Bout, Suikoden V (Kyle/Georg, Sialeeds)
Inspired by this magnificent art of Georg and Kyle, by AeLux over on deviantart.
Title: Bout Author: logistika_nyx Rating/Warnings: M, none Word count: 2050 Prompt: Suikoden V, Kyle/Georg: first kiss - the ultimate feminist
Summary: Petals cede to sand as Kyle sweeps a broad bow, spinning as he does that his hakama flare wide, his heels carelessly placed. His barbs are not. 'Too slow, Deathblow.'
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Named when they set foot to the ring, their obeisance to each other runs parallel to the dusty ground, no lower. To Sialeeds, on her dais, they offer a much lower bow.
This whole idea is dumb, to the point of idiocy, but Georg can't say such a thing. Sialeeds' birthday, Sialeeds' request, and unlike any other bout but that which is held for the Queen's hand, Sialeeds asked – demanded – true steel against steel, and never mind if one or the other of them could end crippled by this. They have both fought in war; they are better than playing this sort of game, but for that they are both strangers in Sol-Falena. The women write all the rules.
Georg draws his longsword, keeps the point low. Kyle's katana matches Kyle's length, far lighter than the longsword, but with only one leading edge.
Kyle keeps his stance narrow, casual, balance too high for the length of his katana, hakama and hair stirred by the wind; that smile, that smirk, however, clearly comes riding on the way the crowd cheers his name. Georg flicks back his sleeves, sinks to a crouch, and wonders if Kyle's going to be this kind of a crowd-pleasing whore with everything to which he sets his hand.
The umpire's word comes. Kyle falls from that too-high stance, like liquid, like length, and Georg staggers back despite that he swore he wouldn't give ground. Kyle overextends, always, relies on his speed for recovery and Georg could have won this bout if he'd held for that first, but by the River, Kyle moves fast, fast enough it's no wonder the women never know what's hit them.
The umpire calls the point.
Once they part, a floral tapestry veritably rains into the ring. Black cotton makes the blood just another kind of wet, not at all menacing from a distance. The pain hits long moments after, throbbing; Georg grimaces at the gape of his sleeve, the clinging black.
Petals cede to sand as Kyle sweeps a broad bow, spinning as he does that his hakama flare wide, his heels carelessly placed. His barbs are not. 'Too slow, Deathblow.'
'Whatever. You haven't got the stamina to keep that speed up.'
Kyle grins. 'You obviously haven't spoken to a Sol-Falena lady of grace for a long, long time, brother knight, if you're under that kind of misapprehension.'
Georg lifts off his heels as he squares up again, weight on the balls of his feet, and folds back his sleeves for the second time. This uniform is never going to feel entirely comfortable.
'My Lady Sialeeds,' Kyle calls, still grinning, 'our newest knight spins a spiteful story as to the extent of my stamina!'
'Surely nothing's as spiteful as the truth,' Sialeeds calls back, tartly; Georg is never going to get used to her, ever. Only a Queen's sister could be so crass and never called out on it.
'True,' Kyle responds, 'for the truth spites every other man alive. Wouldn't you agree, my Lady?'
'Must you draw everything out,' Georg growls, before Sialeeds can shame herself further, 'let's get this over with, Kyle!'
'Too fast, too slow; make up your mind! Fickle as a frustrated housemistress, you are.'
'Come on, Kyle,' Sialeeds asserts, 'if conversation is your idea at foreplay I find it sorely misdirected.' Georg barely has time to begin to blush before she continues: 'One bout and you're stalling for time already, I might start to believe what Georg says about your lack of stamina. What are you waiting for? Entertain me!'
Kyle answers with a laugh. 'Precisely why I stall, my Lady, for the extension of your entertainment—'
'So fucking selfless,' Georg mutters, and wipes the sweat from his brow, careful not to touch the colour about his eyes. Black is not a friendly colour to wear, not under a midafternoon sun.
'—thus I propose somewhat of a bet on the outcome of this bout.'
'I hope you'll not bet your good reputation,' Sialeeds laughs, strident, 'it'd take you half your lifetime to build up enough of one to pay.'
