings off on the wrong foot.

And feeding his mount some yet-to-be-identified meat without his permission was definitely one of the worst ways he had made an entrance in recent memory.

“Yeah. Guess that means he’s one of your friends?”

Of course it was him.

“An old coworker, actually,” he said, coldly.

“Ah. Are you going to need… help?”

It took Heath a moment to realize what he was suggesting, and he felt a brief moment of shame for assuming the worst about his employer.

But that moment passed quickly. In spending so many years as a fugitive doubt had become a means of survival. An instinct he felt no reason to give up, and an instinct he felt no reason to regret learning.

“No, he’s… I guess I should call him a friend too. Go on ahead, I have to make sure he’s not feeding Hyperion anything he shouldn’t be eating.”

“…You sure you’re good?”

“Yeah, he’s not going to cause any problems.”

 

---

 

It took a minute for Heath to gather his composure after his employer -whose name he should probably learn sometime soon now that he had demonstrated he wasn’t going to throw Heath under a wagon first chance he got- had left.

Legault had a way of getting to him both in the emotional sense and in the ‘physical reach him’ sense, and it would do him no good to try to engage him with a clouded mind. Heath was still on edge from expecting his days as a fugitive to take a turn for the worse, but by the time he actually reached the wayward rogue he had managed to calm himself down to a point where he’d be able to hold his own in a conversation.

Or at least to a point where he could hope to.

“What are you feeding my wyvern?”

Legault tilted his head in Heath’s direction slightly, giving him full view of the small smirk on his face.

“It’s lamb. I ran into Vaida last time I was in Bern and she mentioned that it was Hyperion’s favorite food annnnnnnnnd,” Legault’s grin grew a degree in smugness as he stretched that last word out for far longer than he needed to get across whatever point he was trying to make, “she let it slip that if I wasn’t afraid of playing dirty, the quickest way to your heart would be by stealing Hyperion’s.”

Vaida.

The guilt Heath felt when his former commander’s name came up was far more vivid, far more visceral than what he had felt for his current employer just a minute before. She had done so much for him and the others that had made it out of Bern, but the gruesome scars she wore with equal parts pride and shame served as an ever-present reminder to the rest of Bern’s military of the fate that had befallen Isaac.

And Lachius

And Belminade.

And of anyone who would dare to desert after them.

“…I don’t know what part of that sentence to ask about first.”

“She’d never say it, and especially not within Bern’s borders, but I do think that she’s happy that you’re doing well.”

Already caught off guard -and thrown off balance by it happening so soon in the conversation- Heath had no chance to interject before Legault continued.

“Anywho, fancy meeting you here, Heath. Isn’t it strange how Elibe is so vast and yet we keep running into each other?”

“How many times have you done this?”

“Done what?”

“Seek me out and pretend that it just happened by chance.”

Legault held his chin for a moment, pantomiming deep thought, and then extended a single digit skyward.

“Just this once; all the other times were genuine coincidences.”

“And you expect me to believe that? Once would be understandable, twice would be a stretch but not too hard to believe, but I’m pretty sure we’ve reached two digits by now and that’s beyond believable.”

“Your work has you traveling across the continent and mine had me moving around in unpredictable ways, so it was bound to happen every so often.”

Heath sighed. This line of inquiry would get him nowhere, so he’d have to change his approach.

“You still haven’t told me what you’ve been doing since… we first parted ways.”

“Oh that? That job’s finished so I guess there’s no harm,” Legault shrugged, “Well, you remember Hector, right? The young man from Ostia?”

Heath shot Legault a look of incredulity, refusing to believe that he remembered Hector as ‘the young man from Ostia’ and not as ‘the current ruler of Ostia’, but Legault continued, gleefully oblivious to Heath’s mounting disbelief.

“He seemed to have a pretty decent grasp on the threat that…”

Legault paused.

“It’s tough trying to come up with a good placeholder name for someone we’re not supposed to be talking about.”

“That’s what you’re going to complain about?”

Heath shook his head.

“Whatever, I know who you’re referring to.”

