Chapter Text
War has never been one to hide his true motivations behind crooked smiles and sly glances. Their eldest, Death, used to say that of all the Nephilim to be born from the dust of angels and demons, War was always the most forthright. Abnormally so.
Even among his ilk, he was the odd-one-out. Too fair, too just, 'getting to be a little too much like those damned birds.'
Why? Because he doesn't care for lies? As if Angels can't be just as underhanded and amoral as demons. Still, those who threw critique his way usually ended up leaving sadder but wiser, and often sporting broken bones and a new gap between their teeth courtesy of either himself or Fury. Death was more the sort for dolling out verbal degradation, and Strife... Well, Strife wasn't around a lot when War was still a whelp.
Regardless, perhaps it's that very forthrightness that means it doesn’t concern War in the slightest to be staring at you as he is, nor that you’ve been casting several, perturbed glances up at the underside of his chin before snatching your eyes away again every few seconds, evidently rattled by his unwavering attention.
Conversely unashamed and indiscreet, War has absolutely no qualms about frowning down at the small human in his arms, regarding you as one would a piece of mildly interesting trivia he’s never encountered before but is determined to decipher.
Truly, you’re nothing at all like the humans he’s heard about.
Humans aren’t fighters. Eden was a historically peaceful place, the name itself synonymous with Paradise. And yet only moments ago, War had borne witness as one of its prior denizens pulled a tiny blade from out of nowhere, and with a feverous desperation carving lines into your face, you’d plunged that blade into the hand of the gumptious demon who snatched you up.
… Belatedly, War realises he’ll have to tell Strife to be more thorough the next time he goes snooping for hidden weapons.
Humans adapted well to their new home on Earth, faster than anybody thought they would. They’re sturdy and solidly built, well-defined in body, and often ungainly in how they carry and present themselves; perfectly suited to learn the pursuits of agriculture, crafting and gathering.
You, however, stand as a stark contradiction to your entire species.
You’re soft. Graceful in your extravagant raiment, but inarguably fragile, far more-so than your fellow human, which is saying something.
War has felt the jarring give of your skin under his blade.
Strife has not.
War has tested the pressure of his grasp on your limbs and found them astoundingly delicate.
… Strife has not.
It’s why his brother’s actions riled War so fiercely after throwing you across a Creator-forsaken pit of lava onto this stone platform. He’s not certain Strife quite grasps the magnitude of the situation, nor the implications of a human being here in the first place. For you to turn up in the Void, speaking Common, dressed like a pampered Seraphim… it raises a series of rather urgent questions.
But to even have a hope of getting them answered, he and Strife ideally need to keep you alive...
… If only he could figure out how to get that notion through his brother’s thick skull…
Blinking out of his musings, War sees you raise your eyes to peer up at him again, although in this instance, much to his unspoken surprise, you don’t look away. Whilst certainly anxious, there’s a spark of something else tangled within the labyrinthine strands of your unusual irises, something that nearly has an invisible thread tugging at one corner of his mouth.
At last, it seems you’ve rediscovered the same nerve that called you to defend yourself from the demon.
“Put me down,” you utter quietly in a voice that quavers with the effort of keeping it level. You even maintain bold eye contact as you say it.
Again, War almost has to admire your gumption to demand something of one of the Four...
Almost.
If he were a curious Nephilim like his brother, he would probably concede that, yes, there is something about you that invites fascination. Like a mystery that hasn’t yet revealed its secrets.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, merely holds your watery gaze expectantly until you either remember yourself and lower your eyes or-
“Please, put me down?”
And just like that, War’s unspoken admonition is knocked off its tracks.
He hadn’t been expecting… He thought you’d just…
… Oh.
In hindsight, he supposes it was rather foolish of him to expect a human to adhere to the same social rules as another species, and he has to remind himself that just because you’re still meeting his stare, you aren’t being deliberately provocative.
Just… naive.
