Title: Chivalry Misplaced
Fandom: Vagrant Story
Rating: PG
Length: 544 words
Summary: Hardin's training and instincts served him well in the past. ...Not so much in the present.

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As the smoke cleared, Sydney lowered his outstretched hand. "That was foolish."

Hardin grimaced at the smell of blood and burnt flesh so close to where he had dropped to the paving stones, and reached for the sword that had been knocked from his grasp. "Indeed," he muttered, starting to push himself upright again. "Only half a dozen of them, thinking to take you by surprise on the open road."

When he raised his head again, Sydney was regarding him with something that would have been a glare if it were not so sober. "I do not speak of the hunters."

Hardin opened his mouth. "But I..."

Sydney did not say a word, nor did he use the mindspeak to drive his point home, as far as Hardin could tell. Hardin knew well by this time that slim and delicate-featured as Sydney may be in body, seemingly an easy target, Sydney was far more powerful than he. He also knew quite well that Sydney, being immortal, had nothing to truly fear from the weapons ordinary bounty hunters would wield. And... that he himself did.

And therefore, he knew that it had been foolish to throw his own body between Sydney's and the enemy, when Sydney had stumbled in the sudden move to evade the first crossbow bolt which nearly found its mark.

Sydney's arm, unmarred and glinting in the sunlight through the hole the second bolt had torn in his traveling cloak, was already reaching out so that he might rest his hand upon Hardin's shoulder where he now knelt. "...Indeed," Hardin conceded with a sigh, before gritting his teeth and reaching up to wrench free the third bolt, still lodged a few inches below in his own arm of ordinary flesh.

A few soft words of healing magic, and the pain faded, the flow of blood from that wound and the slash in Hardin's thigh slowed and stopped. The sharp look on Sydney's face was no softer, however. "Do not do that again."

Hardin nodded, but already he knew it was a lie. His action had not been a conscious choice, but years of training and well-honed instinct to protect - to shield one he had sworn to defend - and he had no doubt he would do it again. It was rather an unfair expectation on Sydney's behalf, he felt, for he was relatively certain he could not have stopped himself even had he had time to consider the peculiarities of the one he tried to shield, and that was unlikely to change.

Sydney's arm was now simply offered, and Hardin accepted the assistance in rising to his feet. The smile upon Sydney's lips was just a bit too tight, a bit too sardonic. Surely he knew it for a lie as well.

Well enough, he supposed as they looked over the belongings of their assailants, who would need their coin no longer. The healed wounds and the bodies strewn about on either side of where Hardin had fallen - the way Sydney's hand lingered, as they prepared to set out again, just a bit too long on the arm which had taken the bolt - were ample evidence that Sydney was willing to provide his own manner of protection, should Hardin persist in such folly.