[Legend of Sun Knight] fic: Bittersweet Sweetness Part 13
Title: Bittersweet Sweetness Part 13
Fandom: The Legend of Sun Knight
Words: 1,925
Summary: Instead of receiving a brooch that dresses him in an assassin's clothes, Sun receives a trinket that switches his consciousness around with Judgment's. Now, Judgment must find out the mystery behind the Death Knight in Sun's stead. Problem is, imitating Sun's poor swordsmanship is no easy feat, and who knew what Sun was doing with Judgment's body in the meantime? Alternate telling of the end of volume 1 of the novels.
Notes: Yup, I've slowed down with this fic. I thought I'd be able to finish it last month... complete miscalculation. Still quite a few more parts to go! Less than 400 words from 20k now. *watches each part grow out of hand*
Previous Part
Part 13 - Judgment
When I woke up the next day, I almost didn't remember where I was. My limbs felt weak as I propped myself up, golden hair spilling over my shoulders, reminding me of all that had happened yesterday. I pulled myself out of bed to stare into the mirror.
The reflection that greeted me couldn't be more different than what I usually saw in the mirror. Instead of somber black hair and dark eyes, I now had bright golden hair and blue eyes. I tried a smile, the expression not at all unusual on Sun's face, but there was something off about my smile. It was too hesitant, too small. I widened my smile, cheeks twitching at the forced smile.
This is going to take some time to get used to, I thought as I brought my hands up to pull at my face so that my smile wouldn't lapse back into a frown. Sun's skin felt smooth and soft under my hands, but that was no surprise. I shuddered when I recalled the long skin-whitening process I had experienced yesterday.
My hands still smelled like lavender.
After refreshing myself, changing, and spending much too long trying to comb Sun's hair, I was as ready as I could be to face the day as the graceful and perfect Sun Knight. My mind was telling me I should have woken up an hour ago to attend a meeting I would never have missed if I had been myself, but as I was Sun, I forced myself to take my time making sure I was healed enough to be up and about. The extra sleep had been helpful and extra time wouldn't hurt.
Sun was still on vacation for successfully stopping the king from raising taxes, so that meant I was free from his duties and could use his time as I wished. I headed out of his room to look for his platoon as I needed to borrow one of them to accomplish my next task.
As I searched for the Sun Knight Platoon, I came across Storm in one of the corridors. He must have skipped the meeting much like what I was doing. Like usual, he was carrying a large stack of documents. I recalled that Storm had been given time off too, but he didn't look like he'd been on vacation at all with the dark circles under his eyes.
Grisia and I had both agreed that Storm was the best person to approach for information on nobility with a hobby of torturing others. Storm often dealt with aristocrats and noblemen, and he often played the role of diplomat, so he knew their secrets even better than I did. I'd calmly told Grisia, however, that I'd already approached Storm when Grisia had still been in bed after fainting from blood loss. I had already drawn up a list of suspects as well. That had made Grisia pout once again.
I was afraid that I was slowly getting used to seeing that expression on my face.
Although I already had my list of suspects, that didn't mean I had nothing to ask Storm about. Storm wasn't just familiar with nobility. He was familiar with all sorts of gossip, and he also knew the most people out of us all.
"Brother Storm," I opened my mouth to say, though I hadn't yet formulated the next part of my sentence.
"Stop," Storm said immediately, a frazzled look coming over his face. He looked like he really didn't want to talk with me, something I'd never experienced before, not to this degree, though perhaps he merely reined in his expressions in front of "Judgment" more. I had a feeling it was just Grisia who made Storm react this way though. "Please speak plainly."
I was entirely happy to comply.
"Do you know of Roland?" I asked. Grisia hadn't known anything about what happened to Roland after the selection for the next Sun Knight, but I felt it was relevant to our investigation. Roland had to have been close enough to our suspects for him to have been targeted by them. That meant he had a connection with nobility or perhaps even with royalty.
Storm thought for a moment before replying. "Yes, he was a promising royal knight captain, with around the same level of popularity as Elijah."
