“By the World Tree, you’re a human!” Clover yells, because he has to say it, needs to vocalize the insanity of this situation he’s found himself in. “Are you insane?! I thought you were a feyer!”

The knight doesn’t answer Clover’s question or protest as he pushes his advantage, taking hold of his sword and violently tugging it free from the bear monster’s thick rock-covered hide, splattering a fresh shower of green blood across the muddy road. Clover feels the ever-present buzz of the Fluxx that he knows exists unseen all around them get a tad sharper, drawn slightly closer to Midgard by the sacrifice of fey lifeblood.

“Hey stop! We can just run! You’re going to get yourself—" ‘killed’ Clover was going to say, but the words die in his throat and he watches the knight take the brunt of the bear’s swiping paw. Clover fully expects to watch the man buckle like a wet piece of sheet music, but he stands strong, legs barely bending before he turns his longsword on the claws digging into his chestplate. The Unseelie growls in pain as more fairy blood stains the mud, making the watery earth glitter with a green sheen.

“Wow… He’s pretty good isn’t he?” Clover mutters to himself, blinking in awe as the knight once again wrenches his blade free before going in for another slash, uncaring of all the small hits the bear is getting in as well. As if he’s unafraid of the pain, certain in the fact that the beast won’t kill him.

Clover’s seen Nor train out in the backyard before, seen her rough up a few rude customers at times, and even had to suffer under her “training”, though despite all her best efforts Clover is terrible at combat. (What can he say? Clover is a lover, not a fighter). Nor is a carefully sharpened knife, years and years of training making her quick and efficient. Having been raised since near birth to fight fairies, she is annoyingly good at dodging blows and using the environment to her advantage, for fey are never far from their element, so all feyers learn to use every dirty trick they can to win.  

But this man is not the jagged refined knife edge of Nor’s years of training, but neither is he the blind bestially rage of a druid berserker who tears their enemies apart with teeth and claws like a monster. This man fights in a strange mix of the two, moves refined from years of practice and careful study, but yet as spontaneously uncaring and unflinching as a starving beast. Almost like… ‘a dead man walking.’

As soon as Clover thinks that he tenses, uselessly raising a hand as if there is something he can do to help. “Wait! Look out—!” But Clover’s warning is too late as the monster lunges forward, knocking the knight to the ground and pinning them there with its large paws. The knight growls, sword held in front of his chest, creaking under the weight of the lumbering beast that snarls and snaps down at him, drool sliding from its mouth to land on the knight’s glimmering chest plate.

“Oh no oh no. Damn, this is bad, what do I do?” Clover panics glancing around anxiously. “I need to do something right? He’s trying to help me and all. Oh, gods why am I such a nice person?! We’re both going to end up dead.”

But Clover drops his lute and scoops up the rock he tripped over, or he tries to, but turns out it's way bigger than he thought and very much stuck in the ground. “Okay. OKAY. Don’t panic Clover, everything is fine. Just need to save the knight defending your life from a horrifying bear monster or you become its desert, no problem. You’ve got this.”

Clover glances around and realizes with a sinking panic that there’s nothing else he can grab and throw, “By Loki’s lying tongue! There’s nothing—"

Clover pauses, eyes landing on a broken piece of the tree, completely covered in moss. “Bless the Norns,” and he scoops up the rock(?) It’s certainly heavier than he first thought, but that’s probably a good thing. He turns the mossy item over in his hands, trying to get a good grip on the mud-slicked moss to throw it. The rain is certainly making it harder as the light drizzle starts to turn into a real rainfall. As always, Clover has amazing luck.

“Would have been really nifty if I had magic powers that could help here,” he whispers to himself under his breath, fumbling with the strange mossy lump. He pushes his wet bangs out of his face, squinting at the blurry image of the bear monster. Clover thinks he can probably hit it.

Just as he’s about to throw the moss-covered rock, it slips from his grip, and Clover fumbles to catch it again. Only… it has changed.

“When was this yellow—?” Clover feels his heart stop as he notices the pair of big yellow eyes on the mossy lump in his hands, emotionless and staring right into his soul.  

“FUCK!”

Clover shrieks in a totally very manly way and not at all like a squawking bird, throwing the freaky — ‘thing? Maybe an animal? A fey?!’ — whatever the Hel it is away.

