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huilian · 3 years

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for @sassydefendorflower in thanks for being a mod in that chaotic environment we call a server 😆

“Robin, watch out!”

Damian turns around to find Richard jumping in front of him, intercepting the blow that one of the kidnappers aimed at Damian’s head. The bat hits Richard’s head with a sickening clang, and Damian watches almost in slow motion as Richard’s body drops onto the wooden surface of the pier.

“Nightwing!” Damian cries out in warning, but it’s too late. The bat comes down to land another hit on Richard’s unprotected head, and before Damian can incapacitate his own opponent and moves to help Richard, the man with the bat has already kicked Richard’s unconscious body out of the pier and into the murky waters of Gotham harbour.

“You’re next, little boy,” the man growls out, but Damian has had enough of playing nice. He strikes the man in front of him with a nerve strike that he very rarely uses nowadays, for fear of it being lethal, and ducks down to tackle the other man. Damian wrestles with him, and, after a few seconds of vicious struggling, grabs the bat from his hands and hits him with it.

The man goes down in an instant. Damian did not pull his punches.

He looks up, and checks that all five men of the kidnapping ring are unconscious— no time to bind them more securely, so he’s just going to have to hope that they don’t wake up— and that the shipping container that they have identified as the victims’ holding place is at a safe place. He would love to be able to free them right now, but Richard’s life takes precedence.

All of that done, Damian takes a deep breath and jumps into the icy waters of Gotham harbour. This kidnapping ring was actually smart for once, and when they realized that Nightwing and Robin had tailed them to their shipping place, they activated an EMP.

An EMP means that none of their electronics work. None of their electronics working means that Damian can’t call for backup.

He just has to hope that whoever is watching in the Cave notices that their trackers are deactivated and sends in backup. Preferably soon.

Once inside the water, Damian turns on the night-vision in his mask lenses, but even that did not help in the murky waters of Gotham harbour. He can’t see anything that is not the grey of the water and the small slivers of light that manages to come into the water in the middle of the night.

But Richard must be here. He must be. Damian will not accept any other outcome, so he must be here.

He chants that in his mind while circling around the pier, trying to find any sign of life, but still, no trace of Richard anywhere. He widens his radius, but still, he can’t see where Richard is, and his lungs are already burning with the need to breathe in. Damian could hold his breath for three minutes, in an ideal condition, but he was already breathing hard from the fight right before he jumped into the harbour, and he needs all the oxygen he can get to haul Richard’s body up from the depths of Gotham harbour.

Damian resists the urge to huff in frustration— no use in wasting what little air he has— and swims up as quickly as he can.

One big breath in, and he is swimming back down. If his sense of time is right, then Richard has been down here for nearing four minutes already. He cannot afford to be inside the water any longer.

He got lucky. On his second dive in, Damian sees the bright blue of Nightwing’s uniform, reflecting what little light is visible down here.

He forces himself to swim faster, to reach Richard as quick as he can, while ignoring the protests from his aching muscles. He is Robin, and he will do this, regardless of what his muscles say.

As soon as he reaches Richard’s body, Damian hooks his arms around Richard’s armpits and pushes against the water to swim up. His lungs are once again burning, but he is not going to let go of Richard’s body, no matter how much harder the extra weight made it for him to swim up.

It takes him twice as long to reach the surface as it would with him alone. By the time he breaches the surface of the water, Damian is already opening his mouth to gasp for air. He wishes there’s enough time for him to just get his breath back, but Richard has been underwater for far too long. So, after just one breath— which would have to be enough— Damian starts kicking as hard as he can to propel them in the direction of the shore. The pier is closer, but there is no way that Damian can climb up the rigging while dragging Richard with him, and so, even though it is a longer swim, he would have to go all the way to the shore.

After several kicks, Damian manages to gain enough momentum to switch his hold on Richard to a one-handed one, allowing him to use his other hand to help with the swimming. He has to reach shore as fast as he can. Even with the water all around them and through his gloves, Damian can already tell that Richard is no longer breathing.

He forces himself to swim faster.

The very moment he reaches the shore, Damian’s fingers are already searching for the switch for the built-in AED in their suits. Before he could reach it, however, he remembers. EMP. No working electronics. No AED.

Shit.

Damian gets on his knees, places his hands on Richard’s chest, and starts pushing.

One, two, three, four, five. He hopes that someone notices that their tracker is dead.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. He hopes that backup will come soon.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Richard has no breath. No pulse.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Breathe, damn it. Breathe.

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five. Damian is not going to lose Richard to this. He is not.

Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Why isn’t he breathing?

Damian tilts Richard’s head back, pinches his nose, and breathes into Richard’s mouth, watching as his chest rises and falls. He wishes with all his might that the next breath Richard can take on his own, but no such luck. Damian had to breathe for Richard again.

He goes back into position, places his hands on Richard’s chest, and does it all over again.

