Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: ok but ever since ur post about harry and corlath's children where u said smth like "corlath is too thrilled with his life to deny his children, esp when it's so unimportant" all i can think about is one of them when they are Small braiding his hair with flowers and getting sad when he tries to take it down and then he ends up going to some Very Important Kingly Meeting with a flower crown and keeping a straight face while harry's dying of laughter. (i hope your day is going well!)

Let’s be clear, Corlath is nailing the fuck out of fatherhood.  He’s acing that shit.  (He remarks very dryly, with tiny baby Aerin Amelia reaching up to clutch in fascination at his hair, that corralling armies is good training for corralling children.)  Now, Tor takes very much after his father once he’s older, trending toward seriousness with a deadpan sense of humor, but as a baby he’s talkative.  Not, like, coherent, but he’ll sit there and just kind of babble at you for as long as you seem to be paying attention.  He is also very attached to his parents and something of a hit at court–of course he is, the child of their hero-king and their damalur-sol, of Corlath, direct down the centuries from the Dragon Slayer, and Harimad, Hurler of Mountains.

• (”Oh, gods, they’re really going to call me that,” Harry murmurs in horror to Corlath at a feast not long after their wedding, and Corlath laughs at her, and the fire in the hearth snaps and crackles and a grinning pale face flashes for a moment before vanishing.)
  

So when Tor just can’t bear to be left with his nurse, a very patient woman who puts up with A Lot from the royal family, Corlath and Harry look at each other and shrug and just take him with them.  He sits on one of their laps, as they hold court from their twin stone thrones, and sometimes when he starts burbling away his parents–more often Corlath, much to the surprise of everyone–will pause and listen attentively, and tell the petitioner in a grave tone “Well, you see, the young lord believes that you should bring your neighbor next week and he’ll see what can be done to resolve your dispute.”  It makes open court about a hundred and fifty times more entertaining for everyone.  Tor’s first birthday present from Innath is a tiny version of his father’s crown, carved out of wood, and Tor immediately attempts to put it in his mouth.

Aerin is much quieter as an infant, and only too glad to toddle behind her older brother, so she attends court less than Tor did.  However, she does enjoy flowers very much, so the court is disappointed to not have a small child in attendance, but they’re enjoying the periodical appearance of their sovereigns with crowns of whatever Aerin could get her hands on.  She decides very young that Corlath looks best in daisies, and she likes to find the reddest pimchies to weave into Harry’s golden hair.

When Jack is a baby, things are pretty quiet.  Aerin carries on with draping her parents in local flora (Jack and Aerin are very close in age), and Jack mostly smiles and blinks and coos quietly.  He’s a very compliant sort of infant.

Then Jack’s kelar comes in when he’s seven and the court gets a lot more lively.  Corlath and Harry can’t in good conscience leave Jack with his nurse–can’t really leave him with anyone but themselves or Luthe or his siblings, for fear that his strength might get the best of him.  So he starts coming to court, and banquets, and whatever else Tor and/or Aerin is attending with their parents, and he’s still a kid, so sometimes his magic sort of…leaks.

They got the chandelier back on the ceiling eventually, with Harry’s help, and honestly he and Tor didn’t mean to animate the fine china and, well, Corlath got it under control anyway, didn’t he?

Hari, of course, attends court pretty much from day one, because by then Tor is old enough to be there in a slightly more formal capacity as the not-yet-formalized-but-still-recognized Crown Prince who could do with seeing how a country works.  Between the draw of her beloved eldest brother and her parents, Hari can’t be pried away.

Then she turns three and she’s walking reliably and she can talk and it’s very hard to keep her under control, so she starts causing trouble at court.  And banquets.  And every other place she’s allowed to roam free.

• “Honestly, Jackie,” Harry sighs, surveying the damage to the banquet hall that needs to actually host a banquet in three hours.  The walls are scorched and the chandelier is down again, among other, more solveable problems.  “What happened?”
  
• “I just turned my back for a minute,” Jack says helplessly.  “Tor’s off with Papa and Aerin’s fixing her gown and she told me to keep an eye on Hari and–”  He gestures to his little sister, who has soot smudged across every visible inch of skin and a seraphic smile on her face.  “I only looked away for a couple minutes, I swear.”
  
• “I believe you, Jackie,” Harry says, and drops a kiss on his hair.  It’s difficult to manage this while also trying to look forbidding in her youngest’s direction.  “Hari,” she calls.
  
