Chapter Text
Amos ducks underneath a large arm, narrowly avoiding the stone construct’s attack as he moves. His opponent is looking rough, one more good blow should take it out. He shoots himself up into the air with a spell. Raising his staff above his head, he drives the butt of it into the construct’s neck with heavy force. The construct crumbles to the dirt floor in a pile of jagged stones.
He checks himself over. He’d sustained a few abrasions and took a few powerful hits, not too bad. He can stop by the healers and have himself magicked up to full health within a few minutes. The desert sun glares down on him, but it’s steadily sinking towards the horizon, so it’s not as bad as it could be.
Footsteps approach the arena’s entrance, and an abrasive, loud voice speaks from the entrance of the training arena. “Amos. I wanna fight.”
Amos sighs, turning to look at the owner of the voice. Zephyr scowls, lip twisting up in a snarl, still approaching. They shove his shoulder. “Don’t sigh at me. You’re already fucking training. Fight me.”
Amos glances down at the pile of stones and huffs. Zephyr’s clearly already extra pissed off from something else, and a bruise darkens along their jawline, but that’s normal. It’s annoying to fight them when they’re this mad, but he’s got nothing better to do. He’ll stop by the med bay later. “Fine. Armed?”
“Unarmed.”
As expected. Amos rests his staff against the wall and turns to face Zephyr, rolling his head to crack his neck. He lowers himself into a wider stance, arms up in front of his face.
Zephyr, predictably, doesn’t bother doing the same, immediately surging forward with their arm pulled back. They launch their fist at Amos, and he ducks, simultaneously twisting and hitting Zephyr in the side. Zephyr grunts but doesn’t stumble, and raises their arms to bring their fisted hands down over the top of Amos. Once again, he dodges, darting backwards.
Two misses already, Amos notices. They’re also favoring their left leg, and their movements seem slightly stiffer than usual.
“You injured?” He asks, deflecting an attack with his elbow.
“No.”
He goes in this time, attempting to kick Zephyr’s legs out from under them, but they jump over it and throw a punch. It lands on the side of his head, and he shakes it off with a blink before landing a blow of his own square on Zephyr’s scarred cheekbone.
They continue on like this, Amos able to hit Zephyr more than they hit him, and he notices that Zephyr isn’t attempting to block most of Amos’s punches.
He’s not surprised. He’s noticed them do this sometimes, for some senseless reason that lies beyond him. (Normally, one would prefer this behavior from an opponent in a fight. But this is training, and the point of training is to get better, and how in the hell is one expected to get better when their opponent won’t fucking block?)
He stops attacking, then, and starts moving only to block & redirect attacks, dodge, and push them away from himself.
The two continue dancing around each other, Zephyr lunging and either landing blows on Amos’s raised forearms or missing as he dodges. After a short amount of time, Zephyr’s ever-present scowl begins deepening, their tail whipping in irritation.
“Hit me,” they growl, lunging forward with a punch.
The blow lands on Amos’s upheld forearm. “Block my attacks,” he retorts.
“I am .” They kick at his legs. He jumps back.
“You’re not,” he argues, but to appease them and keep the fight going, he goes back to throwing a few attacks at them here and there. They make efforts to actually block the attacks maybe half of the time, but they’re still letting him land hits. Amos begins to only attack when he knows it’ll be easy to block, and only hits areas that are sturdy, and unlikely to injure.
Amos notices the sweat collecting along Zephyr’s brow, notices how heavily his opponent is breathing. He frowns. They’re already tiring out? Zephyr has always had an insanely high stamina, and they haven’t been fighting for that long yet. Amos thinks they’re almost definitely hurt somewhere. Or they’ve had a really long day.
“Just come back from a mission?” He questions, redirecting a punch that throws Zephyr off balance, causing them to stumble.
Zephyr rights themself, not answering, and throws another hit that Amos ducks underneath. They roar in frustration when he doesn’t punch back. “Fucking hit me, you asshole!”
“Block my attacks!”
“Fuck-“ Zephyr lunges, snarling, “ You! ”
Amos dodges again, and as Zephyr goes past him, he throws an elbow down into their side. They slide onto their knee to stop quickly and immediately lunge again.
“Hit me HARDER! ”
Amos dodges. “No!” Dodges again . “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“Fuck you!” Zephyr throws a punch. “ Hit me! ”
Amos focuses on dodging and blocking the barrage of attacks, and he has to admit that Zephyr’s ever-unyielding anger does make them more powerful when it comes down to it. The hits are landing harder, but they’re getting sloppier and sloppier as time goes on.
“Hit me! Fucking hit me! ”
Zephyr reels back further for a more powerful hit, but when they lunge, Amos ducks and sends a fist into their solar plexus. They let out a winded grunt of pain and double over, hitting the dirt. One arm curls protectively over their middle as they cough.
“You are injured. That shouldn’t have sent you to the ground.”
“I’m not ,” they manage between coughs. “Fuck- fuck you.”
Zephyr tries to push themself up, clear intent to attack, and Amos pushes them back down with his foot, summoning his magic to wrap glowing golden restraints around their wrist and the back of their torso, pinning them.