But why would you know of his reputation? Or of the tall tales whispered by nervous, fledgeling angels who like to try and frighten each other with stories… Stories about what happens to those who are unlucky or unwise enough to look the Horseman, War, in his eye.
Your ‘please’ is foreign to him. He knows of its usage, of course, but to hear it spoken so liberally… It’s as though you assumed ‘please’ was what he was waiting for. Is offering it a human’s way of showing deference?
Curious…
“Ahem…”
The sound of a throat being cleared snaps through War’s thoughts like the crack of a whip.
Quick as a flash, the scowl that had been gradually lifting from his expression slams back into place, and he turns his heated glare onto Strife, who stands in front of him with his arms folded neatly across a silver chest and his helm cocked to one side, eyes narrowed accusingly.
“You done being greedy, or are you gonna share?”
War’s scoff, and your huff occur at the same time, leading the two of you to share a brief glance before the former gives his eyes an exaggerated roll and finally, finally obliges, lowering you to the ground as swiftly as he can while maintaining a strange air of caution that betrays how breakable he thinks you are.
Large, metal gauntlets slide out from underneath your legs, depositing you on a flat piece of stone that’s relatively clean of demon blood.
The very instant you’re free, you only hesitate long enough to squeak out a hurried ‘thanks!’ before tearing yourself away from the gauntlet that hovers behind you and stumble several paces off to the side, putting some much-needed distance between you and the Horsemen. You almost trip over the train of your dress in the process.
Clinging to your elbows, you have to stuff your teeth into your lower lip to stop the sound of despair bursting out through pursed lips.
Your legs may as well be replaced with toothpicks for all the support they’re giving you. Terrible possibilities have begun to swirl across the mire of your brain.
What if you hadn’t found your nail file in time…?
What if Strife had never returned your bag?
You shudder, overwhelmed by the feeling that you’ve landed on the right side of a coin-flip, by no other will than dumb-fucking-luck.
You’ve never come that close to certain death before. You never want to come that close again.
At your back, unseen, Strife gives you a fleeting once-over, only returning his eyes to your veil when he doesn’t spot any immediate damage.
With his typical flair for bad timing and inability to read a room, he stretches his mouth into a hidden, cocksure grin, gives an approving nod and declares, “You did good, kid.”
Giving a harsh sniff, you tip your head towards the ceiling and let out a sharp, brassy laugh, utterly devoid of humour.
“Good?” you echo, rounding on the Horseman, your lungs still feeling two sizes too small when you draw breath, “GOOD!? I could have died! I almost did!”
“Almost!” Strife parrots eagerly, venturing a few steps towards you and spreading his arms out wide, apparently unbothered by your brazen reproach, “You almost died. But you didn’t.”
“That isn’t reassuring, Strife!” you wail.
Shaking fingers lift to try and thread through your hair, only to meet the barrier of your veil. Thwarted, you let your arms flop bonelessly back down against your sides and curl your hands into fists. “I’m not…-!”
But the words won’t come. Instead, you fall silent, realising how redundant it would be to say, ‘I’m not like you,’ out loud.
Christ, what an understatement.
You’re not the type to look at an ‘almost death’ and consider it a triumph. It’s a nightmare. You want to avoid death! That’s the most human instinct of all.
You shouldn’t even be here. You’re not like these two larger-than-life beings from another world. You can’t shoot guns like a master marksman, you can’t swing a sword that’s longer than you are tall, and you certainly can’t make impossible jumps that seem to defy gravity itself.
Hell, you can’t even stand up to your own fiancé and his family…
Sullen, despondent, you allow the adrenaline to seep out of you like water from a leaky pail, leaving you with limbs that feel far too heavy, and a head that’s tired as death.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” you eventually murmur to yourself, resisting the urge to scrub at your eyes lest you spread mascara all over your face. Your heart thunders inside your chest, palms slick with the heat, but more so with the creep of dread that rises in your belly as you picture the demon’s rancid maw in your mind’s eye and grit your teeth, unable to quell the waves of anxiety crashing against you like breakers that pummel a rocky cliff.