• “Yes, Mama?” Hari says brightly.
  
• “How did this happen?”
  
• “I found a recipe in an old book, Mama.  Only I don’t think I did it right, because instead of just making smoke it exploded.”
  
• “You don’t say?”
  
• Needless to say, the banquet is held outside in the setting sun, and Corlath and Harry try not to look too visibly amused and/or dismayed when Hari pops out from under her sister’s skirts to steal a fistful of grapes.

Anonymous asked: (sword Anon) omg haha i thought abt saying THIS IS A BLUE SWORD ASK but i was running out of space!! thank you for answering! also if i may ask, what do you think would have happened if corlath had waited to ask harry to marry him? would it have ever happened, or would he have just flailed eternally? would mathin still be alive? would, if he were, have died of exasperation? (good luck on your MCATs!!! i hope your day goes well!!)

I mean, let’s be real: there’s only so much that the Riders can TAKE.  They’re only human.  Even the most patient of them reaches the end of their rope eventually.  That being said: Corlath is very stubborn and Harry is very oblivious.

So here’s my guess.

Yes, Mathin does live.  Corlath welcomes Harry back with honor and a tight embrace and the return of her sash, and there’s a beat where they look at each other and Harry opens her mouth, and Corlath takes a breath, and then…it passes.  Corlath smiles at her, faint and wistful, and Harry grins.  In the healer’s tent, Corlath grips Harry’s shoulders and holds her up and bleeds himself dry of kelar because it’s her doing the asking, and he tells himself that this will be enough.  She will sit at his left hand as Rider all her life, and that will be enough.  He will figure out a solution to the problem of succession some other time.  At the moment, Harry is alive and strong and wild with kelar, performing miracles under his hands, and he could not ask for more than that.

And so life pretty much goes on.  No one really talks about that time where their king was wearing his Rider’s sash, at least not around either of them.  Plenty of people discuss it on their own time, though, and none more so than the rest of the Riders.  Harry is one of them, the Daughter of the Riders–Mathin’s affectionate nickname is taken up with enthusiasm after her dramatic victory against Thurra–and they love their king, and they’re both respectably intelligent people so what the fuck is taking so long.  It’s obvious to literally anyone who spends more then a minute and a half in the company of the court that the King and the Rider at his left hand are soulmates.  Except, apparently, Harry, and–they’re all extremely aware of this–Corlath would never push.  

Richard and Kentarre get married and Corlath officiates, Jack is made a King’s Rider instead of a Queen’s.  Aerin visits Harry in fires and dreams and around halfway through the winter rains, when Harry complains that she misses sun and sword training and riding and racing with Corlath, Aerin laughs until tears are dripping off the end of her nose and Harry is scowling.

“Oh, Harimad,” Aerin wheezes once she’s breathing again.  “I can hardly judge you myself, but honestly.”

“What?” Harry demands, annoyed.  She got over her shock and awe a long time back.  Aerin doesn’t even answer her, just flaps a hand and fades away as Harry wakes.

The Riders start out kind of assuming that Corlath will move on and Harry will carry on in blissful ignorance, but it rapidly becomes clear that It Is Not So.  Corlath watches Harry mutter curses as she stubbornly learns Hill embroidery techniques with an unreasonable degree of warmth in his eyes, and Harry has fallen asleep in Corlath’s study when kelar dreams keep her restless more times than she can count.  The Riders progressively go from “this will definitely sort itself out one way or another” to “we might need to have a discreet word with Corlath about taking action” to “wow, these people need an actual legitimate matchmaking crew” within the months of the rains.  Then they take bets on who’s going to choke to death on the unresolved affection and confront them with it first.

Two weeks before the rains end, the Riders and the king are enjoying a casual dinner.  Innath watches Corlath silently wave away one of the hafor approaching Harry with a plate of spiced stik meat–she can’t stand the smoked flavor–and Harry smiles brightly at him, a little nod of thanks, and Innath–

Well, Innath cracks.

“I’m out, gentlemen,” he announces to the table at large, rising to his feet and bracing both hands on the table.  A quiet ooooh of excitement winds around the table as Innath gives his king a mildly desperate look.

“Innath?” Corlath asks, raising his brows.

“May I speak freely?”

“Always,” Corlath agrees, bemused.

“My lord,” Innath says, clear and slow, “has it come to your attention that it will be spring in a fortnight?”

