No Man Left Behind / Something Worth Dying For
REQUESTS / BLOG EVENT
Request from @razzbberry - Palette #1 - Alpha-17, Cody - Death of the Cynic in Me
Notes and close-ups beneath the cut!
Notes: I think Seventeen would, both subconsciously and consciously, keep his cynicism as long as possible. It’s how he thinks the world works, but it’s also a survival tool. It’d be a very, very slow death.
It’s put to the test with Cody — not because Cody is special among his fellow clones, but because he’s one of the first that bothers to fight Seventeen on his own terms. The argument is always the same. Cody wants to talk about what he hopes to be, someday, after he is a soldier. Seventeen thinks he’s stupid to think that’s possible, or that he’d be capable. Cody knows it, and he, might not be. Seventeen thinks it’s even more stupid, in that case; what a waste of energy.
It develops. When they’re older, and in the thick of war, one day Cody risks his life for the chance to save a brother that was going to die anyway. Seventeen yells at him for fifteen minutes once he’s conscious about luck and stupidity and the trouble it’s causing Seventeen and the false hope it’s engendering in others. Cody says he can disagree all he likes, but he doesn’t give a fig, respectfully. Seventeen thinks Cody can go try to get blown up again, if he thinks so.
There’s no point fighting for a better tomorrow; they’re bought and paid for to fight for something else, FOR someone else. Seventeen is prepared for being fodder, as a result. He’s prepared for unfairness and the bleak life that they’re living. Instead he watches as Cody defeats odds time and time again, somehow managing to balance being an exceptional military leader with a secondary war to live for something more, running himself ragged and — inexplicably — gaining ground. Each of those little victories are a little death for Seventeen’s cynicism; a chipping away. A little seed of Cody’s brand of hope takes root, awkward and begrudging, fond and tentative.
Then Order 66 happens. Cody’s efforts for a better life are in vain, and Cody himself-
Cody may never know that Seventeen was right abut just how helpless they were. Now he only knows that Seventeen is a traitor, apparently, because Seventeen — for once in his life — was the lucky one and his chip malfunctioned.
And Seventeen could say ‘I told you so’. He could rest, vindicated and resigned, in the fact that every dream Cody built up and everything he thought was worth dying for is pointless, now — as he always suspected it would be.
But it isn’t fair, even by Seventeen’s standards.
“What are you doing,” Rex will rasp, caught in a strange role reversal as Seventeen paints an armor set with Cody’s golden colors. “He’s not coming back, Seventeen. He can’t. It’s pointless to keep going after him, you need to stop.”
“No,” Seventeen will answer, unbothered, “I don’t think I will.”
“We can’t — we can’t keep hoping,” Rex says, because he means he will probably have a breakdown if he imagines there is even a pitiful possibility he could save his brothers and then have to turn away from that scrappy chance for the greater good and Rebellion, and all that. “We’ve got to move on.”
“Go on.” Seventeen will invite sincerely, one brow raised because he knows Rex better than that.
“Do you want him to shoot you?” Rex will finally yell, all knotted up at the thought of losing Seventeen too, even though it’s funny because Seventeen was never kind to Rex.
“He can try,” Seventeen will say, touching up the last of the paint. He will stand, wiping his fingers, and pick up his pack. “See you when we get back, then.”
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The Prefect and The Draconia
A short overview of the Ramshackle prefect and their strange (but kind) horned fellow friend: as seen through the eyes of outsiders.
(A/N: #Malleyuu notes with an OC but feel free to project. We're all delulu here ╮(. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)╭ )
His Henchman is crazy.
Or at least, that's what Grim thinks when he's woken up at sunrise to Yue's bizarre ramblings. Something about the time being 1 AM, then fireflies at night, and a tall, horned figure – is what he takes from their babble amidst his own groans and pleas to return to sleep. He'd think them delirious from slumber, mumbling about another dream, if it weren't for the way Yue's eyes sparkled with genuine interest. Grim yields, in the end, for one of the many things he's learned about his reliable servant is that they can be awfully enthusiastic when it comes to this world's curiosities.
“He told me to call him whatever I want,” Yue continues, ruffling Grim's fur dry with a clean rag. Before he could insert magnificent ideas of his own, they beat him to it with a soft smile on their lips.
