Work Text:
“Surrender,” he says, “it is only wise.”
“It is my land,” the boy says. His face comes from childhood nightmares, and the spine-chill of blasted desire. “I will not surrender it.”
“You cannot win,” he says, and his voice—an old man’s voice, hoarse with long use—is high and piping with adolescent anxieties.
“I know, Lord,” the boy says, and smiles—a young wolf’s smile, all teeth and snarl. “But I can fight.”
He puts a weathered hand on the Gandiva’s weathered wood, and turns to fight this miraculous nemesis, so mockingly young, come to challenge his exhausted age.