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“Look at that. We have visitors,” Grian noted from his position sitting in the frame of the window, sharp eyes unblinking even in the bright heat of the desert sun. His head tilted, the feathers around his ears flicking at the sudden cacophony of clattering behind him. A surprised noise, followed by at least two things being dropped and breaking, and then the distinct rasping glide of a sword being drawn from its neglected sheath.
A moment later, Scar was breathless and beside him at the window. “Is it Ren?” He unceremoniously leaned right over Grian to look, and Grian had to curl away to avoid the radiating heat of another body, already sticky with sweat. “I really hope it’s Ren.”
“No you don’t,” Grian corrected, disgruntled as he shoved Scar’s face away and rough stubble scrapped over his palm. Scar simply pushed back, squinting in the sunlight like his eyes could see anything at this distance besides faint specks at the edges of the desert. “Need I remind you of the last incident?”
“Mmm. I don’t recall.”
Grian sighed, emptying his lungs into the motion, and watched idly the way Scar’s face scrunched against the exhale of air. “Well it’s not Ren, thankfully. It’s Tim and Scott.”
“Oh. What do they want?”
“If I had to guess? Alliance things.”
“Boo. Why do we need to do things in alliances?”
“Probably because alliances involve things that need doing,” Grian suggested. He nudged Scar aside so he could turn and drop down off the window frame, talons scrapping on rough sandstone. He stretched his tense shoulders as he went, easing the ache after hours of observing the empty desert. Beside him, Scar’s sword had nearly slipped from his distracted hand, so Grian flicked at his fingers until they tightened again. “Allies or not, we’re not meeting anyone unarmed. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Scar echoed, even though it was clear he wasn’t paying attention, chin propped up, eyes focused on the specks. He proved Grian right by suddenly spinning around and clapping his hands together and dropping the sword entirely. “You know what we should do?”
“I don’t know and I don’t want to.”
But Scar was already smiling, the same broad show of teeth from when he first turned red and suggested murder to commemorate it. A sly, sweet tone, spoken between pointed canines. “We should do the Falconer Gambit with them.”
Grian stopped. Stared. “Oh absolutely we should not.”
“Oh absolutely we should yes,” Scar insisted, pushing off the window to follow him across the room as he tried to walk away from the conversation. “You said we needed to do a proper rehearsal and this can be our rehearsal right here! How are we going to intimidate our enemies if we can’t even intimidate our allies?”
Grian twisted around, an accusing finger already in Scar’s face. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Realized he couldn’t argue when there was no logic to begin with, and tried a different approach. “Are we sure it’s actually going to be intimidating?”
Scar’s expression had been settling into something more satisfied with every moment Grian spent floundering, and now he was positively haughty as he strolled the last few paces between them. He was a head taller, and used it to lean right into Grian’s space until his breath tickled Grian’s cheek and his teeth felt like they would nick Grian’s ear. “Come on, G,” he murmured, and Grian fell into the practised habit of remaining entirely still under that burning scrutiny. “Don’t we both thrive in intimidation?”
Calloused fingers gently touched then held Grian’s chin, keeping his face close and tilting it until the thin green in his eyes was forced to confront the churning red that clung to swollen pupils. Scar ran hot, like the desert sun burning at Grian’s skin, and his breath was faintly tinged with the smell of rust. Grian allowed it for a moment, so it wasn’t a retreat when he finally pulled away with a scoff. “You’d be more intimidating if you ever bothered to put on a shirt. Fine, we’ll try it.”
“Oh-ho! You won’t regret this, I promise.”
“But I get to wear my knives.”
Only now did Scar’s grin waver for just a moment. A twinge that Grian noticed a bit too ravenously. “For the gambit?”
“I need to try them out too,” Grian said as casually as he could manage, swallowing down the saliva in his throat as he caught another twitch to Scar’s expression. “Why not rehearse two things at once? You already added the extra padding to the guards.”
All at once the subtle tension to Scar’s expression relaxed, and Grian tried not to feel disappointed at the considering hum thereafter. “Of course, of course. Can’t let ourselves get too bloody in the warmup.”