By the fifth repetition, Damian’s legs are trembling with the effort to hold him up. Richard is much, much heavier than he is, requiring far more effort from Damian to properly do the chest compressions, and he is already exhausted from fighting five men and pulling Richard from the water. By the ninth repetition, his shoulders are screaming in agony, and he can barely regulate his breathing to provide the rescue breaths to Richard. By the fourteenth repetition, it feels like his entire body is on fire with the effort required to maintain the proper rhythm of chest compressions.

Damian ignores all of that. Ignores everything that is not the rhythm of his pushing, and the fervent effort of trying to keep Richard alive.

One, two, three, four, five. His uniform clings to him in a foul mixture of Gotham harbour water and sweat.

Damian ignores that.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. His hair clings to his eyes with every up and down movement of his body, obscuring his vision.

Damian ignores that.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. He hears voices coming from behind him.

Damian ignores that.

Wait.

He hears voices from behind him.

“Over here!” Damian shouts, still pushing on Richard’s chest in a rhythm he refuses to abandon. He hopes that he is right, and that it is backup, because if it isn’t, there is very little that he can do right now. He keeps pushing on Richard’s chest, finishing the fifteenth set of the compressions, and bending down again to do the rescue breaths.

When he straightens up again, he sees the tell-tale mask of the Red Hood, and breathes out in relief.

“Get clear, kid,” Todd says, and for once, Damian obeys.

Todd pushes the button to activate the AED that he has placed on Richard’s body when Damian was giving the rescue breaths, and shouts, “Clear!” just before the AED beeps, indicating that a shock was given.

As soon as the beep stops, Damian gets back in position, preparing himself to do another round of chest compressions, even though every single one of his muscles is screaming with exhaustion. He already places his hands on Richard’s chest when a gloved hand rests on his shoulders.

“Let me do it, Robin,” Todd grunts, pushing Damian away from his place next to Richard’s chest. Damian considers protesting, but the moment that his legs are no longer supporting a combination of his weight and the power needed to do chest compressions on someone that is nearly twice as heavy as him, they collapse. He watches as Richard’s chest goes up and down with the force of Todd’s compressions, and prays to every god, spirit, and deity that he knows of for Richard to start breathing again.

In Todd’s third repetition, Richard starts coughing.

Damian has never been happier to hear the sound.

#dc #dick grayson #damian wayne #cpr #drowning #whump #lian writes

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huilian · 3 years

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Eugenides, mathematics, and the people that he loves.

or, 12 times mathematics was involved, in some way or another, between our favorite bastard of a king and the people he has made a family out of.

or, that math degree gotta get used somehow

“If you’re going to lurk from the ceiling, Eugenides, you might as well come down and help me,” Eddis said.

In front of her was a string of numbers that should have represented the entirety of her country’s taxes, but none of it made sense to her. She knew all the basics, of course, but they didn’t expect her to be queen, and by the time she was her father’s heir, she was too busy trying to learn everything else that the thought of learning the intricate system of taxes did not even cross her mind.

She was regretting that now.

“Well, it seemed rude to interrupt your brooding session, Your Majesty,” Eugenides said, landing next to her without so much as a whisper of a sound.

She glared at him in the empty room she was in, having already sent everybody out. Her advisors meant well, but they kept talking over each other in their eagerness to explain this to her, and instead of helping her understand it, that just made the numbers seem even more confounding.

“I was not brooding,” she said.

“If you say so, My Queen,” Eugenides grinned. “Now, do you want me to explain this to you, or was this covered in one of the few classes you did not skip?”

She glared again, but she pointed at one entry, embarrassingly high on the list, and said, “Start there.”

“Remind me, Costis,” the King said, “your father is a farmer, is he not?”

Costis blocked the King’s attack— he still insisted on sparring with Costis every morning, even though he now had an abundance of sparring partners to choose from— and replied, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

The King hummed, and Costis pushed forward, trying to get at least one hit on Eugenides when he was still distracted. Instead of reaching his target, however, his training sword flew out of his hands and he found himself with a wooden sword placed gently upon his chest.

“My win, I believe, Costis,” the King said with a smile. “I think that’s enough for the day.”

“Your Majesty?” Costis asked, disbelieving.

“Yes, Costis,” Eugenides replied. “Come, sit in the shade next to me, and tell me about your father’s farm. The sun is much too hot today.”

Costis frowned, but he knew already that the best way to deal with his King when he was like this was to indulge his whims. So he took the King’s sword, retrieved his own, placed them where the rest of the practice swords were located, and sat down next to Eugenides, answering all of his questions about the way his father determines how much seeds he should buy and how many people he should hire.

Teleus picked up a piece of paper that was not there the last time he left his office, locked with the only key on his own belt.

The paper was filled with numbers and equations from one end to the other, and after skimming it quickly, Teleus can see that it contained the beginnings of a plan on how to sufficiently reduce the Guard with minimal compromises on its function.