All the while, Strife is busy trying to pluck a response from midair, racking his brain for reasons as to why you can’t just ‘get out of here.’
Then, to his surprise and your own, the silence is broken, and it’s War’s stoic voice that brings a pause to the hopelessness dragging your soul down into the pit of your stomach.
“That was a Slag Demon.”
Blinking, you knit your brows into a frown and lift your eyes to the Horseman’s hoodless face. “Excuse me?”
And War, evidently sincere in every aspect, assumes you didn’t hear him, and repeats himself. “That was a Slag Demon.”
Once again, your eyelids flutter in a series of rapid blinks. “Yeah, I… I heard you,” you reply falteringly, “I just-“
“That demon,” he cuts you off, sending you a pointed look, “was forged in the deepest blast furnaces of Hell. They’re deceptively fast, almost invulnerable, and notoriously hard to kill.”
When he falls silent and doesn’t continue for several moments, you shift your weight and awkwardly drawl out, “… Oh-kay~?”
What the Hell is he getting at?
The way he’s peering down at you is… odd, you decide. He still has that perpetual scowl on his face, but the eyes under his furrowed brow seem… brighter, somehow, not quite as piercing and disparaging as they were before.
You’re not sure you like it any better.
Appraising you for a few more seconds, War gives a solemn nod, and states, “You found a weakness. You used what you had at your disposal to gain the upper hand.” Then, after taking a brief moment to consider his next words, he must eventually deem you worthy of them because he averts his gaze and scowls off at the distant stalactites, grunting, “It was a good kill.”
… Your jaw nearly hits the ground.
And judging by the way Strife’s helmeted head snaps around to send a wide-eyed stare at his larger brother, you suppose War must not say this sort of thing very often.
Looking down at yourself, you take in the meringue wedding dress, the ruffled tulle and overall extravagance of your attire.
“But…” Your tongue darts out apprehensively to wet your lips, “But I didn’t even kill it.”
Turning away from you, War begins to march back over to the grate, stopping only long enough to retrieve his enormous sword from the ground.
He barely takes a second to mull over his next answer as he slings the blade into its proper place along his spine. “You created the opening that gave Strife a clear shot,” he tells you, coming to a halt above the iron bars set into the floor and twitching his head towards you, his profile obscured by long, ice-white hair, “It counts.”
And with that, he reaches up to thread large, metal fingers into his hood and flips the crimson fabric up and over his head, once again hiding his face in dark, familiar shadow.
For… quite some time, you’re left speechless, gawping at the back of War’s head, and reeling now from the near-death experience and the unexpected approval of one of the scariest men you’ve ever met. A glance down at your hands confirms they’re still shaking, fingers tight and rigid like the bones under your skin have locked up.
“…Well,” Strife chimes in, heaving his massive shoulders in a shrug, “Good thing I don’t mind sharing.”
Sauntering over to you, he lifts an arm as if he’s about to drape it across your back, but the moment you see him coming, you lurch into motion and start after his brother, following the path War had picked through the dead imps, all the while trying to avoid glancing down at their cold, dead eyes.
Only thrown for a moment, Strife is quick to recover, waltzing after you and continuing, “So! Big day. You killed your first demon, kind of. How d’you feel?”
Your mouth twists up into a grimace. “Like I’m going to pass out, throw up, have a heart attack then die. In that order.”
Which is eerily similar to how you felt walking up the steps to the church.
The panic is… well, it’s definitely still there. The threat of a downward spiral haunts the edge of your mind, always keeping itself in the periphery. But for now, War’s stoic assessment has apparently shocked you so much, it broke the nosedive you were about to take into a total fit of hopelessness.