“Scar, we’re meeting with allies, we shouldn’t get bloody at all-“
“Anyway Grian I’ll be going to get that head start now, catch you in a bit!”
And the worst part was that Grian didn’t stop him.
He just stood there in exasperation as Scar snatched up his sword from the ground, sheathed it at his waist, winked at Grian, and grabbed the last pieces of his armour to strap together on his way out. Grian opened his mouth, feeling he should say something, but decided on a sigh instead, gaze going up to the rough wooden supports of the ceiling. His feathers prickled, and he shook them out, then flexed his talons against the sandstone. One more breath, closing his eyes to finally get rid of the burning sting of the heat, before he got to work. Showtime.
He stopped once by the window, glancing to track Scar’s progress down the mountain path and ensure he hadn’t fallen. Scar was shimmying on his chest plate and strapping on his armguard and shoulder pads, dusting off the sand and running the same sandy hand through his hair with an unnerving optimistic smile. It took Grian an extra second to tear his gaze away.
He assembled his armour, a very nice sword, his pouch full of trap supplies, maybe something explosive, then something definitely explosive, and finally what he liked to call his knives: sharpened metal talons that fit snugly over his own. They were heavier but so much more lethal, and flexed so sinuously in tune with his own body. They dragged gouges into the sandstone when he tested them, and rang with metal chimes when he clambered back onto the window sill to watch.
Scar was almost to the meeting point, already calling out and waving, and Scott and Jimmy were stopped a respectful distance away. Swords at their hips but not in their hands, which was a rarity to see in visitors to the desert.
Grian’s wings extended as he perched on the very edge of the sill, stretching after an aching time inside. The feathers immediately began to pick up the breeze, and he could feel his skin prickling in anticipation.
One breath. Two. He shoved off the window ledge, slamming his wings down with a massive furl of air. He lifted up high, then higher still. High enough to pass as a particularly large bird, hopefully, and he wheeled around to watch the proceedings down below.
Scar had reached their allies and was going through a rather impressive amount of gestures to humbly greet them. Grian could pick out that damning smile across his face, full of pointed teeth, and stared for a moment too long before abruptly hoping that Scar would hold back on scamming long enough for them to actually complete the gambit first.
Not that Grian wanted to do the gambit. It was stupid, and embarrassing, and half-cocked, and definitely not going to work, but here he was going through with it anyway because Scar-
Of all the stupid schemes the two of them had concocted on a whim, alone together and holed up inside the desert castle, waiting for howling sandstorms to pass, the Falconer Gambit was arguably the stupidest. It was just the worst. It relied way too much on their acting, and Scar’s ability to balance, and then there was the fact that Grian had to-
Well.
That was the point of a rehearsal.
And if they embarrassed themselves in front of their only allies, it wasn’t like Grian didn’t have explosives in his bag.
Then he saw it.
Movement from a hundred feet below, as Scar made another broad sweeping gesture with his arm. It was identical to every other gesture he’d already made, but this was the arm with the armour padding strapped to it, and two of his fingers were flicked up innocuously. The cue to begin.
Grian responded without thought.
Between one breath and the next, his wings folded and he fell into a smooth, brutal dive. The wind shrieked as it whistled through his feathers, tore at his eyes, and scorched his face with sun blasted air. Then the ground was in front of him, his own shadow screaming at him, and Grian threw open his wings, pulled out of the dive, and snagged the wind to strangle his momentum to a near stop. Just in time to slam into Scar’s arm with a particularly vicious bite that may or may not have been intentional.
To Scar’s credit, he didn’t stumble and fall and spill Grian right into the sand. His body was subtly braced, moving into a natural shift in weight to expel the excess force. His arm was rigid and strong, and caught Grian so easily from the sky as if he’d done it a thousand times before. Grian stared at Scar for that, not sure what his own expression was, but Scar simply turned to look at him with innocent surprise, following the act, pretending that Grian hadn’t answered his own beckoning call.
That reeled Grian back into the gambit. His wings snapped forward with the last of the momentum, and he pulled them up and back so they shadowed him and Scar. He shifted his talons on the arm guard, although the extra padding did little against just how deep the sharp metal encasings could cut. If Grian let them.
