Title: no alarms and no surprises
Fandom: Vagrant Story
Rating: PG (thematically dark)
Length: 540 words
Author notes: 20 year old fandom drags me back to writing fic and the first two challenges I see in this comm upon returning to DW are "iron" and "nightmares"? Well then!
Summary: Hardin is not a man who should be willingly allied with an anarchist uprising, much less leading their charge. Sydney is not the only reason he stays.

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He was not meant for this kind of a life.

A skilled warrior, of course, one who has known battle and known it well. It is he who instructs our brethren in swordplay and devises the strategies, many somewhat underhanded, that allow us to overcome the knights and templars, better armed and greater in number. He teaches them to kill, and the Dark delights, having found its kin in him. It gives him the power to bring forth death at his command before sword is even drawn.

Yet he loathes it. I can see it in his heart when we make ready to strike, the way he frowns as he looks upon the violence of the riots that result from my preaching to the peasants. The peace that comes upon him in the evening, sitting by the fire in our hearth or when we stop our travel to sleep - perhaps with a drink, rarely even with a quiet laugh. His hands, rough from the handling of many weapons, are gentle when they do not have to be otherwise; with the two of us alone, he gives of himself humbly, though among others his voice gives the stern order to take.

At times, I wonder if it is not too late. Might I send him away, to the peaceful life for which his soul is better suited? He need not die an insurgent - an agent of the chaos my prophecies bring. If I could break the bonds between us, he might live an honest life as a laborer, a husband, a father.

Then I wake to find him gone from our bed far too early. Though all the grandeur that remains of the once-great city now belongs to us alone, I know where I will find him, and I go to the riverbank where he sits under the wide, lightening sky.

Though he does not show it, I feel him startle at my approach, proving he is truly lost in thought. Were it me (and often enough it is, so I know), he would offer a warm hand, reassuring words. My hands are cold steel and none of my words are reassuring so soon after my own visions, so I simply sit down beside him. He does not turn to look, for he has no need.

"I was thinking," he says, his voice hard but not quite managing cold, "of where we might strike next."

Better than thinking of the claustrophobic stone walls and iron bars that he's escaped, yet is returned to night after night against his will. Far better than thinking of his young brother gasping for breath, clinging to his comforting presence in the darkness, only to evaporate with the morning light.

He told me, and I did not believe, that he would have devoted himself to my cause were it not my cause. Even a prophet can be mistaken; even the reading of hearts may find the interpretation lacking. His bitterness will not be diminished so long as the dreams refill his cup with poison, and he drinks deeply lest it overflow.

He was not meant for this kind of a life, but with all my power, I could not drive him away if I tried.