Sighing, he picked up the paper and a flagon of wine, and made his way to Relius’s quarters. It would not help the headache that’s already starting to form, but at the very least he would have someone to talk to. And to share wine with.

Sophos,

I think I caught where that extra one half is coming from. Tell the Magus that it is his fault that this equation does not balance. That extra one half is supposed to be there. You can find the proof attached in this letter.

That said, are you getting better at this quicker than I expected, o Useless the Younger? I should write the Magus to tell him to provide you with harder problems to solve. You have not asked for my help even once in the last few weeks.

Your friend, Eugenides

10.

“What do you think of that new proof from the continent? That you can find distance by finding an area?”

A few short years ago, Kamet would have jumped in shock. Nowadays, however, he was far too used to Eugenides’s antics to be truly shocked.

“I think, Your Majesty,” he said, “that my topic of choice is poetry and history, and that any discussion about mathematics is better done with your youngest attendant. The gods know he could focus on little else.”

Eugenides waved his hand in such a manner as to fully frustrate Kamet. Truly, only Attolis could manage to cause such contempt in such a little movement.

“I will ask him later, when I want my argument ripped to shreds. But I want to know your thoughts, Kamet.”

“My interest in mathematics is in bookkeeping only, Your Majesty.”

“Ah, don’t play coy with me,” Eugenides replied. “I know you better than that.”

Kamet narrowed his eyes, but the arguments are already starting to form in his head. He briefly lamented the fact that he would not be able to finish his translation work today, because from previous experience, once this discussion started, it will not stop until the bell rings for dinner time, and he has promised Costis that he would not work in candlelight only for the health of his eyes.

Eugenides grinned, like he knew that he had already won this battle. He probably did, that little bastard of a king.

“Fine,” Kamet sighed. “I think that it’s plausible. If the speed is constant, then it’s just a rectangle, is it not? We can then infer that-”

They talked long after that, discussing the merits and demerits of the idea. Eugenides disappeared just before the bell rang to call the court for dinner, however, as if he knew Kamet’s thoughts from earlier and decided to spite him even more.

Kamet couldn’t even be mad about it.

“Do you not believe my story, Relius?” the king asked.

A mere month ago, Relius would not have deigned to answer. A mere month ago, Eugenides would not have told the story. But now, in the time when only men plagued with nightmares are awake, Relius said, “I somehow doubt you managed to calculate the volume of that bath in such a short time, Your Majesty.”

Eugenides clicked his tongue, and said, “It’s just a cylinder. Or close enough to one that it doesn’t matter.” He leaned back on his chair and asked, “Surely you know how to do that quickly enough?”

“I confess I have not practiced that in a long time, Your Majesty.”

“More important matters in your mind?”

Court intrigues and spy networks. Letters written in codes that only he can break and knowledge that he has long since imparted to his queen. None of that matters anymore, now.

Instead of answering the question, Relius said, “Maybe I’ll learn how to do that. After.”

“Maybe,” the king replied. He pulls on the blanket covering Relius’s body, adjusting it so that all of Relius’s limbs are properly underneath it. All four of them.

They didn’t talk again for the rest of the night.

“Two of your trousers are currently being mended, Your Majesty, and three more are in the wash, so the choice tonight is between the blue pair or the deep brown pair. I’ve chosen the blue, and paired it with that coat you just commissioned,” Philologos explained.

“That’s good, Philologos, thank you,” the king said, absentmindedly pulling his undershirt off. He unclasped the cuff of his hook, handed them to Hilarion, who was standing next to him, and entered the bath.

Seeing that everything is well under control, Philologos shared a nod with Hilarion, and then turned to go retrieve the aforementioned trousers and coat.

Before he could do that, however, the king called out, “Philologos?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?” he answered.

“Two added with three added with two does not make eight,” Attolis said.

Philologos blinked, baffled with the apparent absurdity of the statement. He was just about to chalk it up to Eugenides being Eugenides and simply agree with the king, before he realized what was going on.

He blanched.

“I…” he stammered, unsure as to what to say, when Hilarion also realized what was going on and laughed.

“I thought your education was better than that, Philo,” Hilarion teased. “What would your father say, if he knew that his only heir forgot how to do basic addition?”

“I…” Philologos stammered again, trying to find words to defend his honor, but the king interjected before he could do that.

“I am honored, Philologos, that you have chosen to emulate me in this.” Eugenides grinned, before continuing, “Though I wish that you would have chosen something better than my trousers to steal.”

Behind him, Philologos could hear the rest of the attendants snickering, and that was enough fuel to make him shout, “Four! Four of your trousers are in the wash, Your Majesty!” without even considering what that outburst would cost him. He could feel his cheeks turning red, and he gritted out, “Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and retrieve your clothes for dinner.”

He turned around, fully intending to block any and all comments, when the king called out, “Don’t steal this pair too, Philologos!” adding fuel to the laughter from the attendants.

