theoldguardkinkmeme

This Fills Post is now closed to new fills. New fills should go in Fills Post #2. For those of you who are in the process of posting multi-chapter WIPs, please post subsequent chapters in the new Fills Post but include a link to the previous chapters so that those who haven't been following the story from the beginning can easily find the first part(s).

Remember:

Fills can but don't need to be anonymous.

Start a new comment for each fill. Don't use threaded comments for new fills. Threaded comments are for fills that take up more than one comment field, or for feedback/squee/praise.

In your fill, please mention the prompt you are responding to, and provide a link to the prompt in the body of the text.

Please use a header with your character(s)/pairing and a title and/or keyword or short phrase. (For example: "Just you and me: Andy/Quynh, Make-up sex" or "Between a Rock and A Hard Place: Nicky/Joe/Booker, first time DP").

Please also comment with a link to your fill in the prompt post, under the prompt you are responding to. Your comment header should include the word "Fill" or "Filled", so that those checking out the thread can find your fic/art more easily (For example: "FILL: Re: Any/Quynh, Make-up sex").

If you end up cleaning up your fill and posting it elsewhere (AO3, your personal journal), feel free to link the posted fic/art here as well.

Fills on Pinboard: For a list of filled prompts on Pinboard, go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dr_libra_phd

(wheeze as I climb over textbooks, well, tablets, they're all e-texts just at the same $200+ price) How is it Friday already?!

———————————————-
Part 18F
———————————————-

(Nicolo)

Somewhere outside of Alexandria, 12th century

He wished his hand would not shake so much.

Nicolo took a deep breath and steadied his hand. He finished the final stroke. Done, he stepped back and studied what he has done with a critical eye. Hm, maybe he should add--

Too soon, the metal smith took it away and what little Nicolo had left to offer.

“Wait...” Nicolo’s shoulders slumped when he realized he spoke in Arabic instead of Greek. Too late, the stout metal smith was finishing behind a veil of steam, his hammer and tongs busy at work. He glanced up at Nicolo’s voice.

Nicolo held up his hands and shook his head. Nothing could be done about it now. He wished he dared slip away before to see the metal smith. It would have spared him delay as he would have spotted the error sooner.

Outside, the daylight was dimming and the shadows grew darker.

Nicolo gestured to the metal smith’s boy, a child of nine who was also the apprentice that he would wait outside. It would only take a few more minutes, but Nicolo worried Yusuf would come. That would ruin everything.

The mill cast a long shadow that reached the smith’s house and his dwelling behind it. Nicolo suppressed the sigh that wanted to break free when his eyes wandered towards the barrels that shielded half the mill from sight.

Nicolo knew from the small furrow between Yusuf’s brow that the other did not think the barrier was enough. It was not. But at least it gave others a chance. However, small. Even if only one survived, the wall was worth it.

The village was quieting as the full daylight seeped slowly into night. Nicolo glanced to his right, towards the shores and marveled at the colors that always came before the moon. The sun was a golden disc, blinding as it sank. The few fisherman still out in the water were returning. Their little boats rocked up and down as the waves brought them closer to shore.

Nicolo narrowed his eyes.

Where were their nets?

Nicolo’s eyes flicked to the small round boats on the shores, their pointy bottoms dug deep into the rocky sand. Five, there were five boats. It has always been five.

There are three more boats in the water.

Nicolo whipped around and rushed into the smith’s house. The little boy looked up from where he sat by the bellows. His eyes widened and his little feet scampered towards his father at Nicolo’s curt nod.

Without waiting to see if the smith understood, Nicolo grabbed the first villager who meandered by. It was the spice vendor. He squinted through his bushy gray eyebrows at Nicolo.

“They are here,” Nicolo said in as clear Greek as he could. Yusuf and him repeated the needed words every night after their meal.

Nicolo began to repeat it in lingua franca, but his first attempt was enough. The normally stooped seller straightened up as best he could and started shouting as he stumbled towards the market.

The sun was more than halfway down the sky, no longer blazing bright, but the damage has been done. Hedi’s men used the blinding light to cloak their approach, choosing the time when most villagers were clustered together in the market.

Word has spread and one shout became two. Then three.

Nicolo spared a glance towards the baker’s house. He thought of Yusuf. He knew Yusuf heard the shouting and would be here.

Shifa, the weaver’s daughter, stumbled in front of Nicolo.

“Go,” Nicolo instructed as he helped her to her feet. “To the mill with the others.”

“My mother.” Shifa was close to tears. “She was behind me.”

“Where?”

“The loom, in our stall—“

“Take her,” Nicolo instructed as a villager hesitated by them. To Shifa, “Go. I will find her.”

Nicolo did not wait for a reply. He nudged another villager towards the mill and ran for the market.

The boats have reached the shore, but there were three men already tearing through the stalls with their blades.

Nicolo spotted Izem and his friends pushing who they could towards the safety of the mill. Panic made people forgetful, places they have known all their lives suddenly a mystery. Those who are able had pulled the bars and axes hidden in their stalls to fight back. The three bandits grabbed what they could from the stalls, only to have the villagers fight for them back.

But there were more coming.

Nicolo shouted in Arabic, confusing the bandits a brief moment.

It was enough. It had to be.

Pushing past escaping villagers, Nicolo swung his sword towards the first man who recovered from his confusion.

