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It was fruitless, nonsensical even. Men often start to squirm and break under such insistance. That little lord however… Was intriguing. Beautifully obedient. Still, he squirmed. It would usually irritate Him but with this man, it settles into something like amusement.
And the lord ran, uselessly but He let it be. Scuffed armor scraped the floor, without rhythm. D3rlord3 stumbled, trying to shake off the pressure in his head. Following treads that he knows all end the same. The ground beneath him doesn't cooperate, sways and slips and swoons. Is his breathing ragged? When did he start panting like that? How long has he been running? How long since he realized he couldn’t escape? Through the noise he stumbled back to that forsaken hole that started all this… A flurry of laughter left him. Right, right the journal. Needs to warn Avery—
Avery,
Avery…
The headache rings louder than his own name. There's nothing to do but try to ignore it. When his head lulls, frighteningly heavy. His body follows the tilt, as if gravity suddenly belongs to someone else. "Shit…" it sits heavy on his lips. Caught on the wooden chest in the middle. The Lord's world spins in uncertainty. The grain feels familiar somehow. Simple and grounded. A sinking tether. Coiling in spirals, suddenly painful to think about.
"Are those final vows, little lord…" Mockery? The words are barely parsed or perhaps different people. For a moment, he thought he heard his friend's voice. He looms above D3rlord3, tall and impossible. Wrapped in golden cloth that glitters and gleams. In yellows weathered to ochre. To try and comprehend it would be mean to die trying, so d3rlord3 fixes his gaze to the floor.
"I don't… pray." D3rlord3 manages a scoff. The air quiets with his confidence. His majesty's movements are subtle, yet the ringing that follows him is indicator enough. There's a pause, quiet and assessing. What little was left of his surroundings dims beneath the suns gaze.
"Not even to me?" Expected silence. One cannot speak while drowning, but the king has more faith in his future knight. So, instead, he muses.
“You’re awake.”
It’s not praise, but it feels like it. D3rlord3 stiffens. The light sharpens when He approaches. The walls pull closer, eager witnesses. Despite himself, despite every instinct, D3rlord3’s gaze lifts. The air bends. Or he bends. Hard to tell which of them is doing the moving. His Majesty's presence, the caress of a devil. A hand settles atop his mind, pressing down. The pressure behind D3rlord3’s eyes blooms outward, unfurling like fevered petals. Every thought scatters. He drops to his knees before he even understands he’s falling. “There it is…” The King sounds pleased. Hungry, even. “Your nature.”
D3rlord3 tries to rise; the floor rolls beneath him like a living thing. His limbs are untrustworthy, softening under the weight of His attention. “You ran,” the King comments, “Was it worth the attempt?”
D3rlord3 swallows, breath trembling. "I won't… kneel.”
“Mmm.” A soft hum that vibrates down his spine. Awfully human, it rings in D3rlord3s ears. Something whispers in the back of his mind of how lucky he may be. “But you are.” A hand hovers above his cheek. Its presence alone makes heat pulse through him. “Do not play dumb, my knight.” the King murmurs. “Your mind writhes. I can feel every tremor. ” It's not suggestion or confidence but absolute. "You know, as much as I, that this will end with you by my side." And so are his words, with no room to breathe.
D3rlord3 clenches his jaw. It doesn’t hold long. “I’m not yours.”
“Oh? But you are, you were, you will be.” The King shifts, His knight looks awfully lightheaded. The strain of being so vast, it is impressive that d3rlord3s still awake at all. "My, you will make for a dutiful knight." A small mercy, the knight thinks numbly. He's being trained like a mutt. Tension coils around his ribs, sliding inward like an uninvited breath. Nothing makes sense anymore, even simple things lose their clear edges. A tremble leaves him scrambling for purchase, finding it in the yellows of his drapery. The King laughs softly, delighted. D3rlord3s grip is shaky at best. He fumbles, weight shifting. His breath is short and ragged.
“Let go, little lord.”
D3rlord3 jerks his head. His body arches anyway, pulled toward the voice like a tide surrendering to the moon. The King’s fingers brush his jaw. The contact is light, but it unravels him in a way he's never felt before. No drink or drug could hold a candle to the depths of Him. “You are shaking,” the King whispers, savoring it. “There is nothing to fear, dear one.”
“I won't let you get to—” He doesn’t know what he’s trying for. He only knows he isn’t winning.
“I know.” An intimate murmur. “I enjoy watching your attempts.” The floor rises. Or he sinks. The King’s presence folds around him, above him, through him. He feels the moment he stops resisting. A door opening somewhere deep in his mind.
“Beautiful.” His voice moves along D3rlord3’s throat, tasting the pulse. Heat coils low, shamefully sweet. “Speak,” the King murmurs, breath grazing the edge of his mouth. “Tell me what you already know.” The King waits, endlessly patient. After all, certainty creates confidence. A tremor rolls through D3rlord3. His voice catches on the edge of itself.
“I…” The word breaks apart. Heat stains the fragments. He hates how easily it escapes him. A gloved thumb ghosts across his lower lip. Suggestion more than touch. His whole frame responds as if pulled by a hook behind the sternum.