Zephyr glares furiously up at him, coughs still racking their chest. “Let me up ,” they force out. Amos notices blood on their teeth, staining their lips. They’re injured worse than he realized. Why didn’t they stop by the med bay?
“No, you’ll just try and hit me again. You’re injured, Zephyr, badly. You’ve been favoring your left leg, your movements have been stiff, and you’re coughing up blood right now. You have to get healed up first before you're supposed to continue fighting.”
Zephyr’s coughing begins to subside. They glare up at him seethingly, and they rasp-growl up at him, “I’m not fucking allowed.”
“Not allowed to what? Keep fighting? Yeah, no shit, that’s what I'm trying to tell you.”
“To be healed.”
Something in Amos’s chest falls into his stomach.
Both of them are well-experienced in working under the Commander. They know the rules, the expectations, and they know the Commander is not kind or merciful when those rules are broken, the expectations not met. They were always allowed to visit the healers after their lesson was learned, though, to prevent lasting damage and decreased productivity. And it’s been ages since Amos has received anything worse than heightened training hours or a bruised cheekbone.
He kind of figured it was the same case for Zephyr.
Apparently not.
What was the Commander doing ? Risking disabling one of his top soldiers, keeping them injured? He could easily guess it was due to Zephyr falling short, which Amos had noticed in retrospect, the soldier failing missions more and more whilst Amos rose to the top.
He knows well the necessity and importance of lessons being taught, as one shortcoming may lead to any number of failures within the army. But this, Amos can’t stand for. Couldn’t just ride on and try to convince himself it was for the greater good, not for this. Not only is it a bad move strategically, it’s..
Amos had stopped feeling any significant amount of sympathy for Zephyr after witnessing outburst after outburst, watching them wreck whole missions with their impulsive violence, knowing any consequences they were dealt were by natural order.
But this was… this was wrong. It was cruel, even for the Commander. Even when it comes to Zephyr.
A cough brings Amos back to the present. Zephyr is still glaring at him, chest heaving with expended effort, but they were no longer violently trying to struggle against the binds. Amos notices that tears are gathering in Zephyr’s eyes as they seethe at him. He blinks. Oh.
He keeps his voice neutral. “I’ll let you up if you stop trying to fight me.”
Zephyr’s glare holds steadfast, mouth pressed shut as they stare Amos in the eyes.
Amos stares back with a blank seriousness. Zephyr eventually concedes, turning to look at the ground with a huff. He releases the spell.
Zephyr shifts to plank and push their leg underneath them, but they’re interrupted by a too-wet cough, and then another. They’re forced to lower themselves back onto the ground as another coughing fit racks their body, forehead resting on forearm. The coughs die down but they remain still, breathing raggedly. They don’t try to get back up. Which is… unexpected, to say the least.
Zephyr’s presence was always, always a loud, abrasive thing. It was as if wherever they went, they were attempting to non-physically challenge, intimidate, or scare any person who happened to be nearby. Their presence struck outward like lightning, tail whipping as if it were the violent winds of a storm. A constant dare to try me .
Right now, Zephyr’s tail lays still on the ground, unmoving like its owner. The air around them feels deafeningly silent, muted, shielded. The opposite of a challenge. A quiet hostility. Leave me alone.
Amos just stares. He’s known Zephyr his entire life. Even in the grief of losing Icarus, a mentor and a dear friend to both of them, Zephyr had retained that burning, flashing anger. Amos often found himself questioning how they had the energy for it. It never faltered.
There’s-
There’s something seriously wrong.
“Can you move?”
Zephyr’s tail flicks in response. That's a no. Due to injury or stubbornness, Amos isn’t sure, but the answer is no, Zephyr won’t be moving. Not on their own, at least. Amos bites back a sigh.
“Your dragon around?”
“No.”
“Let me take you back to your room then.”
Zephyr’s head sluggishly lifts and turns to snarl at him. A drying line of blood runs down their chin.
Amos huffs.
“You can’t spend the night face down in the arena.”
Their stare holds steady, tail flicking behind them once more. He kneels down to grab their upper arm, and they hiss, pulling back weakly.
“I could move you by force, you know that. I'm trying to make things easier for both of us.”
Nothing. Their jaw clenches. They glare. It holds no genuine fire in it. Amos doesn’t like it.
“Please, I don't want to hurt you more. Just let me take you to your bedroom.”
Zephyr stares, eyebrows lowered, and then finally opens their mouth to respond in a rasping demand. “Why are you being nice to me.”
“I’m not-“ Amos huffs, irritated. “Zephyr, I'm not doing this to be nice to you, I'm doing this because it’s needed. You are significantly injured. If you’re… if you’re not seeing a healer, you need to at least rest.”
Their stare flickers from Amos to the ground and back, pointedly.
“In a bed.”
Their lip twitches.
Zephyr’s hand comes up to grasp Amos’s forearm and they sit up, grinding their teeth. Amos holds their forearms firmly as they stand, and wraps their right arm around his shoulders. He looks at them, and they’re just looking at the ground intently with a tired-angry grimace. Their own free arm is wrapped around their ribs. The two of them start heading slowly in the direction of Zephyr’s quarters.