A royal knight captain...
He gave me a look. "Why are you asking?"
I filled him in on the identity of the Death Lord and told him my suspicions.
"The king has summoned you," Storm said after my explanation, his frazzled look transforming into chagrin. "I'll accompany you."
I nodded, knowing that Storm would not be able to leave this matter unturned. He'd want to know everything, and he would dig deep into the matter now that he knew what I knew.
"Before we visit the king, I need to speak with my platoon," I told him. Storm nodded and left to do a quick investigation into Roland's background. I would meet him in front of the palace entrance once I visited the Sun Knight Platoon. As he left, I thought I heard him say that "Sun" felt like an entirely different person today, strangely dependable and easy to understand...
That's because I am a different person...
At least I saved Storm from a headache.
I found the Sun Knight Platoon outside, diligently jogging around the entire perimeter of the city. Sun's vice captain was at the front of the group, barking commands and yelling for the rest to keep with him. It wasn't an unfamiliar sight, as I often saw them jogging in the mornings during times when I trained with my platoon and didn't have meetings to attend. Sometimes, I wondered if Grisia even knew how much his platoon trained, as I didn't recall ever seeing Sun run with his platoon within the city walls.
I was tempted to jog up to them and run with them -- it was what I would have done with my platoon -- but I stopped myself. Grisia has never done that before, I reminded myself. Starting now would be blatantly out of character.
That didn't mean I couldn't get him started, but there was also my injury to consider. Sleep had done wonders, but there was still a strange pain around the area of my stomach. I settled to wait where I stood for the Sun Knight Platoon to make their way around once again.
"Is that the Captain?" I heard someone gasp from the far right.
"Stop joking!" another person exclaimed. "That's such a lie!"
"Yeah! The Captain never supervises us. Don't think you can trick us!"
I turned before they could dig themselves deeper. Everyone immediately shut up.
"Captain?" Adair asked for the sake of the rest of the platoon. Everyone else had been shocked or frightened speechless.
"Yes?" I replied, widening my smile as I had practiced. I tried to organize my thoughts so that I could imitate Sun's speech even though it would be one of the most painful things I ever had to do. Although Grisia and I had once thought we would have done well in each other's positions, I was glad to leave the fancy talk to Grisia so that I could tend to matters without having to speak nonsense.
I heard someone squeak before a bunch of them started exclaiming that they weren't slacking off, that they had run seven rounds around the city already and were now on their last round. I even heard someone thank the God of Light that they hadn't decided to skip out on a round even though they had joked about it because they didn't think their Captain would ever find out.
I wondered if these sun knights had always been like this, or if Grisia's personality had warped them somehow.
When I raised my hand, all of them fell silent. I surveyed the faces in front of me, eyes landing on one particular sun knight who had brown hair and was the right height. I beckoned him forward. He stared at me, eyes large.
One of the knights near him started sniffing. "I'm honored to have known you, Ed," he said.
"Go forth proudly!" another knight called out.
No one in my platoon would have dared spoken out like that. I knew Sun often let out his true personality in front of his platoon, but imitating that would be a great deal more trouble than imitating his fake façade. I considered my options. Should I glare at them? Or warn them verbally? I would rather not speak out before I needed to.
When everything fails, depend on Adair.
I gave Adair a reproachful look.
Adair immediately turned around and yelled for everyone to shut up.
Well, that worked.
"Adair," I began, mentally reciting what I was about to say. I'd taken a lot of time to craft this sentence. "Sun wonders if any of you have formed beautiful friendships with the royal knights from the palace thanks to the generosity of the God of Light."
He nodded slowly. I wasn't at all sure what was coming out of my mouth or if anyone could understand me, but I continued speaking.
"Their clothes are exquisite, formed from the finest material under His benevolence, and would surely make Ed look dashing."