But when he handed the trousers to the king after he had finished his bath, Eugenides pulled him close, and whispered, “If you’re going to steal any of my trousers, take the red one.” A burst of hot air hit Philologos’s ear, the tell-tale sign that the king is laughing. “The embroidery is in gold.”

“Eight ships,” the Eddisian Minister of War said to his son. “Eight ships, and you asked for?”

“Twenty men,” Eugenides replied.

“That’s,” he paused for a moment to recheck his calculations, “two men a ship.” He looked at Eugenides, frowned, and said, “That’s not possible.”

“I didn’t propose to burn all eight of them. Four,” Eugenides said, lifting up his fingers. “Maybe even five if we’re lucky,” he lifted up the one finger he had left.

His father very deliberately did not look at Eugenides’s other arm, which has no more fingers to lift up. “That is still five men a ship, Eugenides,” he said, “without any scouts or people standing guard.”

Eugenides simply shrugged, and replied, “I can do it.”

A year ago, he could. The Minister of War frowned even deeper, and said, “Thirty. Twenty for your plan, five for scouts, four to stand guard, and one just in case.”

Eugenides’s mouth curled in a discontented line, but he sighed and said, “Alright. Thirty it is.”

“It was the type of wheat,” Eugenides mumbled next to Irene’s ear.

They were tangled together on top of her sheets, their legs twined together and their heads pillowed on the same bed. Wheat was the furthest thing from Irene’s mind, but still, she hummed a note to tell him to go on.

“Artadorus,” her husband continued, his eyes still half closed. “He reported a different kind of wheat than what he planted. You charge a different rate for the different kinds.”

Irene hummed again. She would have found out, eventually. She has many people in her tax offices employed to do just that. One of them would have found out the deceit and brought it to her or Relius, and the fraud would have been exposed, just the same. It would not have been as effective, but it would still have reached her.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that it was not just her who charges a different rate for the taxes, but one glance at his face caused her to remain silent. They could be kings and queens again in the morning, but tonight, they are simply husband and wife.

She rolled over to face him, and said, “Tell me again in the morning,” before kissing him.

He did not say anything about wheat again until the sunrise entered the windows of the room.

11.

"I think a triangle only has three sides, Pheris, and not four," Eugenides said, materializing somewhere behind the young Baron Erondites.

For his part, the Baron Erondites looked at the work he was completing, saw the mistake, and started signing things that he had decided were curses.

Attolis laughed.

"Surely that is not as debilitating as that?"

I would have to redo this whole section, Pheris signed with one hand. The other hand was already scratching things out on his parchment with a speed that truly belies his frustration.

"Oh, I'm sure it's not that bad," Eugenides said, sitting next to him. "You would only have to change…"

A pause, and then Annux of the Hephestian Peninsula hissed out something that would truly shock all the new ambassadors from the Continent and made his wife glare at him for saying that in front of the children. "You need to redo the whole section," Eugenides deadpanned.

Pheris just glared at him, and scratched out, 'I told you so', somewhere in the midst of the mess his parchment was becoming.

12.

"Why do we have to learn this?" the Princess of Attolia complained.

Her brother, also looking dejectedly at his own work, nodded in agreement.

"Because, my little thief," her father said, "one day, you might find yourself on a ledge too far for you to jump, and you have to calculate how many pics you can trust your own skill and how many you have to trust our god for." He turned to his son, and continued, "And you, my future king, will one day have someone telling you that seventeen horses each carrying three sacks of grain somehow amounts to having forty sacks, and you will have to disabuse them of that notion immediately."

The twins looked at each other for a moment, before Hector said, “But we knew how to do that already. That is simple geometry and arithmetics. This is not that.”

Eugenia nodded, and added, “Even Mother said that her own education did not come this far. So, Father, why do we have to learn this?”

Eugenides blinked, before chuckling softly. “I see,” he said, after a while. He sat atop the table that the twins were using to write, and continued, “It seems I have done you both a disservice.

“I ask you to learn this because no matter who you are, whether you are an okloi or a watchmaker or a king or a thief, or perhaps, even the gods themselves, the logic of mathematics will still be the same. There are no lies in mathematics, nor are there deceit.”

He paused there, staring at things that neither Eugenia nor Hector could see. Seconds passed in silence, and Eugenia opened her mouth, ready to bring their father back to the present with a remark, but before she could do that, Hector jabbed her in the stomach and shook his head.

Their patience was rewarded when Eugenides sighed and propelled himself from the table he was sitting on. “But you are right,” he said, plucking the pens from their hands, Eugenia’s first, and then Hector’s. “Both of you certainly already have the skills needed to fulfill your duties. Anything more will just be a fool’s errand.” He jumped up the table again, this time landing feet first and facing them, half-bowing with the pens he took from them just earlier offered in his hand.

“A fool’s errand,” he said, eyes twinkling, “or a quest for the wisest of men.”

Eugenia and Hector stared at their father, and then at each other, before taking the pens from their father’s hand.