“Yeah, so Hector’s head spy tried to scout me since he had seen me in action during the war -and I had apparently earned his trust while I was at it- but I had to turn him down since I was had a prior commitment that I intended to keep no matter what money he threw my way. He found out that I was going to be traveling a bit, and asked me to be on the lookout for any of our mutual friend's old workshops and to send word back to Ostia if I found any.”

Legault pulled another piece of meat out of his bag and tossed it up for Hyperion to snap out of the air, an act he followed through on with great relish.

“They didn’t want any research he may have left behind seeing the light of day again, so they had people already out on assignment keeping their eyes peeled, and asked me to do the same. Gave me enough money in advance to send them more postcards than I probably could in a lifetime and sent me on my way, but you wanna know the weird thing?”

Heath paused a moment before responding, trying to guess if this tangent was actually a tangent and his question would go unanswered or if Legault was simply being as roundabout as usual and this would eventually bear fruit.

“Sure, I’ll bite.”

Legault went to pull more meat from his bag, but Heath grabbed his arm to keep it from emerging with yet another savory treat.

“Hyperion won’t be, though. We’ve gone over this before: you shouldn’t spoil other people’s mounts without their permission.”

The edge in Heath’s tone made Hyperion shrink back under the porch, clearly recognizing that Heath was unhappy with something and that it had something to do with him.

“You’re right, I should have asked first,” Legault turned to Hyperion, looking significantly more apologetic than he had an instant before, “Maybe later okay?

“I swear, if you teach him how to plead, you’ll be his next snack.”

“I know, I know. Anyway, every single one I came across had already been taken care of, and after the fifth letter or so I had sent to Ostia reporting back to them -just in case someone else had gotten to them first- I finally got a letter back and get this: it wasn’t just that it was the first time they had heard of those specific workshops, but all their agents in the field had found the same thing: a bunch of workshops that had clearly been taken care of by somebody else who clearly didn’t want anything to be recovered.”

Legault paused to catch his breath.

“And by taken care of, I mean they were meticulous. Everything that could be burnt had been moved into a pile in a corner and set alight, and every piece of glassware and equipment that he used for his nefarious magics had been melted down into a pile of slag on the other side of the room. There were workshops that looked like they had been less for research and more for mass-production of his… y’know, but those too had whatever he had been using melted down or destroyed. Early on I had stopped by one that I knew had been used up until The Fang fell and it seemed like it had been dealt with almost immediately after everything fell apart, and-”

“Wait, wait, wait. Are you trying to tell me a ghost story instead of answering my question? That’s a new low, Legault.”

“I mean, sure, it’s spooky and would make for a good ghost story -that’s why I was telling it after all- but it’s true, and something that I thought you might find interesting, too.”

Heath pinched his brow in frustration.

“Can you just… tell me what you were doing that lead you across Elibe?”

“Oh, that. Yeah.”

Legault’s smile faltered as he looked away for an instant and Heath immediately knew something was off.

“I had been… uh… looking after family, I guess.”

It took a while for the weight of those words to sink in.

“Oh.”

In that moment Heath didn’t really know what he was feeling.

Was this sympathy?

Was this pity?

All Heath knew was that it felt like he was falling, like that one time early in their relationship Hyperion had gotten a little too rowdy in the skies and Umbriel had to rush to catch him before his short career in Bern’s military became even shorter.

Except this time it was him watching someone else rush towards the hard, unforgiving ground below.

“Oh, Legault, I’m sorry I-”

“These things happen. It just… never gets easier, y’know?”

“I shouldn’t have pushed you t-“

“Heath, it’s fine, really. I messed-”

“IT’S NOT FINE!” Heath yelled, nearly loud enough for the entire valley to hear, “I know better, I know you too well, Legault! I’ve never seen you like this before and it’s clear what’s wrong! You can’t just come out of nowhere again and again and then suddenly say ‘Everyone I cared about has been killed!’ and then expect me to not be concerned!”

Legault winced, and Heath recoiled at his own outburst.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had raised his voice while less than a hundred meters in the air, and from how Legault had withdrawn himself, he clearly couldn’t either.

A long, heavy silence hung in the air between them.

“I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“No, you’re right, I shouldn’t try to offload my problems on to you.”

“That wasn’t what I was…”

Heath stopped himself, took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly.