Their swords have a shorter reach, but met Nicolo’s blade resolute and steady. Arming swords, Nicolo realized as he slashed across with his longsword before blades could point towards him. Two fell.

Behind Nicolo, six more arrived.

“...colo!” Izem sounded worried. There was so much shouting. Izem was only with one friend now. The other hung between them. He looked dead.

“Go!” Nicolo ordered in Arabic again. “To the mill! Be ready!”

The fish stall to Nicolo's right shattered as two men in hooded cloaks bashed through, using their heavy steel like battering rams.

The swords' pommels varied. Nicolo spotted two in straight cruciform. The bandits carried blades from knights, from invaders, from lands Nicolo did not know.

A new anger joined the one that filled his chest. These men were using weapons stolen from the dead.

Nicolo ducked under an inexpert swing, but a blade tip caught the small of his back from behind. He stumbled. He swung clumsily. Another fell, but the man got up snarling.

Around Nicolo, the villagers who are able, swung their dull axes at the bandits. Fishermen caught bandits with tossed nets and the others attacked them as they floundered on the ground.

There was still more coming, though. From the side where the land lay.

Yusuf. Yusuf would have stopped them.

Someone shouted and Nicolo threw himself to the ground just as an arrow spiked the stall just above his heart.

There was an enemy from afar.

Another arrow flew and one of the villagers fell. Nu'm's brother. His ax dropped to the red tinged mud. The man will not get up again. Nu'm is the only one left in their family.

Nicolo gritted his teeth. He gestured to the others to leave him. They would not. Another picked up the ax and charged.

Another arrow.

Nicolo knocked it aside before it struck Malik, the goat herder. He grunted when a hot line went across his left shoulder down to the back of his right thigh.

It burned as it healed. The blood on Nicolo's clothes, the thicker tunic Yusuf insisted Nicolo wears covered the slash and the exposed jut of his hip bone. He was healing. But it hurt. And it slowed him down. His next swing missed.

A hand grabbed Nicolo by the elbow when he staggered.

“I am fine,” Nicolo insisted. He could not hear himself. He was unsure if he spoke Greek or Arabic any more. “Follow Izem! Go!”

Nicolo was not sure if whoever tried to help him understood. He lurched forward, colliding into two men stooped over a woman who screamed and screamed.

She stopped screaming by the time Nicolo killed the two on top of her.

There was no time to see who it was. There was no time to despair his failures. Nicolo lost count of how many remained standing. He heard Izem shouting. Three of the intruders spotted where the others have fled. The hut behind the metal smith’s was in flames. A child was crying.

Smoke gathered. A haze rose around Nicolo and the enemy. Night was falling but darkness was kept away by patches of fire.

The bandits were starting to burn the village. They have taken Jerusa—

Nicolo choked around the bitter memories that would never go away. He heard shouting, but did not realize it was himself until he saw the bandits in front of him starting. He plunged his sword like a staff, skewered two, twisting the blade with a wrench that split open the still healing slash down his own back.

There were less men around him. Nicolo did not dare fathom why; if it bore good news or ill. He could not hear Izem as well. He prayed it was not for the reason why.

All Nicolo could think about was to fight and not stop. He fought, a scream stuck in his throat, painfully aware there should be someone there besides him. But soon. It will be soon. Until then, he can. Not. Stop. Fighting.

Nicolo stood, hissing as another blade caught him unaware, this time at the back of his neck, catching the braid Yusuf tied this morning. His hair, uneven, sticky with blood, clung around his throat and jaw.

An arrow hissed and Nicolo grabbed a bandit closest to him and guided the man to interrupt the arrow's path. Nicolo muttered a prayer, reluctant thanks to the arrowhead that popped out the back of the bandit's skull. He grunted as another arrow sailed across, into his right shoulder blade, snapping off when Nicolo tackled another so Zayd could break free.

It hurt to move his right arm. Nicolo's shoulders convulse with every swing. When the arrow pushed out unnoticed by others, his entire right side was aflame. It was harder to draw a breath.

But the pain did not matter. It can not.

One more fell by Nicolo's sword. Another scrambled away. More hooded men emerged from both directions. Some fell easily. Many did not.

A hand pulled Nicolo up when he could not rise from the man he just bested. Nicolo huffed, unable to say thanks. He could only nod and the other ran to help another. Nicolo hopes he will survive. He considered the bandits busy ripping shelters to find spoils.

"Your fight is with me!" Nicolo shouted in his broken Greek, in as loud of a voice his raw throat could spare. "Do not think you can take anything past me!"

Seven stopped and eyed Nicolo. Seven turned away from the broken houses. Seven turned away from the fleeing villagers.

Seven. Nicolo held his longsword so tight, it shook like an untamed horse.

"Seven it is," Nicolo rasped to himself. "Then seven it shall be."

He needed to keep fighting. He needed to push them back. He needed to wait. Yusuf was coming.

Nicolo raised his sword, felt the last of his wound close over his hip and charged.

--------------------------

Argh. I can't stunt coordinate. The last part of 18 (Yusuf) will have to be tomorrow. I need to "borrow" my cousin's action figures and try to figure this out. Hee.

Tomorrow!

From: (Anonymous)

I am loving this, because I love action, and the reminder that Nicolo is a dangerous man in his own right. But I also feel rather like I have whiplash, because I was ready for sexy times on a soft bed and all of a sudden people are whipping out their swords... and not the metaphorical kind.