In your last letter to me, you told me that a man’s worth is what he is, added to what he does. Then tell me this, Magus. What if that is not enough?

Gen, I thought your knowledge of mathematics is better than that.

If addition is not enough, then try multiplication.

“Ah, no,” Stenides said, looking over Gen’s shoulder. “That three should not be there.”

“No?”

“No,” Stenides answered, pointing at the calculations in front of his little brother. “See how you didn’t carry over that one,” he moved his fingers to the next number, “and so this one should have been four.”

Eugenides looked at the paper in silence for a moment, and then let out a string of curses that he definitely should not have heard yet, let alone repeat. But of course, Gen being Gen, he has, and Sten couldn’t help but chuckle along.

After he finished his string of curses, Gen moaned, “I’m never going to get it.”

“I thought you’re going to be the next Thief of Eddis?” Stenides teased. “How are you going to do that when you can’t even do additions?”

His little brother looked at him with murder in his eyes, however, and Sten quickly raised his hands in surrender. Eugenides’s revenge was already legendary, no matter how young the boy still was.

“I joke, I joke!” he said. Then, he smiled down at his little brother, ruffled his hair, and said, “You’ll get it. I know you would.”

#queen's thief #eugenides #lian writes #alright imma tag every single character #eddis helen #costis ormentiedes #teleus #kamet e dai annux #relius #philologos #hilarion #minister of war #attolia irene #eugenia #hector #pheris erondites #stenides #magus of sounis

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huilian · 4 years

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Tim doesn’t want to be here. Okay, he wanted to last week, when Dick told him that everyone is going hiking as a ‘family bonding experience’ (Dick’s words, not his)– he hasn’t even seen Cass for a couple of months–, but right now, as he looks at a grimacing Damian, who is holding his injured foot, Tim really doesn’t want to be here.

Why is it that every time the two of them are together alone, someone ends up injured?

They were supposed to go together, the whole family: Alfred, Bruce, Dick, Tim, Cass, Damian, Duke, and even Jason. But of course, things never work like that. Tim’s case took longer than expected, the weapons dealer had another dealer who supplied him and so Tim had to track that dealer. He did two all-nighters to finish it before today, but he didn’t quite manage to finish it before it was time to leave.

And because the universe likes to smite him, Damian called in just before they leave to say that he’s going to be late. His thing with Jon ran longer than expected, he said.

Dick had offered to postpone the trip, or at least, let the others go first and wait for him and Damian, but Tim can see how tired his older brother really is. He definitely doesn’t want to spend the entire hike listening to the two of them bickering, because even though Tim’s relationship with Damian is no longer filled with spite and murder tendencies as it was in the beginning, Tim is mature enough to say that they still bicker to the death. Damian seems provoked by everything Tim does and he gets under Tim’s skin the way no one else does. Tim will, and has, fight an alien god for the kid, but they will disagree on everything on principle.

The moment he realizes that the only other option is to spend the entire hike with Damian, Tim already doesn’t want to do this. But Dick looks exhausted and Tim is not heartless, so he, against his better judgement, convinces Dick that he can just go with Damian and catch up with the rest of them on the camping ground.

Dick looks suspicious when Tim told him the plan, but Tim frames it in a way that makes it sound like he wants to bond with the little gremlin. He knows Dick can’t resist that, and sure enough, he eventually agrees.

Anyway, it’s just hiking. How hard can it be?

Pretty hard, apparently, if Damian, someone trained since birth with the League of Assassins, slips and sprains his ankle in the middle of it.

Or maybe Damian is just too tired from his little adventure with Jon. He is, despite everything, still a thirteen-year-old kid, and hiking up a mountain after fighting crime with the son of Superman is bound to be too much.

Nevertheless, Damian sprains his ankle, and there’s no one but Tim to take care of it. Why did Tim try to be considerate? If Dick is here, he would have taken care of it and Tim wouldn’t have had to do anything.

But it’s just Tim here, and Damian is glaring daggers at him, as if it’s Tim’s fault that he slipped. Fortunately, by now, Tim knows Damian enough to know that this glaring thing is a defence mechanism and the kid is just in pain and embarrassed but too afraid to show it.

A horrifying thought, because this means that Tim is close enough to Damian to know how the little gremlin thinks.

Tim sighs, puts down his pack, crouches next to the kid, and says, “Come on, Damian. Up.”

Damian looks up and meets Tim’s eyes with confusion.

Honestly, does the kid want Tim to spell it out?

“You can’t walk with that.” Tim jerks his head towards his back. “Come on. Up.”

Damian’s brows furrow, in the same way that used to infuriate Tim but now just part of Damian’s charm. “Drake,” he says, “seriously?”

“What?” Tim says, offended. Try to do a nice thing for this kid, Tim swears. “You don’t think I can do it?”

Damian clicks his tongue. “I weigh nearly as much as you, Drake,” he says condescendingly, as if teaching something to a very dumb child. “Not to mention the packs. There’s no way you can walk with that.”

