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nottoofondofgaypeople · 4 months

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The Most Important Polycule

The one that started it all. Irena is a poor girl who has run from everywhere she's known. All that she knows about people and how to be one is from watching, and she's usually content to just bounce around wherever she does, until she lands in Phoenix Drop, a village so down on their luck she can't help but want to help them.

She doesn't officially take the lord position for quite some time, but she starts using her strange random skills she learned from drifters and wanderers to help these people. This naturally brings her to Garroth, the former head guard, who's keen on keeping her safe because she's just a very kind person. Garroth quietly thinks she'd make a good lord, but he never wants to push her to that.

Laurance is introduced in almost the exact same way. I mean it. The full head of hair, obnoxiously green eyes, the so called Cassanova of Meteli. The most flagrantly bisexual man. Laurance is the first person to show outright and very direct interest in Irena, which she's never experienced. Most people are very subtle about it, or don't express it at all because she's well. She's kind of weird. And doesn't always get what they're saying. She's actually just autistic and doesn't know how love works because nobody's explained it in a way that makes sense to her. And Laurance doesn't quite get what her vibe is but she's really fucking pretty, and also not afraid to give him a piece of her mind but in a light hearted way.

A lot of Irena's early interactions have her express herself in rather comedic ways, like she's super witty, because most of the people she learned from were bards and con men. She can be off-putting to some, but to Laurance? A girl who he can say romantics to and she'll respond with some cheeky retort that isn't an outright rejection? And she's beautiful and could maybe beat you in a fight?? Irena is the girl of Laurance's dreams.

And Laurance is always a fiercely dedicated person. He's known Irena for three weeks, and yet he'll still go into the pits of hell by her side. Laurance has read so many romantic poems and stories, I imagine that ancient Greek literature still exists in this universe, and he's read the tragedies of men who thought they could walk through hell and back safe and sound. He knows that Orpheus always turns around to see if Eurydice is there, but he's confident that they won't have to do that. He's confident he'll walk out of hell hand in hand with her.

No, what happens to them is worse. We all know the story. In order to save the life of one of his closest friends and the life of one of the most mystifying people he's ever rapidly fallen in love with, Laurance actively and willingly sacrifices himself. Irena returns to Phoenix Drop days later and when she finds Garroth at the guard station, she just collapses into his arms and begins weeping.

He's caught her crying before, but never like this. She's never completely fallen apart. He doesn't even know what happened, and she's too wracked with guilt to say anything at first. She knows how Laurance felt. She doesn't know what love is exactly supposed to be, but she knows what it looks like. She's seen people fall in love by staring at one another from across a fire pit. She could tell on day two that Laurance was falling hard and fast, and she was honestly scared the same might be happening.

Now she can't even bring herself to admit it out loud because he's gone, and in her eyes, it's her fault. Oddly enough, once she's able to admit some of what happened, omitting certain details about the nature of her and Laurance's relationship, Garroth is actually able to empathize with her. He isn't very direct at the time, but he gives her advice on how to use her grief as a motivator. Laurance sacrificed himself for her sake, and he would want her to keep moving forward.

Content Warning (y'all knew this was coming): Torture

What ends up being a brief period of time without Laurance, only about two months or so for the Overworld, is far far longer in the Nether. Laurance was planning on dying a warriors death, but after he suffered a nearly killing blow, he was kept alive, and dragged back to The Shadow King's castle. The Shadow King is only a phantom at this point, a pitiful version of his former self. But conscious enough to give orders, and to allow Gene to do what he wanted with this Shadow Knight. Let him prove himself.

So Laurance gets tortured. A lot. And is forced to become a shadow knight without dying. Which the Shadow King didn't even think was possible?? How tf did he fuckin do that, fuckin wizard. The entire process is unbearably painful, and Laurance's only solace are memories of Irena, some other prisoner he gets to talk to on the other side of the cell wall, and oddly enough, memories of a guard he hadn't seen in... years. At his lowest moments, Laurance wishes he could see Garroth, wonders where he is, what's happening in his life, if he managed to get the head guard position he rightfully deserved in some thriving village.