I had to praise Adair for not reacting to my strange request even while the rest of the platoon gasped when Ed's name left my lips. All of them looked at Ed with pity. It was strikingly similar to how people looked at criminals about to face judgment from me, and Ed himself looked just like the criminals I judged -- like he was about to walk into a situation where he'd rather die. Adair turned towards a sun knight I didn't recognize and told him to go look for Elijah to borrow a royal knight uniform. That was the second time I'd heard Elijah's name mentioned within a single day. After that, I had Adair send the rest of the platoon back on their run. To Ed who had been left behind, I instructed him to practice acting suspiciously.
"What?" he asked me in confusion.
"Practice," I replied. "So you know what to do later." I'd already used up all my concentration on trying to speak two sentences in Sun's elaborate speech patterns, so I resorted to speaking plainly. I thought it had been bad to be on the receiving end of Sun's speech, but being on the other end was even more troublesome. It was much too much nonsense and wasted words.
As I watched Ed dart his eyes around furtively, Adair came over to my side.
"Adair, anything to report about Jacques?" I asked.
Even though Adair probably felt something off about me, it would take a leap of faith for him to consider I wasn't Sun. As I expected of him, he didn't question me but kept his observations to himself, as I wasn't entirely out of character even though I would never be able to completely imitate Sun. I wondered if I would be able to push it and arrange to spar with Adair, but he already suspected me enough.
"None, Captain. He stayed home all night."
I nodded. That was what I had expected, but I still desired to confirm my suspicions. The king's summons was actually a golden opportunity, for at least two of my suspects would be present.
"Ed, you will be coming with me when I visit the king."
-----
to be continued
*coughs* Sun and Judgment bathing pics, manhua style. (also a cute Storm in the first pic!) Haha, seeing these made me go, "oh right, they probably don't have showers" so I changed my wording in the previous Judgment section to "bathing". I debated about the phrase "like a running faucet" since I'm not sure if they have faucets, but ehhh, I liked the phrase so I kept it...
Yu Wo had these posted in her plurk, but she reposted them here as an apology that manhua v3 will be delayed a little (something wrong with the barcode).
Sun's pic says, "A guy bathing is nothing to look at!"
Judgment's pic says, "Assassin?"
Next Part
Fandom: The Legend of Sun Knight
Words: 1,925
Summary: Instead of receiving a brooch that dresses him in an assassin's clothes, Sun receives a trinket that switches his consciousness around with Judgment's. Now, Judgment must find out the mystery behind the Death Knight in Sun's stead. Problem is, imitating Sun's poor swordsmanship is no easy feat, and who knew what Sun was doing with Judgment's body in the meantime? Alternate telling of the end of volume 1 of the novels.
Notes: Yup, I've slowed down with this fic. I thought I'd be able to finish it last month... complete miscalculation. Still quite a few more parts to go! Less than 400 words from 20k now. *watches each part grow out of hand*
Previous Part
Part 13 - Judgment
When I woke up the next day, I almost didn't remember where I was. My limbs felt weak as I propped myself up, golden hair spilling over my shoulders, reminding me of all that had happened yesterday. I pulled myself out of bed to stare into the mirror.
The reflection that greeted me couldn't be more different than what I usually saw in the mirror. Instead of somber black hair and dark eyes, I now had bright golden hair and blue eyes. I tried a smile, the expression not at all unusual on Sun's face, but there was something off about my smile. It was too hesitant, too small. I widened my smile, cheeks twitching at the forced smile.
This is going to take some time to get used to, I thought as I brought my hands up to pull at my face so that my smile wouldn't lapse back into a frown. Sun's skin felt smooth and soft under my hands, but that was no surprise. I shuddered when I recalled the long skin-whitening process I had experienced yesterday.
My hands still smelled like lavender.
After refreshing myself, changing, and spending much too long trying to comb Sun's hair, I was as ready as I could be to face the day as the graceful and perfect Sun Knight. My mind was telling me I should have woken up an hour ago to attend a meeting I would never have missed if I had been myself, but as I was Sun, I forced myself to take my time making sure I was healed enough to be up and about. The extra sleep had been helpful and extra time wouldn't hurt.