The King murmurs, “do not hide from Me.”
D3rlord3’s forehead drops against warm gold. He closes his eyes. Though, that only makes it worse. His heart rattles against ribs, like it sufficates. “I… know I’m yours,” he breathes, shamefully quiet. The light seems to approve. The walls lean in.
“My knight,” the King corrects, gentle as a knife sliding into silk. His fingers settle at the base of D3rlord3’s neck, final. “You offer far more than possession.” The words drill through him and his mind can't seem to capture heads or tails of it all. His voice, however, rings true. Above it all, The Lord sits beside their dutiful knight.
“Look at Me,” the King smiles. D3rlord3’s body goes rigid. His fingers curl into fabric. He doesn’t lift his head. He can’t. His pulse spikes, sharp with memory—
"An honourable fight," His Majesty hums, like church bells at mass.
D3rlord3s breath stutters. “No,” he whispers, barely sound. “Damnit all.”
“You amuse me.” the King replies, not unkind. With a touch snaking beneath armour. Restricting in a way metal couldn't match.
D3rlord3 shakes his head,“it'll… ruin me.” threaded bare to His mercy. A cruel fate, for any that aren't favoured. Luckily for the knight or perhaps to his detriment, The King quite enjoyed their games. A low hum of amusement, closer now. “That is the point.”
His chin lifts as if guided by an invisible hand. Panic, yes, but woven with something tempting. The moment his gaze rises past the King’s chest, the air tightens around him. His heartbeat stumbles. And as the curtains draw closer—
Light fractures.
The room tilts. What once was four walls now seems like nothing at all. The air grows stagnant. His breath leaves him in a thin, broken gasp. There is a curve to Him that might be a smile, though things feel far less certain now. And D3rlord3’s vision swims. “Do you feel it?” His Majesty asks, voice brushing through the hollow of D3rlord3s body as though rearranging the space. “What you become in My presence?”
A sound slips from him, unsteady and far to meek. He hates it yet leans toward the King anyway. “What more… is there?”
“There is what you give,” the King remarks, letting his voice carry. “and what I take.”
“And, My knight,” the King breathes against his mouth, low and intimate, “I have yet to take my claim.” The air folds closed around them. His palms hit the floor and it feels soft, wrong, as if he’s bracing against the surface of a heartbeat rather than stone. The King’s hand snakes around him in support. D3rlord3 doesn't know what to think, a strange kindness— there is tenderness in that grip. He knows, or maybe will know.
“Steady,” He murmurs, though unmaking is his speciality. “You are unraveling beautifully.” D3rlord3 wants to answer but the thought slips in his mind, slides sideways. Everything is sideways. His own name feels too big in his skull, scraping against the walls of his mind as if trying to escape. The King leans in. Cloth spills over D3rlord3’s shoulders like warm light, like drowning in honey. The world outside of that gold ceases to exist. "It is intoxicating, the shape you are meant to fall into.”
He should resist. He knows he should. Some part of him still tries—fingers digging into the shimmering fabric, breath hitching in protest. But even that tiny rebellion is claimed. “Good,” the King purrs. “Fight Me. Let Me hear how you break.”
D3rlord3 isn't one to give up quick. Never was, but his elbows buckle. He collapses forward against the King’s chest, barely catching himself. His voice fractures on a helpless sound that embarrasses him even as it escapes. "Please…” Words slip away, soft and useless.
“You know better, little lord.” the King finishes for him, and the sentence lands like a seal pressed to hot wax. Pressure pours through him, sliding beneath bone, hooking around something ancient in him— some instinct older than language. The King’s fingers trail upward, threading into his hair. D3rlord3 gasps, His vision blurs.
The room seems to breathe with them. “Let Me in,” the King whispers, and the words weave themselves true in front of d3rlord3s hazy mind. Fabric winds around him, curling like smoke, threading through the cracks in his thoughts. His pulse syncs to something vast and ancient. Reality frays like unraveling embroidery. He feels the King’s presence slip inside him. Into flesh, then deeper still, into the architecture of his will. D3rlord3 gasps sharply, choking on the sensation of being rewritten. His identity stretched thin, then braided back together with something unbearably bright.
The King laughs as if savoring the moment the lord stops being separate. “Do you understand now?” His Majesty murmurs. “What obedience feels like when it is chosen?”
Chosen. The word shouldn’t feel right. But it does. D3rlord3’s head tilts back without him meaning it to. His throat bared. A quiet, ruined sound slips from him. When he understands himself again, there is something soft under him and the air is warm with cinnamon.
“Speak,” the King urges. “Recieve unto me, your true vow.”
D3rlord3’s lips part on instinct. The vow spills out of him like blood from a wound. “I’m... yours.” The words come through a bitten lip but King’s smile blooms sharp as any blade. “No.” A thumb presses to his tongue, silencing him. “Not enough.”
Things have yet to fall back into their rightful place, somewhere between sanity and stupidity. D3rlord3’s breath trembles. His eyes sting. There is nothing but a sea of gold. It coils around the knight, drawing out what little fight there might've been in him.
“I vow myself,” he breathes, “to serve Him.”