“I’ve never been good at consolation, but… do you want to sit down for a moment? And just talk? It doesn’t have to be about anything specific, but after I left Bern I sure could’ve used someone to chat with and by the looks of it, right now you do too.”

Legault stood there for a moment, looking down and off to the side, at nothing in particular. His posture was closed off, and after that outburst it wasn’t any surprise he was standing like that.

He looked… heavy.

Weighed down.

It was obvious why, but knowing why didn’t do much to help change it.

Legault let out a quick exhale that Heath almost mistook for a laugh.

“You’re just like him, you know?”

“Like who?”

“Like Brendan.”

Brendan Reed. The commander of the Black Fang. Heath assumed that it was a compliment given how Legault had spoken of him in the past, but the important part was that it was something less …current to talk about.

“How so? Wait, let’s sit down first.”

Heath grabbed Legault’s arms, far more gently this time, and guided him to the stairs on the porch. The rogue’s body softened in his light grip and he had to hold him a bit more firmly so he didn’t slip out and fall to the ground.

Legault was tired – far more tired than he realized, apparently.

Heath patted the top step once they were positioned comfortably and Hyperion shifted, moving his tail so it lay up against their backs and gave them something to rest against. His eyes remained trained on the pair, and Heath sighed.

“You can have some more lamb later if you wait patiently.”

Hyperion maintained eye contact with Heath for a moment before letting out a soft grunt of contentment and bringing his head back to where it had been resting before.

Heath turned back to Legault to find him looking up at the clouds approaching over the horizon.

“So which part of me reminds you of him?”

“Your unshakable moral code. I guess as it neared the end his started to slip, but at the start? He was just like you.”

So it was a compliment. Probably. It hadn’t been much of a concern at the moment, but it was still nice to hear.

“Ah. So does that mean you were one of the founding members?”

“In a way. He had gotten a bunch of groups of thieves in Bern to team up since he pointed out we had a common enemy, and I happened to be part of one of them.”

“Then it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time?”

“Not really… I mean, it took a while for news of the Fang to spread outside of Bern’s underworld and even longer for anyone outside of the nobility to accept that we weren’t ever going to be a danger to them, but within a year every thief worth their weight in gold on the continent had at least heard the name.

“In the early days a lot of thieves had stuck their nose up at the idea of being an ‘honorable’ thief, but it turns out that a lot of people -including myself- steal to survive and not for fun, and having people to perform our dastardly crimes upon that we didn’t need to feel sorry for? It was almost too good to be true, but if I hadn’t been there at the start I’m sure I would’ve found my way into their ranks soon enough.”

He let out a long sigh.

“I suppose in the end it had been too good to be true, but that’s water under the bridge at this point, since I’m the last one left.”

“Were my similarities to Brendan where your interest in me came from?”

Heath realized the moment the words came out of his mouth that his attempt to steer the conversation in another direction couldn’t have been any less subtle, but Legault didn’t seem to mind.

“Probably. I mean, it did start as an attempt to get into some sort of mutual protection agreement, and that time I told you that I kept pestering you because I was madly in love with you was a joke…”

He let out a quick laugh.

“But it’s funny how fast things can stop being a joke, huh?”

Heath paused.

“I guess that means you actually love me?”

Legault was quiet, and Heath turned his head to see him staring back at him.

“…Did I say something wrong?”

“No, I just thought you would have figured that out by now. Did I really strike you as the kind of guy that falls in love at first sight?”

“That’s not- I didn’t want to be presumptuous, that’s all. It can be hard to tell when a joke stops being a joke, too.”

A moment passed before Legault’s face formed wry smile.

“In that case, I suppose I should say it out loud?”

Heath felt his face flush at the thought of being confessed to and looked away, cursing his overactive vascular system for putting his embarrassment on display.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t tease you like that.”

“I’d like it if you didn’t.”

“Alright. So what are you doing now, Heath?”

Heath looked back at Legault, but he was staring at the sky again.

There were dark clouds near the horizon, but Heath had a sneaking suspicion that Legault wasn’t very concerned about the weather.

“Right now I’m with this group that’s based out of this town, though I’m thinking of heading to Ilia once this job is done. I agreed to stay for a few more months, but they don’t move around much and I’ve never been a fan of this type of geography. Apparently it’s going to be raining a lot in the near future, and I don’t really like being in valleys like this one if I can help it.”