The Horseman beside you barks out a laugh and takes a few loping steps until he’s swaggering along beside you, the heavy ‘clunk’ of his boots drowning out the ‘clicks’ of your heels. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep a closer eye on you, next time.”
“Next time?” you sputter, brows shooting up towards the top of your veil, “I-I am not planning on doing this again.”
“Eh.” With a dismissive waft of his hand, he replies, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Now c’mon! Sooner we get the artifact, the sooner we can be outta this heat.”
Well. You suppose you have to agree with him on that front.
The sudden clatter of metal skittering across the ground nearly has you jumping out of your shoes.
At your side, Strife jerks to a halt, his boot lifted halfway off the ground and his helm tipped down to search for the thing he’d inadvertently kicked with the toe of his sabatons. His keen eye latches onto it at once, and he utters a sound of intrigue at the back of his throat.
Following his gaze, you hone in on the little object that’s still skidding several paces away from you before it slides to a stop, laying small and shiny on the dark stone.
Stooping down, Strife reaches out a hand to gather the little object into his palm.
“Huh, guess it was knocked when I shot that big bastard...” he mutters, rising to his full height and unfurling each finger one by one, peering down at his prize, “I thought you didn’t have any weapons in there.”
Turning towards you, he holds up your bloodied nail-file as he jerks his chin at your bag.
Admittedly, you’re surprised to see it again, and even more surprised at the surge of gratitude that courses through you at the prospect of being reunited with something from the real world.
“Technically speaking,” you sniff, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear, “A nail file isn’t a weapon.”
Bringing it close to his visor, Strife tilts his head and squints at it, humming dubiously as he runs the pad of his finger over the coarse metal, giving the end a testing tap.
“… It looks like a dagger,” he points out, “… A very small dagger.”
“Or a toothpick,” his brother grumbles up ahead.
“Well, it isn’t either of those things… It’s just something I use to keep my nails tidy…” At the incredulous glances you receive – one from Strife and one from War who deigns to cast you a bemused look over his shoulder – you breathe a weary sigh and thrust your hand out towards the former of the pair expectantly. “Look, can I just… have it back?”
In truth, you half expect him to refuse, whether to simply get a rise out of you or to mitigate your temptation to attack them with the nail file – not that you’d be so foolish.
So, when Strife extends an arm and holds your ‘weapon’ out towards you, you can’t help but let your jaw drop open in undisguised shock.
“Sure,” he says breezily, “I ain’t gonna keep it. More of a gun man, myself. And War’d be embarrassed to be seen with a blade this small.”
You don’t know whether you’re supposed to take offence to that or not.
“Here,” Strife offers again, lowering his upturned palm in the private hopes of coaxing you closer when you just continue to gape at his appendage, “Take it.”
Warily, you start inching your hand up towards his, keeping your eye on the silver helm and those piercing, golden eyes that drill right into you with attentive wonder.
Swallowing thickly, you dare to flick your gaze down to the nail-file, still sitting pretty at the centre of his palm… Up this close, you spot something that threatens to turn your stomach inside out.
“Ew! There’s blood all over it!” you exclaim, retracting your outstretched hand like he’s trying to give you a live snake.
Indeed, it isn’t the silvery metal that’s glinting in the firelight, but a coating of thick, shiny blood that’s already begun to dry on the file’s roughly-hewn surface.
Strife – who had given a start at your exclamation – pauses, then blinks and cocks his brow down at the offending blood sticking to your weapon.
“Oh, so-rry, Princess,” he chuckles, lifting the file to his cowl and wiping it several times against the fabric, smearing dark flakes of blood into the wool before he holds it out towards you again, “That better?”
Tipping your nose into the air, you give the file a thorough once over. Deeming it adequately clean, you at last reach up to pluck it from his grip, holding it gingerly between your thumb and forefinger. “Much. Thanks.”
You’ve turned away before you can see his eyes glow brighter, considerably pleased with himself.
By the time he stops sticking out his chest, you’ve already reached his brother, stopping a respectable distance away near the opposite side of the grate.