Tim huffs. “It’s just another hour.”

Damian raises his eyebrows and says, “It’ll double if you walk it while carrying me and the packs. Honestly, Drake.”

“We’ll just leave the packs. Send Bruce or Jason down to get them. No one else is here anyway.”

“You’re still carrying me. And I probably weigh the same as you, with how scrawny you are.”

“Watch who you’re calling scrawny, brat,” Tim says, but he can’t help but acknowledge Damian’s point. Damian is heavy. Not to mention that he’ll be climbing up.

Tim frowns, trying to figure out a way out of this, the usual way of calling for back-up being void because there’s no signal whatsoever up here in the mountains, but before he can say anything, Damian says, “I can walk, you know.”

“Not on that ankle, you can’t,” Tim retorts immediately. He is not risking Alfred’s wrath by letting Damian walk on a sprained ankle.

“Tt,” Damian says. “Then just leave me here. You can ask Father to come retrieve me later.”

After Damian says that, Tim is tempted to do it. Damian won’t be here for long, anyway. Without the packs, and if he exerts himself, Tim can reach the camping ground in about forty minutes. Then Bruce or Jason, or Dick, probably, can come down and reach the kid in around twenty minutes. Add in five minutes to find them and tell them about the situation, the kid will just be here for just over an hour.

But then, Tim looks at Damian, sees the grimace of pain he’s trying to hide, and decides that he’s not going to leave him here alone.

“No,” Tim says. “I can do it. Come on, brat. Up. Or I’ll pick you up and walk all the way there with you in my arms.” Tim turns around and puts his arms around Damian’s legs and torso to emphasize the point.

Damian swats his hands away and says, “Keep your filthy hands away from me, Drake!”

“Then climb up, Damian.”

Damian huffs, and after glaring at Tim for a moment, climbs to Tim’s back.

Tim hooks his arms around Damian’s legs and stands up. The weight of Damian on his back makes him lean backwards for a while before he manages to balance. The kid is heavy.

“Drake,” Damian says, voice alarmed, “just leave me here. You can’t possibly do this.”

Tim adjusts Damian on his back and says, “Like hell I can’t. Just shut up and let me handle this.”

Tim takes a step and has to contract his core muscles to keep him from toppling backwards. Damian tightens his hold on Tim’s neck. “Drake,” Damian says. “Timothy. I will be fine. Just leave me here.”

“No,” Tim huffs. “I’m fine, Damian. Just… just shut up and don’t make my job harder.”

Tim can feel Damian adjust his body to keep his centre of gravity as close to Tim’s as possible. It helps, a bit.

Tim takes another step and doesn’t topple. Good. Just a couple hundred more steps. He can do this.

Damian doesn’t say anything throughout the rest of their climb, and Tim doesn’t offer any conversation either. However, just before they reach the camping ground, Damian says, in the softest voice possible, “Thank you, Timothy.”

Tim smiles, even as his muscles scream their protests. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to, but he does grip the kid’s legs a bit tighter for a moment.

It’s his little brother, after all.

#dc #tim drake #damian wayne #lian writes #fic #two fics in two days?#it's more likely than you think #batman bingo 2020

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huilian · 3 years

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The king of Attolia, Annux of the Little Peninsula, walked alone across the halls of the Eddisian palace. This would not have happened in his own palace, but they are in Eddis, and Eddisian customs take precedence. No one in Eddis would dream of stopping the Thief from roaming the halls of the palace of Eddis, no matter how much the captain of his guard protests.

He slipped easily from one empty room to another, avoiding the many sets of eyes that, even now, still lingered in the palace. It was easier than it used to be. There were many empty rooms in the palace of Eddis, and not all of them are because their inhabitants had moved to the lowlands.

Still, even with the abundance of empty rooms and the decrease in the number of guards, he was forced to backtrack a few times to escape notice. The guards’ patrol routes had changed since the last time he was here. A display of caution for the queen of Eddis that he could not help but be pleased about, despite the inconvenience it was currently causing him.

The guards had no chance in catching him, however. There was no man alive that knew these halls better than he, and there was no place on earth that he knows better. His own palace was a close second, but he had grown up here, and he knew every single nook and cranny etched into these halls.

With a quick look around to make sure that his presence remained unnoticed, Eugenides slipped through an unremarkable door in an unremarkable hallway. He arrived at his destination.

“There you are!” the king of Sounis cried out, carrying his daughter in his arms. Sounis was talking to the man sitting at the table in the library, looking for all the world like he was at home. Sounis’s daughter, on the other hand, was mesmerized by the book that was in front of the man.

Eugenides, who, for all intents and purposes was at home in the library of Eddis’s palace, looked up.

“Everyone is looking for you,” Sounis said, looking at him meaningfully.

With a wave of his hand, Eugenides dismissed that. “Helen knows where I am. If they truly need me, they’ll find me. Come on, Sophos, sit down. Don’t tell me you want to join that theatrical production in the courtroom.”

