topple (vague whitewulf)

09 June 2024

Biowulf was not equipped to name the bitter frustration this seeded in him.

What was good - maybe good - was that because the boy could not be trusted for a moment on his own, Biowulf was left alone with White Knight more often. Sometimes half their number would disappear into a blessed silence, or converge on a mission that needed White Knight at his desk, methodically strategic, where Biowulf could tuck into a shadow and watch him at work. Or else Rex would let himself into White Knight's office (he did this freely, without any apparent sense that it was unwanted or inappropriate, and it was impossible to keep him locked out of somewhere that he decided he wanted to be - and he would wave at Biowulf standing guard there before he did it) and brazenly tell White Knight something like "you've been in here for, like, a week straight. You know you can leave this office, right? Go take your dog for walkies or whatever." And then, quieter, "seriously, you're making Six worried. He won't say it, but..."

Worse than the impropriety, the presumptuous way Rex pushed into White Knight's space, was that White Knight allowed it. Almost with amusement, now, like something had shaken loose in him after Rex came back, a piece of stone falling off the face of the mountain that made it slightly less recognizable. Biowulf always felt on edge, after. Precarious.

But to Rex's credit: White Knight went. And he took Biowulf as a guard - no one was meant to ever go anywhere alone, though it was a rule rarely followed. Biowulf followed him feeling more like a stray dog than a bodyguard.

It wasn't safe to go much further than the outer platforms of the dam, but one faced west and caught the last streaming glare of the sun as it went down. White Knight leaned against the railing there and watched. The light diffused through his visor and cast him golden, glowing on the angles of his face. Reflection off the suit's panels made him harder to look at than the sun, a bright star standing on earth. Biowulf stood back and did not look at the sunset.

He knew that the exosuit's visor provided UV filtering to protect White Knight from sun damage and vision loss. None of the light coming through to his skin really belonged to the sun. It never touched him. This open space was not real when White Knight was kept wrapped tight, inches thick of padding and circuitry and metal, no breeze blowing past him, no grass or concrete beneath his feet, so why did he look nearly, maybe not quite but nearly peaceful, here, squinting into the horizon, nevermind that he was tethered to this place for fear of Black Knight's pawns putting a bullet through his skull, nevermind that they were outnumbered and outpaced, he looked at ease in this moment. He hadn't before. Even when Six would creep into his makeshift office and Biowulf would hear them almost-laughing, White Knight would not look like this after. It was the boy, then, and he had brought something with him - he had done something new that Biowulf could not identify, couldn't provide after months of service, and it made him burn, violent, unnameable. It was not just that Rex had succeeded; Biowulf had failed. He would continue to fail.

The logic followed that he should encourage this, whatever secret Rex carried. It pleased his master. While White Knight watched the colors start to drain from the sky, Biowulf imagined rending Rex apart. Quick, careless pieces. Knowing, in the end, that it wouldn't help, and that he could never learn the secret through blood. Knowing too that even if he learned it, there would be nothing he could do with it.

When it turned dark White Knight pushed off the railing and turned back, the only light coming from him, now, a harsh yellow glow in the night. Biowulf did not follow. He was not the one who would be in danger in the dark, and he couldn't bear to see it when the boy offered White Knight a too-casual goodnight. He stayed just outside, watching until the moon set in turn.