War doesn’t even spare you a cursory glance. Instead, he stands still and strong as a statue, his frost-blue eyes scrutinising the bars with rigid focus.
You don’t dare ask him why he hasn’t retrieved his ‘artifact’ yet.
“Hey, War. What’s the holdup?”
Apparently, you and Strife are on the same wavelength. How disconcerting.
A metal elbow suddenly brushes against your side as a titanic body disregards your own personal space and sidles up next to you, pulling a gasp from your lips that goes entirely ignored while Strife addresses his brother over the top of your head. “You gonna grab the artifact or what?”
Grumbling under his breath, War raises his eyes to fix his fellow Horseman with a stony scowl.
“The grate,” he retorts darkly, tossing a hand at the ground as if the answer should have already been obvious, “It’s locked.”
“Oh,” Strife answers flatly, though it isn’t long before he plants a decisive fist on his hip and declares, “Well, then we’ll just have to find the key…” Swivelling around in place, he casts an eye around the chamber and adds, “Maybe the demon had it?”
… You hate to point out the obvious, especially when you haven’t been invited to do so, but…
“Um… You mean the demon that just fell over the side?” you venture.
A thick, uncomfortable silence ensues, during which you’re sure you must have offended him somehow, because Strife’s body goes utterly motionless, and War huffs a breath through his nose.
“… I see your point,” the former concedes at last, and you realise he isn’t angry, just... bashful.
Another derisive sound escapes from the larger Horseman’s mouth, prompting Strife’s helm to snap towards his brother. “Well, you’re the strong one,” he gripes, “Just tear out the bars.”
Now it’s War’s turn to stop and ponder. He casts a sideways glance down at you, regarding you briefly from the shadow of his hood. By the time you’ve lifted your eyes to his face, he’s already turned away, cracking his neck with an audible ‘Pop!’
“Very well,” he rumbles.
It’s a little prideful of him – and Creator knows Death would expect better - yet War can’t help but wonder if you’ll be awed by a show of might. Maybe you’ll be afraid... Moreso than at present.
Pounding a fist into his gauntlet, he lowers his immense bulk down onto one knee and slides his fingers around the bars, rolling his shoulders as he prepares to demonstrate the raw, physical strength of the Red Ri-
“-Can’t you just… reach in and grab it?” you ask, cleanly derailing War’s train of thought and knocking the wind from his sails, “I mean, it looks small enough to fit through the bars, right?”
… Well, War supposes that’s a fair suggestion, but for one not-so-small problem.
Without turning to look at you, War simply holds up his gauntlet and flexes the metallic fingers into a fist. “I would not get my knuckles through,” he states simply, bobbing his head sideways at his brother, “Nor would Strife.”
“Oh,” you falter, shrinking backwards and stuffing a canine into your bottom lip whilst the Horseman curls his hands around the bars once more.
“Um, why don’t I take a crack at it then?”
As soon as the words leave your mouth, you find yourself wishing you could snatch them out of the air and stuff them back behind your teeth.
Of all the fool things you could have said, why on Earth would you offer to put your hands anywhere near a stone that’s glowing like raw Uranium?
But it’s too late.
Strife has turned a thoughtful, wide-eyed gaze onto War, who returns it with the slightest parting of his brows.
“… Why didn’t we think of that?” Strife posits.
Before you can verbally – and physically – backtrack, War has already twisted his torso about and wrapped his colossal fist around your forearm, notably aiming for the one he hadn’t sliced open with his sword.
Warm metal engulfs your appendage all the way up to your elbow, and though you try to resist, he hardly seems to notice your efforts as he tugs you towards his side, then lowers his hand, leaving you with no choice but to follow its weight and drop to your knees in front of the grate, wincing as they bump against the hard stone beneath your dress.
“Here,” he says firmly, allowing you to snatch your arm back in favour of pointing his finger down at the glowing crystal, “Reach down and take it.”