Sounis shook his head, but gave a small smile of concession. He took his own seat next to Eugenides, settling his daughter in his own lap. She immediately started pawing on the book in front of Gen, who deftly moved it out of her grasp.

“Feisty, aren’t you, Gitta?” he asked the princess of Sounis.

Her father chuckled. “She was getting antsy in the nursery, so I brought her on an adventure.” He bounced her several times in his lap, before looking up to the other king’s eyes and said, “Speaking of children, where are yours?”

Eugenides made a face. “With Teleus,” he said, sighing. “They scream if I try to take them before they are ready to be separated from him.”

Sounis laughed outright at this. “Are their screams as loud as yours?”

“Louder,” Attolis said mournfully.

Unfortunately, the princess of Sounis chose this time to also scream her displeasure at the fact that her father had stopped bouncing her in his lap. The two kings looked at each other for a moment, before Sounis placed his daughter back in his arms and started walking around the room to try to calm her.

Satisfied at having the attention of the two men firmly on her once again, she quieted down. Sounis made to sit down again, but Eugenides stopped him by saying, “You’ll just make her cry again. I think she wants our full and undivided attention.”

“Speaking from experience, Gen?”

The king of Attolia, Annux of the Little Peninsula, snuck out his tongue, looking very unkingly indeed. “Do you want me to help you or not?”

“Alright, alright. What do you have in mind?”

“Do you know Hern’s poetry?”

“Yes,” Sophos answered.

“You do?” Gen looked up at him, surprise etched on his face. But one look at the younger king’s face stopped the surprise in its tracks. “You do,” he said again, before turning to look at the child in Sophos’s arms and continuing, “Well, I’m no goddess of scribes, but I think I can do well enough for the princess of Sounis.”

“I don’t know, Gen,” Sounis teased. “I think the princess of Sounis deserves the best, don’t you agree?”

“Are you implying that I am not the best?”

“Did you not imply that yourself?”

“Sophos!” Eugenides said in exaggerated surprise. “I didn’t know you have it in you! Do you talk like this to my dear cousin too?”

“I do not, because she, unlike you, is not insufferable. Now, I believe you promised me a recitation of one of Hern’s poems.”

“Excuse you, I promised Gitta a recitation of one of Hern’s poems.” Eugenides then plucked the princess of Sounis from her father’s arms, who, for all his teasing of the other man, relinquished his daughter easily enough. “Now, my darling niece, shall we ask your father to leave the room so that I can give you a private recitation?”

The princess of Sounis lets out a happy gurgle that was more excitement at being held by a different person than an actual agreement, but Attolis seemed happy enough to take it as so.

“See, Sophos?” he said to the other man. “Your daughter agrees with me.”

At that, Sounis laughed again. “Very well, then. I shall leave the room for you and Gitta. But the moment I exit that door without the princess of Sounis in my arms, her retinue will come hounding down.”

“You would not.”

“I would.”

Eugenides looked at the other king with horror in his eyes, because that was a threat, and the other man knew perfectly well that that is so. He shook his head, and said, “Bested in my own game by Useless the Younger! I never thought this day would come!”

Sounis gave him a mock bow from where he’s seated, and said, “A recitation, if you please, my king?”

“Oh, very well. Gitta will just have to share.” He adjusted the girl in his arm, deftly positioning her away from his hook, which, if no longer as sharp as a knife, was still dangerous enough for tiny wandering hands. Then, with two of his audiences enraptured, even though only one was truly listening, the King of Attolia began his recitation.

“I never want to see another amphora in my life!” the queen of Eddis exclaimed as she burst through the door on her library, interrupting her cousin’s recitation. She threw herself onto the nearest seat, continuing in her rant. “What does it matter if we take ten or eleven amphorae of that particular design down to Sounis! And why do they have to have me decide on it!”

Eugenides, recognizing his cousin’s mood, and fearing for the fate of the scrolls he was reading before he was interrupted by Sounis, stopped in his recitation and gently transferred his niece onto her mother’s waiting arms.

Still incensed, but a calmer now that she had her daughter in her arms, Eddis continued. “They asked me the same question for every piece of furniture or decoration! What do I care if I have one less vase to bring down to Sounis!”

It was then that the queen of Attolia, who had been following Eddis to the library, albeit at a more sedate pace, entered the room. She spoke for a moment with the increasingly large group of people outside the library, the amalgamation of the retinues of attendants and guards for the three monarchs, before closing the door on them.

“Oh, I remember doing that. My entourage was to bring thirty pitchers of wine, and I had to personally select every single one of them,” Attolia said as she walked across the room to take her own seat. She glanced at her husband, promising retribution later for the fact that there were only three retinues of attendants and guards outside the door, not four, before asking, “Children?” which was promptly answered by Eugenides with, “Teleus.”

She gave a sharp nod, and turned back to Eddis to shrug. “Just say that you trust their judgement and discretion in these matters. It’s what I do.”