The strange moss thing smacks the three-headed bear right in the forehead of its middle head with an anticlimactic thump that sounds as if Clover just it with a soggy sock. The bear stops trying to take a bite of the knight to glance up at Clover with a look that totally reads as “Really? That’s the best you could do?”

“I panicked,” he defends with a hiss, and can he feel the embarrassed red blush that stains his cheeks. He will definitely not be mentioning this part if he lives to tell this tale.

But just like before the momentary distraction is all the opening that the knight needs, and with a shove, he slips out from under the bear’s paw to lunge up and dig his sword into the underbelly of the beast.

The Unseelie howls as the knight nearly guts the beast, glittering green blood splattering upon the muddy ground and causing a few sprouts to burst from the wet soil. The earth shakes hard enough that Clover loses his balance, crashing back into the tree he already tripped into before. Dodging a stomp the knight rolls away from underfoot and falls into a crouch, reaching towards his belt and pulling out a dagger, normal human steel, useless against a fey, as the human metal would only minorly annoy a fairy, but the threat in the movement speaks for itself. The knight is just getting started. And with that attack to the Unseelie’s underbelly, the tables have drastically turned in favor of the hobbyist feyer and both the beast and the hunter know it.

Getting desperate, the bear monster backs up a few more lumbering steps, and in a blind rage sends out a volley of spikes that aren’t even remotely aimed towards the knight attacking it.

“Hey wait! I’m just an innocent bystander here! Don’t aim for me!” Clover protests as he rushes to his feet, slipping slightly on the mud and barely avoiding getting impaled as the knight rises to his feet swiftly and lunges outward.

The Unseelie snarls, reaching down to take another bite out of the knight, but with a sharp twist of the knife the armored stranger stabs the short blade into the beast’s mouth. Yet unlike a normal sane human, he keeps his hand in the monster’s maw, holding on as the creature tries to close its jaw on his hand. Thankfully, it is unable to snap the knight’s hand off because of the dagger, but it’s clear based on the concerning creaking sounds that the blade can’t hold up to the force of the beat’s jaw for long.

Clover starts to think maybe he should say something because maybe the knight can’t hear the creaking of the steel the same way Clover an air fey with enhanced hearing can, when the human performs a move that leaves Clover both impressed and horrified. Using the hand in beat’s maw as an anchor the man swings himself up and on top of the bear’s middle head.

Clover feels his breath stop yet again, but not out of fear.

It’s the most beautiful and terrible thing he’s ever seen. The rain is a fitting and tragic background to this bloody fight, both the man and beast rain drenched and painted in the other’s blood.

The bear monster is caught mid-snarl, eyes glowing a vibrant Fluxx green, its teeth lengthening even further as the dagger in its mouth finally snaps, pieces of steel scattering as it shatters. Spikes of earth rise from the nearby mud and the Unseelie’s rocky hide, all pointed upward to skewer the knight.

While the human stands on top of the beast, armor glittering from the rain, and even though Clover can’t see the knight’s face, the human’s hands do not shake and are steady with the trained calm of a professional hunter. This is not the first beast he’s slain, and it will not be the last. A knight of death and vengeance versus a monster of the wilds and raw power.

The iron longsword shines as a bright shock of lighting illuminates the forest, reflecting off the slickened iron as if Tyr or Thor himself is reaching down from Asgard to bless the knight’s blade.

The sword hangs like a guillotine and the moment lasts just long enough for Clover to suck in a panicked, awed breath before as with the last dying glow of the lighting arching high in the sky above them, the sword drops just as the spikes shoot upwards.

Darkness falls.

The absence of the lighting shadows the scene and plunges all of them into the inky black of night.

Rain continues to fall, soaking into Clover’s clothes and sticking his hair to his face uncomfortably. His lute is heavy in his hands, water starting to collect inside, and the mud has slipped past his boots to start squishing around his toes. But he can’t focus on any of those details even though he can so clearly feel them.

For a painful moment, a length of time not even big enough to really count it as time as all, but with how helplessly drawn Clover is to the fight it feels like a lifetime, where only silence hangs.

Then with an ear-splitting “BANG!” the thunder cracks and it is done.

The fight is… over.