Sun was still on vacation for successfully stopping the king from raising taxes, so that meant I was free from his duties and could use his time as I wished. I headed out of his room to look for his platoon as I needed to borrow one of them to accomplish my next task.
As I searched for the Sun Knight Platoon, I came across Storm in one of the corridors. He must have skipped the meeting much like what I was doing. Like usual, he was carrying a large stack of documents. I recalled that Storm had been given time off too, but he didn't look like he'd been on vacation at all with the dark circles under his eyes.
Grisia and I had both agreed that Storm was the best person to approach for information on nobility with a hobby of torturing others. Storm often dealt with aristocrats and noblemen, and he often played the role of diplomat, so he knew their secrets even better than I did. I'd calmly told Grisia, however, that I'd already approached Storm when Grisia had still been in bed after fainting from blood loss. I had already drawn up a list of suspects as well. That had made Grisia pout once again.
I was afraid that I was slowly getting used to seeing that expression on my face.
Although I already had my list of suspects, that didn't mean I had nothing to ask Storm about. Storm wasn't just familiar with nobility. He was familiar with all sorts of gossip, and he also knew the most people out of us all.
"Brother Storm," I opened my mouth to say, though I hadn't yet formulated the next part of my sentence.
"Stop," Storm said immediately, a frazzled look coming over his face. He looked like he really didn't want to talk with me, something I'd never experienced before, not to this degree, though perhaps he merely reined in his expressions in front of "Judgment" more. I had a feeling it was just Grisia who made Storm react this way though. "Please speak plainly."
I was entirely happy to comply.
"Do you know of Roland?" I asked. Grisia hadn't known anything about what happened to Roland after the selection for the next Sun Knight, but I felt it was relevant to our investigation. Roland had to have been close enough to our suspects for him to have been targeted by them. That meant he had a connection with nobility or perhaps even with royalty.
Storm thought for a moment before replying. "Yes, he was a promising royal knight captain, with around the same level of popularity as Elijah."
A royal knight captain...
He gave me a look. "Why are you asking?"
I filled him in on the identity of the Death Lord and told him my suspicions.
"The king has summoned you," Storm said after my explanation, his frazzled look transforming into chagrin. "I'll accompany you."
I nodded, knowing that Storm would not be able to leave this matter unturned. He'd want to know everything, and he would dig deep into the matter now that he knew what I knew.
"Before we visit the king, I need to speak with my platoon," I told him. Storm nodded and left to do a quick investigation into Roland's background. I would meet him in front of the palace entrance once I visited the Sun Knight Platoon. As he left, I thought I heard him say that "Sun" felt like an entirely different person today, strangely dependable and easy to understand...
That's because I am a different person...
At least I saved Storm from a headache.
I found the Sun Knight Platoon outside, diligently jogging around the entire perimeter of the city. Sun's vice captain was at the front of the group, barking commands and yelling for the rest to keep with him. It wasn't an unfamiliar sight, as I often saw them jogging in the mornings during times when I trained with my platoon and didn't have meetings to attend. Sometimes, I wondered if Grisia even knew how much his platoon trained, as I didn't recall ever seeing Sun run with his platoon within the city walls.
I was tempted to jog up to them and run with them -- it was what I would have done with my platoon -- but I stopped myself. Grisia has never done that before, I reminded myself. Starting now would be blatantly out of character.
That didn't mean I couldn't get him started, but there was also my injury to consider. Sleep had done wonders, but there was still a strange pain around the area of my stomach. I settled to wait where I stood for the Sun Knight Platoon to make their way around once again.
"Is that the Captain?" I heard someone gasp from the far right.
"Stop joking!" another person exclaimed. "That's such a lie!"
"Yeah! The Captain never supervises us. Don't think you can trick us!"
I turned before they could dig themselves deeper. Everyone immediately shut up.
"Captain?" Adair asked for the sake of the rest of the platoon. Everyone else had been shocked or frightened speechless.