Kyle is suddenly serious. He lifts his katana, wrists rigid, and places a near-worshipful kiss on the flat blade. Georg is close enough to see the touch of wet that remains; Kyle uses his tongue even with his sword. 'A kiss,' says that knight, 'for the victor, my Lady Sialeeds.'
The crowd's rising murmur sounds like an imminent sandstorm, or a hundred thousand blades of grass whipping like an ocean. Georg nearly drops his sword.
'You can't,' Georg says, quietly. 'Kyle, you've lived here longer than I have. You can't ask that from the Queen's sister. You know that.'
'One reputation against another's,' Kyle says, as quietly, still smiling; his eyes are steel to match his sword. 'She started this game, Georg. A battle with all blades bared, all for the matter of her entertainment; you've fought wars before, man. Where's your sense of pride? They're turning you into a show horse.'
'I'm surprised a man like you objects to such a thing.'
'Make love,' Kyle says, dismissively, 'not war. I choose who I blood and who I bed, and of the true glory found in this Queendom of Falena, it's that both a man and a woman have the right to choose such a thing. Sialeeds plays a game before she knows the rules. Let her put somewhat of her own reputation on the playing field if she thinks she can toy with ours.' Kyle raises his voice over the sussurus of immediate gossip. 'Lady Sialeeds - do we play, or does this end here?'
'As you will,' Sialeeds says, calmly. 'As you will, Kyle. A kiss for the victor. At a time of my choosing, when it will entertain me the most. And should that be on my deathbed at an age of eighty and five, I trust that the victor will be there to deliver.'
'As you will,' Kyle cedes, with a vainglorious bow, all billowing sleeves and hakama and hair.
They square off and wait until the word comes again, to go: their blades meet this time, rather than Kyle's finding flesh so early. The sound of that strike is familiar enough Georg can let go some of that ache in his chest, that uncertain anxiety; Kyle is a good fighter, better than. It makes it less likely Georg is going to kill him accidentally.
Georg anticipates Kyle's speed better now, knows it, knows Kyle a little better with every blow; sand rises as they dance, to fall.
The first casualty is Georg's sleeve, and that first touch, that first blood, is bare to the sky. Black flutters to the ground to join crushed petals. When they rejoin at the umpire's word, they strike again, Georg in close to crimp that desperate speed; they clinch, blades and arms, and hold too long, Georg's cheek clammy against Kyle's, his fingers around Kyle's bracer and his thumb on a pressure point, and Kyle just laughs--
Hair rips when they break, Kyle yelps, and a fan of blonde and blood falls to the sand.
'Second point,' Georg says, grinning and growling all at once.
They square themselves; Kyle seems more aghast for the loss of that fistful of strands than the bloodied stripe along his neck, just under his jaw, that rings him with a necklace of red.
The umpire calls third point when the katana's edge through Georg's hakama, into his thigh. Fourth point, when Georg response with a boot to Kyle's arse, a fist to his cheekbone, and at the last, a longsword blade across the small of his back, held back to find flesh instead of spine.
'Might've known you were one for a backdoor approach,' Kyle slurs, against the red of his cheek, arching to test his muscle, awkward and slowed, at last. Fingertips touch his face gingerly. 'You really didn't have to knock first, you know, I'm an accommodating kind of knight.'
'Cede,' Georg says, not unfriendly; Kyle can barely move.
'Unlikely,' is the response, with a nod at the sky; Georg watches, incredulous, as Kyle strips off his chest-plate, his backplate with it. His hakama cling to his legs, washed with blood. Kyle stretches, near-fluid again, and raises his katana. 'It's been barely twenty minutes. I can go for two hours, at least.'
The umpire calls fifth point when Georg loses his other sleeve and use of his left arm and fist as a secondary weapon. 'No more punching,' Kyle says, agreeably, the bruise on his cheek like a crushed rose, 'this is a swordfight. Bully.'
At the sixth point, Georg is too tired to to stop before his blade runs through Kyle's shoulder, just below the line of his collarbone.
'Hold,' Kyle says, suddenly white. 'Hold, don't pull it out. By the River, I'd forgotten how much that hurts. It's been a while.'