“Any particular reason? For Ilia?”

“It’s a country of mercenaries, for one, but I think that I’ll find more like-minded people there. Their unmounted mercenaries tend to not be in high demand and they have plenty of pegasus knights, but I’d be able to corner the market on people who want a wyvern rider for a mercenary. How about you? What’s next?”

“I don’t know. The Fang’s gone so I don’t really have any ties that I’m held down by, but that also means I don’t have much to do. I guess I could go work for Ostia, but I know the kind of jobs they'd have for me and I’m tired of living in the shadows, so I’ve got no idea.”

Heath turned back towards Legault.

“In that case, would you want to come with me? It might be what you're looking for.”

Legault blinked, then turned to Heath in turn.

“What?”

“To Ilia. Or somewhere else; I’m not dead-set on heading there. If you need someplace to stay in the meantime I can talk to my boss and convince him to-”

“I mean, why now?”

“You seemed busy before.”

“Hm. Have you ever been to Ilia?”

Legault sounded like he was unconvinced, but of what? Was it of Heath’s decision to go to Ilia, or his desire to have Legault tag along? Or was it something else?

“No. I always figured they wouldn’t be thrilled to see any number of wyvern riders approach, so I never bothered looking for work there.”

“It’s cold year-round, Heath. Isn’t that going to be a problem for Hyperion?”

“I can make him some fur-lined armor, oh ye of little faith. There were plenty of places in Bern colder than Ilia where the two of us had to spend some time in. Come to think of it, all three of us have gone to places in Bern that were as cold as Ilia.”

“…Yeah that fair. I guess I shouldn’t underestimate Bern’s military if I’ll be traveling with you, huh?”

“So is that a yes?”

“At least for now. I’m not a huge fan of the cold myself, but if you’re there to warm my heart I can endure it.”

“I mean, I wasn’t planning on staying in Ilia forever. I’ve… started to think about my future and what I want to do. Long-term stuff, you know?”

“You’re a little young to have a mid-life crisis, Heath.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with the idea of being a mercenary until I retire, but… it’s not always fulfilling work. Today Hyperion helped me scare some wannabe teenaged brigands off, and while it was ridiculously easy -I just had him cause a scene outside of the cave they were hiding out in and they decided pretty quickly to find a safer line of work- it’s been one of the more… worthwhile jobs lately.”

“It’s been that bad?”

“You don’t get to pick your assignments when you’re a merc so I guess I should be glad with what I get, but…”

“That’s the thing.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing! It shouldn’t be a silver lining that I don’t have to run through some poor sap who got on the wrong side of some guy with a bunch of coin to throw my way, that should be what’s expected! But everyone I’ve worked under has resigned themselves to the lack of control they have over what jobs they can take and I can’t take much more of it.”

“And how does this tie into Ilia?”

“I want to find a mercenary company that I’d be fine with staying with, or, if that fails, make my own.”

If he were being honest, Heath didn’t expect to find one that would suit his tastes. He hadn’t had much contact with mercenaries from Ilia, so he could only rely on how they were known for their loyalty to their employers, but did that come at the price of not being loyal to one’s own moral compass?

There was really only one way to find out.

“So you’ve put some thought about this.”

“Yes, for once I’ve actually thought things through. I’m with this group right now because its vice-leader used to be part of Ilia’s military and he’s agreed to vouch for me if I end up deciding to immigrate, which I’ll probably have to do if I want to cross the border in once piece because of where I’m from. They keep a registry of mercenaries in Edessa, so I’d head there first and…”

Heath glanced over at Legault, who was staring back with an indecipherable expression on his face.

“Sorry, this probably isn’t that interesting to you, is it?”

“I haven’t given much thought to the life of a mercenary, but it’s nice to see you excited about something for once.”

Legault was quiet for a while, looking up at the sky, and in time, the small smile that Heath had seen on him so many times returned to his face.

“I’ve gotta hand it to you, Heath. You’ve found the one way to stop running into me that I could be happy with.”

 

---

 

Afterword

This was a Nagamas gift for kidlightnings on tumblr. Heath was an interesting viewpoint character to write, and I hope I did him justice.