The knives were an unnecessary touch, he then realized, because at his entrance Scott had stumbled a few steps back with a hand on his weapon and Jimmy had flinched badly enough he almost fell, but it was only now that Scott’s gaze found the knives and stayed there.
“Oh, there you are, Grian,” Scar said in a chipper drawl, as if he’d forgotten the laundry in the wash or to turn off the oven. “We were wondering where you were.”
Grian hummed, letting silence linger for a moment before his answer. “I was around.” He stared back at Scott, eyes unblinking, although the trick was a bit more difficult in the direct stinging glare of the sun. He knew his own pupils were slitted, eerily still, like a falcon watching its prey. He hoped it was intimidating.
“This is a peaceful talk, right?” Jimmy asked. Demanded. He had yet to completely let go of his sword. “We’re doing peace here.”
“Oh of course, of course!” Scar agreed wholeheartedly, as if he didn’t have the dark metal of a blade at his hip. He shifted, the barest raise of his arm, but Grian took the cue and soundlessly moved to balance on padded guards on Scar’s shoulders, freeing up both arms for excessive gesturing. “What are we if not allies? Ren and Martyn didn’t come bothering you again, did they?”
“They tried,” Scott said carefully, switching his focus between Grian and Scar. “They asked about an alliance again.”
“And you declined?”
“Obviously. We already said no once, being pushy isn’t going to change our answer.”
“That’s fantastic, absolutely fantastic!” Scar said, and in the same breath, “We should go kill Ren.”
“Okay well maybe not that far-”
“Don’t start with Ren,” Grian interrupted smoothly, voice quieter, as close as he was to Scar’s ear, curled over his shoulders. He was almost tempted to let his teeth graze the skin there, just to see if Scar would shiver while in the spotlight. “Start with his allies and his Hand.”
Scar’s eyes lit up. “I can’t say no to killing Martyn. And without anyone at his side, can you imagine how Ren will be? Desperate and grieving-”
“-Because everyone he loves is dead and we killed them,” Grian finished. “And then he gets to die too.”
“Oh I like that plan.”
Jimmy was openly staring at them, while Scott managed a forced smile. “Perhaps we can start planning that after we prepare both our bases for war.”
“War,” Scar echoed. “That sounds good too.”
“Yeah, I can’t say I’m surprised,” Scott said dryly. “I thought we might want to talk about if we really wanted to fight Ren, but I’m getting the sense you really want to fight Ren.”
“Oh, I absolutely do,” Scar agreed. “Was there anything else, or did you just come to deliver the good news?”
“Only you people would think war was good news,” Jimmy said with suitable annoyance. “If our house gets burned down, I’m going to be upset.”
Scar just smiled serenely, then tilted his head back so he could look up at Grian. “Hey G, do we have any more gifts for our allies?”
Grian pretended to think about it for a moment, before pulling out lighter and a few sticks of TNT from his bag and tossing them over. Jimmy’s eyes visibly widened, and his hands fumbled to catch, “Now hold on-!”
But Scott had already stepped forward carefully to pass over some potion bottles that Scar then gave to Grian to tuck away into his pouch. “Oh we are going to have so much fun.”
“Yes,” Scott agreed skeptically. “Fun.”
Scar moved again under Grian, giving a small lift of his shoulders while his arm extended out, so Grian took the cue to shuffle his perch back onto the armguard, allowing his talon knives to sink in deep. Scar was the one to give their goodbyes, bowing shallowly before gently hefting up his arm and Grian was already beating down his wings at the first indication of movement. With that, Scar effectively thrusted Grian back into the air, and Grian made sure to keep to a lower altitude than before, soaring overhead in purposeful circles with his shadow cast over the desert sand.
Their allies watched for a moment, hands shielding the sun from their eyes, before Jimmy threw up his arms and marched off. Scott stayed for a moment longer, before turning as well, and Scar waved them off until they reached the desert’s edge.
It was only when Scott and Jimmy were thoroughly back in the forest that Grian wheeled back around to the desert castle. And to Scar.