"Yes?" I replied, widening my smile as I had practiced. I tried to organize my thoughts so that I could imitate Sun's speech even though it would be one of the most painful things I ever had to do. Although Grisia and I had once thought we would have done well in each other's positions, I was glad to leave the fancy talk to Grisia so that I could tend to matters without having to speak nonsense.
I heard someone squeak before a bunch of them started exclaiming that they weren't slacking off, that they had run seven rounds around the city already and were now on their last round. I even heard someone thank the God of Light that they hadn't decided to skip out on a round even though they had joked about it because they didn't think their Captain would ever find out.
I wondered if these sun knights had always been like this, or if Grisia's personality had warped them somehow.
When I raised my hand, all of them fell silent. I surveyed the faces in front of me, eyes landing on one particular sun knight who had brown hair and was the right height. I beckoned him forward. He stared at me, eyes large.
One of the knights near him started sniffing. "I'm honored to have known you, Ed," he said.
"Go forth proudly!" another knight called out.
No one in my platoon would have dared spoken out like that. I knew Sun often let out his true personality in front of his platoon, but imitating that would be a great deal more trouble than imitating his fake façade. I considered my options. Should I glare at them? Or warn them verbally? I would rather not speak out before I needed to.
When everything fails, depend on Adair.
I gave Adair a reproachful look.
Adair immediately turned around and yelled for everyone to shut up.
Well, that worked.
"Adair," I began, mentally reciting what I was about to say. I'd taken a lot of time to craft this sentence. "Sun wonders if any of you have formed beautiful friendships with the royal knights from the palace thanks to the generosity of the God of Light."
He nodded slowly. I wasn't at all sure what was coming out of my mouth or if anyone could understand me, but I continued speaking.
"Their clothes are exquisite, formed from the finest material under His benevolence, and would surely make Ed look dashing."
I had to praise Adair for not reacting to my strange request even while the rest of the platoon gasped when Ed's name left my lips. All of them looked at Ed with pity. It was strikingly similar to how people looked at criminals about to face judgment from me, and Ed himself looked just like the criminals I judged -- like he was about to walk into a situation where he'd rather die. Adair turned towards a sun knight I didn't recognize and told him to go look for Elijah to borrow a royal knight uniform. That was the second time I'd heard Elijah's name mentioned within a single day. After that, I had Adair send the rest of the platoon back on their run. To Ed who had been left behind, I instructed him to practice acting suspiciously.
"What?" he asked me in confusion.
"Practice," I replied. "So you know what to do later." I'd already used up all my concentration on trying to speak two sentences in Sun's elaborate speech patterns, so I resorted to speaking plainly. I thought it had been bad to be on the receiving end of Sun's speech, but being on the other end was even more troublesome. It was much too much nonsense and wasted words.
As I watched Ed dart his eyes around furtively, Adair came over to my side.
"Adair, anything to report about Jacques?" I asked.
Even though Adair probably felt something off about me, it would take a leap of faith for him to consider I wasn't Sun. As I expected of him, he didn't question me but kept his observations to himself, as I wasn't entirely out of character even though I would never be able to completely imitate Sun. I wondered if I would be able to push it and arrange to spar with Adair, but he already suspected me enough.
"None, Captain. He stayed home all night."
I nodded. That was what I had expected, but I still desired to confirm my suspicions. The king's summons was actually a golden opportunity, for at least two of my suspects would be present.
"Ed, you will be coming with me when I visit the king."
-----
to be continued
*coughs* Sun and Judgment bathing pics, manhua style. (also a cute Storm in the first pic!) Haha, seeing these made me go, "oh right, they probably don't have showers" so I changed my wording in the previous Judgment section to "bathing". I debated about the phrase "like a running faucet" since I'm not sure if they have faucets, but ehhh, I liked the phrase so I kept it...
Yu Wo had these posted in her plurk, but she reposted them here as an apology that manhua v3 will be delayed a little (something wrong with the barcode).
Sun's pic says, "A guy bathing is nothing to look at!"
Judgment's pic says, "Assassin?"
Next Part