“Makes you glad that it’s not your duty to move all these things, doesn’t it, Sophos?” Eugenides said.

Eddis adjusted her grip on her daughter, and then pointed one finger towards her cousin. “You are not getting out of this that easily, Gen. There are piles of your stuff to be sorted out.”

“My stuff?” Eugenides asked.

“Your stuff! They found your stashes! All those bits and bobs and knick-knacks that you stole! I would have just given them back to their owners, but none of them will take it if it isn’t you giving the stuff back to them personally!”

“Ah,” Eugenides said. “That stuff.”

“I thought everything the Thief of Eddis stole has to be dedicated to their god?” Sounis asked.

“Not everything,” Eugenides answered. “Besides, those were practice. It was hardly worth the effort to place them on my god’s altar.”

“Hardly worth the effort or not,” Eddis countered, “they are your things now, and you will deal with them, if I have to tie you down to the courtroom myself.”

“The captain of my guard might take issue with that,” Attolis pointed out.

“He won’t once I’ve explained why I’ve done it,” Eddis said darkly.

Eugenides looked to his wife for support, but she simply raised an eyebrow and said, “I believe that Teleus might make an exception for Eddis. And to see whether or not tying you down works.”

He gaped at his wife, who smiled serenely and adjusted her skirts. He looked at Sounis, and then Eddis, before turning back to his wife and shaking his head. “Oh, I see you’ve all discussed this without me.”

“Discuss what?” Attolia replied.

“Outsmarting me in my own game.”

Attolia’s smile changed. “Are you losing your touch, my king? Shall I call on Petrus to examine you?”

“Don’t forget Galen,” Eddis added from where she was now calmly seated, playing with her daughter.

“Yes,” Attolia nodded. “It would not do to slight Eddis’s royal physician, especially now that we’re in Eddis.”

The outraged look that Eugenides sent to his wife was broken by Sounis’s laughter, which was then joined by the two queens. Dejected, Eugenides pouted, before he walked over to where his wife was sitting and sat on the ground beside her feet, resting his head on her lap.

The laughter quieted down after a while, which was immediately taken advantage of by Eugenides to complain. “I am surrounded by treachery,” Eugenides said from his wife’s lap.

“Poor king,” Sounis teased, which caused the laughter to begin again, even louder this time.

Once all of them had calmed down enough, Eddis turned to her husband and said, “As enjoyable as insulting Gen is, it does remind me. Has the Magus sent his list?”

“He mentioned working on it in his last letter, but as for the actual list itself, no, not yet,” Sounis answered.

“Ah,” Eddis made a face. “I was hoping to get started on that. Transporting all these books down to the lowlands is going to be hard enough, we do not need the additional difficulty in trying to do it in one go.”

Sounis shrugged, and said, “It might still come in his next letter, which should reach us either late today or tomorrow. Besides, there’s no reason why we need to—”

“You’re moving my library to Sounis?” Eugenides jumped up.

Eddis and Sounis stopped in their planning to look at him, before Eddis said, “Well, of course, Gen. We’re moving everything. Or would you prefer to leave them here to be destroyed?”

“Of course not!” Eugenides said. “But to Sounis? Really, Helen?”

Eddis blinked at him once, before bursting into laughter once again. “Did you expect them to come with you to Attolia?” she said between bouts of laughter.

“Well, not exactly,” Eugenides sputtered, “but Sounis?”

“What grievances do you have with my library, Gen?” the aforementioned Sounis said.

Eugenides turned to his friend and said, “There’s no way I’m trusting the contents of my library to Useless the Younger!”

Sounis would have protested, but he wasn’t given a chance. Instead, his wife said, “My library.”

“Did you not swear your loyalty to me?” Eugenides asked his cousin.

“My loyalty, yes,” Eddis nodded. “But not the contents of my library.”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, before Eugenides looked at his wife for support. However, if he was expecting reinforcement from that direction, he was sorely mistaken. “She is right,” Attolia said, looking directly at her husband’s eyes. “I made the vows myself.”

“Sophos,” Eugenides quickly pivoted his attention to the younger man, realizing that his wife would give him not an ounce of support in this matter. “Tell Helen that this is my library.”

Sounis was, in his heart, a kind man, but since he was so recently insulted by his friend, he felt no particular need to be kind just now. He took his time in settling in his seat, enjoying the pleading looks that Eugenides was giving him, before finally saying, “I remember feeling so jealous of your library when I first saw it.” He leaned forward, smirking as he met Eugenides’s eyes. “I look forward to adding them to my own collection. Especially now that I know Hern’s book of poems is in here somewhere.”

The only thing that can be heard afterwards was one indignant shout and three ringing peals of laughter.

#queen's thief #eugenides #attolia irene #eddis helen #sophos #lian writes #fic #rott spoilers #return of the thief #hi; i am a fool who forgot to post her own fic here #so here it is #the 'four monarch squabbling' fic #enjoy!!!!

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