It's too hot. 'A while since what?'
'Since someone ran a fucking sword through a non-vital body part, that's what. What else, in context?'
Georg can see the medic running up from the sideline, where the umpire raises his red flag to mark the point. Kyle sparkles with a sudden sweat. 'Shouldn't have taken your armour off,' Georg says, instead of apologising. Kyle's too good a fighter for the insult of apology.
'Any excuse to get my kit off?' Kyle grins, grimaces. 'Ah, that really hurts, you uncoordinated hulk, stop weaving and stand up straight.'
He is weaving, Georg realises; he's tired.
'Cede.'
Kyle beams as the medic thrusts fingers to hold back the blood, pushes Kyle back two paces, packs the wound efficiently. 'Not likely.'
By the time Kyle claims the seventh point, Georg is nearly on his knees to begin with, now doubled about a slash the size of his forearm that curls around his waist, like an embrace. Kyle staggers around, circling, chest and back wet, hair matted. His lips crack as he smiles. 'Now you cede.'
'So you can make out with the Queen's sister in public?' Georg manages to stand before the umpire raises the black flag. His left arm is useless to hold against a blow anyway; he presses his palm hand against the slash, keeps it tight. Slippery, but tight. No medic treatment for slashes. They're both slick, regardless. The sand looks more like mud now. 'Not bloody likely.'
'Oh ha,' Kyle says, instead of laughing; at least he, too, is suffering from air that feels like breathing inside an oven. 'ha ha. I'll keep all the making out with her in private, then.'
This should be the eighth point: it nearly comes as Georg lunges with a roar, blind and bloody rage more potent than any kind of adrenaline or pain—
Kyle steps inside that waving sword point like he's been waiting for it, takes the edge of Georg's blade across his bicep with a howl, fists his hand in Georg's hair and kisses him.
Blood. Sweat. Salt. Sweat. Kyle's cheek is cold with it, rasping. He's bit his tongue at some point, bloodied, wet; Georg sucks like this is water, and he's dying of thirst anyway. Spit churns between them. Georg tries to speak. He can't keep standing but for the arm in his hair. Kyle thrusts deeper.
Georg sinks to his knees; Kyle bends, follows, keeps kissing him, until spit and blood string between them. This is how swordbrothers are born, Georg thinks, lost, wryly, idly, and wishes only for a lack of audience: this happens on a battlefield, not this farce of a performance. His hands are aimless, sword lost to the sand. Wet and warm cascades down his side, soaks his ripped hakama, patters, like petals, like rain, and there are flowers and cheers that fall about them too, like rain.
Kyle breaks, pecks Georg on the forehead, and kicks the fallen longsword away.
'My Lady Sialeeds,' Kyle tries, pants, breathes, 'consider the victor of your birthday bout duly rewarded, and I do so hope you were entertained.'
Sialeeds is on the sands. Georg can barely see, but he knows she should not be on their level. Her arm raises, stretches, but her hand is curled closed. 'Kyle—'
'Ah,' Kyle protests, 'never did I name who the kiss was to come from, my Lady.'
Sialeeds gathers herself together, fifteen paces from where Kyle weaves, unable to stand still, seventeen from where Georg kneels with his fist against blood-blackened sand.
'I do recall I claimed the right to nominate the time,' Sialeeds says, tightly, 'however.'
'She did,' Georg says. He spits. Kyle's blood and Kyle's spit.
'A repeat performance?' The point of Kyle's katana drags curls through the sand. Georg thinks Kyle's despairing tone is not likely feigned. 'By the River, woman, we're nearly dead on our feet. Knees. Feet.'
'Next time,' Sialeeds says, quietly enough her voice can't carry, 'you can leave behind the swords.'
Kyle falls then, ankle rolling beyond his brain's ability to demand performance. An hour, Georg realises, they went for a full hour. Sialeeds is the only one of them left standing. And the medics. Multiples of them, now. Sialeeds' eyes are sharper than their swords.
Before the darkness behind his own eyes rises to claim him, Georg can't help but wonder who the hell actually won this bout.