It's the last persons name he starts crying that finally breaks him. Laurance starts thinking about his family, about everyone he's lost, everyone he's going to lose is he dies here, and everyone he might lose if he somehow makes it out alive. The existence of shadow knights is contradictory by nature, and it's starting to break Laurance down. He starts to lose his sense of self. It's only when he weeps at the memory of a young boy finding a wounded wyvern in the woods that something finally happens.

Within seconds the wall is broken into, Laurance gets grabbed, and he's suddenly flying through the Nether in his best friends mouth. And going through the open rift between realms? One that was forcibly opened with the life essence of an immortal under dire circumstances? Laurance was not pretty when Irena and Garroth found him. He was malnourished, a little too pale, so many scars, his hair was all fucked up, and when they first found him, he just wasn't breathing.

Eventually Zoey is able to get his condition stable, but Irena refuses to leave his side until he wakes up. Laurance is out for a few days, and she's dedicated to being there when he wakes up. He has to. If he dies, then both his death and Ungrith's are her fault, and she can't let it end like that. He has to wake up. He has to.

When Laurance finally wakes up, he only notices he's blind because he can hear Irena's voice but can't see her face. But he can feel her hand in his. She's alive. His sacrifice wasn't meaningless because she's still alive. This is the point that we really get the ball rolling, and the point that I take the canon story out to the back alley to be violently beaten to death.

When Laurance desperately confesses his love to Irena, she remains quiet. She listens, and only when his breathing starts to even and the panic has subsided a little does she simply mutter the words "I missed you too Laurance."

"Would you say you loved me?" She has to think for a minute. Lots of people have tried to quantify love to her, explain how it feels or what it looks like, and despite best attempts, Irena still struggled with the concept. But when she sees Laurance's beaten form nearly crying, iron grip on her hand, and the weariest smile on his face, she sort of just gets it. Like it's the most obvious thing in the world that she loved him from the first back and forth they had while walking to Castor's house. Suddenly she can see the appeal of spending all her time around another person.

"I suppose I do."

As for Garroth falling for Laurance, I've covered this on my main blog twice before so I'll simplify it here. Laurance has repeated nightmares/night terror related to his experience in the Nether, and when Garroth is comforting him after one, he realizes this fool of a guard he met in the academy all that time ago is still taking up so much space in his mind.

He realizes it's love, and starts freaking the fuck out because Garroth?? Loves two people?? And one of them is a man???? What the fuck is going on??? Unlike my previous musings, there's a lot more time dedicated to this. Laurance's recovery is slow, and while Zane does interrupt this time, when he's gone there's even more time for Garroth, Irena, and Laurance to all just sit with these emotions.

(Trust me I have a lot to say about how I'm handling Zane and what he does to the story in this rewrite, but that is an essays worth of a post unto itself)

Maybe talk about them with their loved ones. Obviously Garroth doesn't talk to anybody at first, but Irena might go to Zoey. Tell her how she's feeling and Zoey has a faint ache in her heart because she still can't bring herself to admit she feels that way about Irena. Laurance talks to Cadenza about how happy Irena makes him, and how much he wants to share that with Garroth. She nearly whacks him over the head and tells him to just fess up to them already, stop talking to her about it when he clearly understands how he feels. Laurance always does, he's just got a lot of room for improvement in communicating it.

And one day when they all manage to have a day off, Laurance sits the two of them down at the docks and the three of them just talk. He spills his guts to them, tries not to be too emotional about it, fails miserably, and they just sort it all out. No need to hold it in, no need for Irena to deny them this time, and even if Garroth faintly thinks this is a waste of time at the start, when Laurance very directly says that he's in love with Garroth, that opinion very quickly changes.

Irena freely admits she doesn't have a lot of experience with love or relationships, but she knows that she feels love for both of them, and she'd like to try something. Even if it's quiet. Even if they have to hide it so Zane doesn't try to use it against them. She wants to try. And well, Garroth really can't say no to them. He's still faintly terrified of being emotional and vulnerable with people, even though he's already been this way with both of them. He's still so paranoid it'll get them hurt.

But he'll learn to let down his guard for them. They're worth it.

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