Scar, of course, hadn’t made it back. He had stopped at some point up the mountain in the shade to start stripping off his armour, fumbling in the heat. Grian could see the soft curve of his shoulders, the bare muscle of his back, flexing under his movements, skin slick with sweat.
All at once Grian hesitated. He didn’t land, didn’t move to dive, was instead kept aloft by hot and arid winds that burned against his cheeks.
He watched Scar, near ravenously, and the expanses of skin being revealed.
He remembered distinctly the way Scar held his chin in the castle, the intensity of his gaze as he didn’t allow Grian to move away. He remembered the way that Scar’s teeth had nearly cut his ear as he spoke so sweetly. More importantly, he remembered the way that upon showing off his new knives, Scar had wordlessly started layering more padding onto the prototype armguard.
Grian wondered, indulgently, what would happen if the show ended. If there was no script. If they’d still know how to act around each other.
He wondered what would happen if he tried a different sort of gambit.
Without thought, his wings tucked in. His body dipped. The sky sickeningly fell away until it was just the dizzying ground beneath, the wind screaming at his ears. He pulled the same perfected move, and snapped his wings open at the last moment into a sharp, lethal glide. At full force he slammed into the padded arm guard that Scar had been unknowingly holding up as he started to unstrap it
Finally. Finally, Scar stumbled. He stumbled until his back struck against the jagged rocks of the mountain, arm pushed right into his chest until he struggled to take a breath. Grian could feel the slip of the armguard under his weight. His wings extended out behind him and above, until the sunlight was cut from their little alcove in the rocks. He stared at Scar, their faces thrown so close together.
He didn’t say anything. He was devouring Scar’s wide-eyed expression, the parting of his mouth, the bob of his throat, the faintest trace that there was fear-!
No. No there wasn’t. The parted lips were simply slipping into a smile, the eyes wide from a reignited violent lust, and Scar’s expression was one of absolute delight as he laughed and angled his arm better for Grian’s balance. “Well hello there!”
Grian didn’t speak for a moment, then reluctantly lowered his wings to let in fading sunlight so they could see each other properly. A falcon and his falconer.
“...You took off your armour,” Grian finally accused.
“Well, the meeting was over-”
“They just barely left.”
“But they did indeed leave,” Scar cut in smoothly. “And now it’s just us.”
“Put a shirt on.”
“No.”
Grian forced himself to huff, shifting in disgruntlement as Scar pushed back to his feet and away from the alcove, strolling back up the mountain path as if they did this every day. As if Scar was used to having Grian on his arm, at his beck and call. As if this was more than a gambit that had already failed.
But then Grian took this moment, this lingering chance, to leverage himself up and step onto Scar’s shoulders, settling there just like he had down below in the desert. The only difference was that Scar had removed his shoulder guards, and now there was nothing between him and the press of Grian’s knives.
And there was the reaction he was looking for. The sudden stillness of Scar’s body. The tensing of muscles. The barest breath let out too tightly.
Grian was careful. He was always so careful. His grip was light and simply prying, no tighter than what it took to balance. Talons positioned so the metal overtop did little more than graze Scar’s skin, curling against his bones. Not a bead of blood.
It took a moment for Scar to swallow.
Maybe he too was thinking about what it would be like for Grian to gouge his neck open. Severe meaty flesh and spill out the gore. See the insides red and bleeding in the sand.
His throat bobbed, slick with sweat and desert grit. Scar tilted his head back, exposing the column of his neck. He looked at Grian, and Grian took that chance to devour Scar’s expression. To bite into it all the way to the gums and lick the plate clean after. But Scar’s expression wasn’t nervous. Or uneasy. Or afraid.
There was a thin smile, and glinting red eyes with swollen pupils, and Grian was forced to suppress a shudder of his own. A hand, rough and calloused, reached up and gently held Grian’s face, hot against his skin.
“How does it feel to be the falcon?” Scar asked.
Grian was the one to look away. “It was a stupid name for a gambit.”
Scar hummed in agreement, and let go, and then continued to stroll forward, jostling just enough for Grian’s talons to prick his skin, eliciting a bead of blood that trailed down over his heart. He didn’t notice, and Grian didn’t say.
“Funny then, that it was your idea.”