“I'm thinking of naming him Nyx: the personification of the night. What do you think?”
“What? Because he only shows up at night?” Like some wacky cryptid.
“Yup.”
He hears his henchman forgo the brush, letting it clatter loudly against the table.
“Hm... Nyx, huh...” Grim falls into thought, testing the name on his tongue like premium quality tuna. He doesn't even notice how Yue ties the striped ribbon around his neck. Triumphant, he turns to them with a grin.
“That's not half-bad, Henchman! It's cool and mysterious. Not as cool and mysterious as me, of course, but I'd say it's a close second!”
“Naturally. I wouldn't dare bestow a name mightier than the Great Grim's.”
Despite the stream of praise his henchman delivers (which he pleasantly basks in), Yue eventually derails, returning to speak of the horned man yet again. What Grim's superior brain gathers is this: One, this Nyx guy is super weird. Two, Yue's interest has been piqued like no other before.
He'll demand some omurice as payment for his counsel later on.
. . .
Malleus has made a friend.
The news was dropped onto Lilia's lap rather unceremoniously when one night, the Young Lord—having just returned from another evening excursion, went to sit with him in the Diasomnia lounge. This time, however, the quaintest of smiles adorned his face... It was an unusual sight but certainly not unwelcome. And much like any doting parent, his curiosity led him to ask.
Malleus had replied with a question of his own.
"Lilia, do you know of the Prefect that resides in Ramshackle Dorm?"
"Yue? Why yes, of course. I've spoken to them once or twice. They made quite a show during the Ceremony."
Yue— Lilia soon comes to learn— is completely unaware of Malleus's identity as a prince and a figure of authority, of power. As such, they bear no fear for him, even going so far as to bestow him a pet name, of all things.
(“Nyx? As in the night spirit? How fitting.")
Thus began the pattern of Lilia covering for Malleus's nighttime absence, not daring to ask nor scold when the prince would return in strange and stranger states.
When he would return to the dormitory partially caked with dirt and mud (a consequence of helping the prefect with their little garden of life.) Or when he would return with a box of homemade cake, a pretty stone from their walks, a drawing of him supposedly made by the prefect's beast, and with inquiries of the complexities of human nature.
Sometimes, Lilia can't help but feel a bit guilty, constantly boring witness to Silver and Sebek's searches into the night.
Yet that sliver of guilt fades, in the end, when Malleus smiles more often than before, when he approaches Lilia in the winter with the request of delivering a Holiday Card.
As he watches the magicless human rush into their abode, card in hand, ghosts and Grim awaiting their entrance...
he has never felt prouder and more grateful for fate.
. . .
From a distance, Vil watches.
He watches as the feared Briar Prince lets a small, feeble human talk his ear off, calm and unresisting, a hand on his chin as he ponders along Yue's barrage of words. He gives the prefect full reign of the conversation. He lets himself be taken away by their stories and details. He lets them speak, which they do.
Just after the horrors, highs, lows, and thrills of the VDC, the two chat as if nothing even happened. The onslaught of it all feels like a fever dream to Vil. First, the mental toll of overblotting, then their loss to RSA's nursery rhyme performance, and now the shocking reveal of Yue (innocent, bold, mundane little Yue) and Malleus Draconia's relationship.
He isn't even sure what to make of it. They're clearly friends, yet Vil can't bring himself to chalk it up to just that. His years and years of showbiz cinema has taught him the ins and outs of body language. He watches. He sees:
There's the smiles on both their faces; cheeks raised taut, dimples carved with genuine laughter. There's that glimmer in Yue's eyes and the odd tenderness of Malleus's own, both gazes locked onto one another with an undisturbed focus. There's the fact that Yue had given him an invitation to the VDC, or that Malleus had fixed the stage partially to show off to the magicless human, or that their hands are currently mere centimeters away from each other.
In the end, Vil averts his gaze, weariness crashing into him all at once and he feels a pair of hands grasp onto his shoulders, keeping him standing. Rook smiles, gentle, knowing, annoying. Vil resigns to his whims and lets his Huntsman guide him back to the Pomefiore Dorm, the chatter of Yue and Malleus and everyone else fading away.
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