Curling your hand into your chest, you give your head a shake and protest, “I can’t!”
“You just said you could!” Strife rebuffs.
That you did… “But-!” Wracking your brain, you add, “But what if it’s like… radioactive or something!?”
Visibly, the Horseman balks. “Ray-dee-oh… what?”
War’s eyes start to roll towards the ceiling as he listens to your back and forth with his brother, and he considers whether it would have been faster to rip the grate out of the stone after all.
You proposed a solution however, and in his frank opinion, you ought to stick by it.
The massive gauntlet enters your peripheral just as you open your mouth to shoot another argument up at Strife, but no sooner have the metal tips of War’s fingers ghosted across your arm than you wrench it away, whipping around to face him with startled eyes.
Hastily, you hold up your hands in surrender.
“Okay! Alright!” you acquiesce, “Jesus, just… give me a second…”
Flicking part of the veil over your shoulder, you lean forwards and brace yourself with one hand on a bar, lowering your torso down to stretch your other hand down and into the pit below, fingers blindly fishing around for the Vulgrim’s precious artifact.
When they brush against a warm, smooth surface, you can’t refrain from yelping and snatching your hand back as if it had moved.
The leathery smack of a gun being drawn from its holster reaches your ears.
“You okay?” Strife demands, shifting his weight restlessly.
Swallowing back your embarrassment, you nod and reply, “Uh, yeah, yeah. It’s just hot!”
“Hot enough to burn you?” War cuts in with a rough growl.
Biting the inside of your cheek, you brave another go, reaching down and brushing your fingertips hesitantly over the surface of the crystal. Though it is disconcertingly warm to the touch – no doubt from the ambient heat in the atmosphere – you realise with a third stroke that it isn’t anywhere near as hot as you feared it would be.
“No,” you sigh, only partially relieved.
The massive presences surrounding you relax slightly.
“Good,” Strife murmurs, raising his voice to add, “Can you get it loose?”
You can, as it turns out. Quite easily in fact. The crystal isn’t being held in any kind of clamp. To your mounting astonishment, it seems to simply float in midair.
“This is so freaky~,” you sing to yourself as you slide your palm down the long side of it, feeling for the pointed base and cupping your fingers around it with an audible gulp.
The whole crystal seems to buzz and hum under your touch, sending an eerie tingle racing up the length of your arm and raising the hairs all the way up to the back of your neck.
According to all sense and reason, this thing is nothing more than a pretty, pink crystal. But here, where sense and reason have been turned on their heads, pulled inside out and shaken up like a vodka martini, the thing in your hand is no more a mere crystal than the Horsemen are mere men.
Trying very hard to ignore how much the fluctuating thrum beneath your fingertips reminds you of a pulse, you clench your jaw tight, close your eyes, and pull… with a little too much force.
It’s lighter than you expected it to be. Nearly weightless. And it slips straight through the bars of its prison without even dinging against the sides.
Letting out an undignified bleat, you teeter backwards and land painfully on your backside, the crystal smacking against your bosom before falling from your trembling fingers and sliding safely into the soft, white fabric of your skirts.
Cracking your eyelids apart, you blink down at your lap, chest stuttering on a breath. “I… I got it?”
That was…decidedly easy…
Well, aside from almost getting eaten by a demon in your quest to find the damn thing.
The soft, pink glow of the crystal lights up your face as you peer down at it, glittering off your wedding dress and bathing the fabric folds in warmth.
“Wow,” you hear yourself whisper.
With cautious awe, your fingers wander towards it and slip gently around your rescued prize.
You’re so busy admiring the smooth, faultless lines that you don’t notice the shadow of a hand falling across your shoulders until War’s gauntlet has slid beneath your arm.
Aside from blurting out a squawk, you helplessly have to let yourself be lifted with unnerving ease onto your feet, still clutching the crystal close to your breast.
“Good job, kid,” Strife declares, slapping a palm on your back.
If War’s fingers hadn’t tightened around your arm at the moment, you’re sure you’d go tumbling over onto your face.
The force of the larger Horseman’s warning growl sends tremors through his gauntlet and down into the toes of your shoes, rattling the teeth in your skull.
Strife, pleasantly unfussed by his brother’s idle threat, leans over your shoulder as War releases you, and together, you all stare down at the crystal in your arms.
“Wonder what this thing’s worth to that soul-sucking ghoul,” Strife remarks after nobody breaks the quiet hush that’s fallen over you, as though he can’t bear to sit in silence for too long. Bringing his gauntlet up to rub at the chin of his helm, he thoughtfully adds, “We could always convince Vulgrim to throw in a little extra…”
At his suggestion, a tiny frown-line blooms to life between your brows. It is a very pretty gem… but while you know next to nothing about demons, you aren’t sure you like the idea of trying to bargain with one, not when your run-in with one of Vulgrim’s ilk had almost ended so disastrously.
You don’t know if it should come as a shock or not when War’s shoulders bristle moments later, and he bares his canines at Strife, his cavernous chest puffing up until you have to lean sideways to avoid getting jostled by it.
“The artifact, in exchange for information,” he snarls dangerously, “We will honour our agreement.”
‘Honour among Horsemen of the Apocalypse?’ you muse privately, ‘Wonders will never cease.’
Though only in War’s case, evidently. Strife just heaves an obnoxious sigh and tosses his helm back, “Ugh, you have no ambition… Why’ve you gotta be such a killjoy?”
War’s lips start to curl even further apart.
“So!” you quickly interrupt the broiling fracas, “We’ve got the… this thing-“ You shrug the crystal in your palms. “-H-how exactly do we get back?”
That, at least, gets the pair of bickering brothers to fall silent and pivot their attention from one another onto you. War’s expression is still as stony as ever, but you consider it a win that he looks marginally less murderous.
“Huh,” Strife says, “That’s a good question.”
Rumbling at the base of his throat, War grunts, "It would be prudent to find a way out of this realm as quickly as possible."
"Oh?" A mischievous glint sparks in his brother's keen gaze. "And here I thought you were.... warming up to the place."
Unbidden, a short puff of laughter is scoffed right off your tongue, more amused by how bad the joke was than the joke itself.
Either way, Strife's chest fills out proudly as his helm quirks towards you, one eyelid flashing closed behind the visor in a wink.
Oblivious, War just grumbles, "You know your humour escapes me."
And quick as a whip, Strife returns, "All humour escapes you."
Giving a brusque shake of his head, the larger Horseman decides it isn't worth getting into this argument for the umpteenth time. Turning his attention down to you and the crystal in your hands, he beckons with a gauntlet for you to step closer.
"Come. If we retrace our steps, we may be able to-"
You never get to hear the end of his sentence.
It isn’t that you’re particularly unlucky, you think… God, you hope. You’ve never thought yourself significant enough that the Universe would have it out for you personally, after all.
But when the ground suddenly disappears from under your feet in a blinding flash of vivid, blue light, and the deafening rush of air buffets your dress and boxes your eardrums, you can’t help wondering if you’ve somehow - in some unwitting way - slighted the powers that be, and now they’re playing their revenge card.
Which is a hassle for you, because you’ve had just about enough of portals and getting whisked off to places unknown for one day.
The last thing you see as you throw your head up and open your mouth to release a scream that’ll be sucked away with you as your atoms once again rearrange themselves to fit through a spatial rip, is Strife’s luminous, golden eyes flaring hotly like bursting stars – a direct contrast to the cool, ethereal blue of his brother’s, who’s own gaze opens up in surprise and, you think, alarm, one gauntlet outstretched in your direction.
And that’s all you manage to glimpse before the light overtakes you, and your body is yanked like a fish on a hook into the luminiferous aether.