“…yes?”

“We are on diplomatic terms with the Outlanders, and the Northerners are defeated.”

“We’re all aware,” Corlath confirms, obviously amused.  Harry is almost giggling beside him.

“Right,” Innath says.  He takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and says, “Has it occurred to you that this spring would be an ideal time for a wedding?”

Harry perks up, still smiling.  “Are you getting married?  You didn’t tell the rest of us.”

Innath clearly can’t think of a response to this for a moment, staring at her while the other Riders watch, riveted.  “I’m–no,” he finally says.  “I just–listen, Harimad.  Do you love Corlath?”

Harry’s smile evaporates to leave shocked silence in its place.  “I–”  The moment of intense thought is followed by visible revelation, and she shoots a borderline panicked look at Corlath.  “What?”  

“I think that looks like a yes,” Forloy says, raising a glass to Innath in a silent gesture of it’s all you and takes a swallow of wine.

“Corlath, you love Harimad, and everyone in this room knows it,” Innath says, barreling on without thinking–honestly if he thinks, he’s going to run out of the room, he knows it.  “So why don’t the two of you do something about it?  Like getting married this spring.”  He toasts the two of them with his own wine glass, quaffs it in one, and tells the other Riders, “Right, I think that’s our cue, after you, Faran.”

No one, not even the hafor, ever actually knows what conversation happens in the dining room after the Riders pile out into the hallway.  

But the next day Corlath and Harry issue a formal announcement that they’ll be wedded in three weeks, at the height of the spring blooming season.  They’re holding hands below the railing of the stone balcony overlooking the courtyard, and even Corlath is smiling, honest and happy, as he looks down at Harry by his side.

Mathin collects a handsome sum of cash, but he cares more about the way Harry laughs and touches the gold sash at her waist.

the-dot asked: hi!! i absolutely adore your Blue Sword headcanons (why doesn't it have a bigger fandom. why.) and i cried a little when i read the last ones. if i may ask, do you have any headcanons about the children?

(i sent that before i meant to weeps, sorry, feel free to ignore this one if you want) also, luthe is probably their weird uncle who loves them all and tells wild stories that no one quite believes. (i hope you’re having a good day!)

Ummm, let’s see, headcanons about the kidlets.  I’m not going to do the headcanon meme because I’m mostly making these up, but I hope these are good!

Tor Mathin

• Tor is a lot of things–first sola, horseman, a good tactician, a promising young king–but a swordsman is not among them.  He’s passable, technically very good, but he lacks joy.  Tor is the first person in his family in the gods only know how long to prefer spears, and dredges up an old design for a Damarian saddle that allows him to strap the poles to his horse’s side for easy access.
• Tor takes after his namesakes–both of them, actually, although naturally Tor’s dry humor and stoic sufferance of small children didn’t make history nearly as much as his Just-ness.  But what I’m saying here is that, basically, Tor has a very droll sense of humor and is an incredibly excellent big brother who claims dibsies on his youngest sister on the spot and routinely allows himself to be dragged into trouble with her.  Mathin is delighted.

Aerin Amelia

• Obviously, Aerin Amelia is the next carrier of Gonturan.  One of them, at least.  She is a talented stateswoman and the beloved first sol of her people, and her mother teaches her swordplay, and Aerin associates it with laughing and joy and the beat of sunlight on her cheeks.  She beats the crap out of her brother frequently and Tor puts up with it because he’s a good sport.  
• She likes to dress up like her godmother–Amelia dotes on her, and for Aerin’s sixteenth birthday the girl shows up in crimson and blue, a dress Amelia sewed for her over the winter, somewhere between a Hill robe and a layered Homeland dress, with pearls woven into her bright red hair.
• Aerin and Senay’s baby sister Rilly fall in love and get married and Senay and Harry are both pleased beyond belief.  Aerin, much like her namesake, is Tall, and Rilly is kind of Tiny all her life, they’re adorable.

Jack

• Jack is a fucking kelar powerhouse.  All his siblings are, they take after the old kings, but Jack in particular is juiced.  His talents run toward rock and stone, and when his kelar wakes he almost shakes down a wing of the citadel.  He and Harry ride out into the Hills and she sets up a camp in a little valley where she once learned how to fight, and they just sort of wait out the worst of it.  She kisses his hair and rubs his back and it’s a terrible few weeks, as he tries to get control, but it’s an oddly warm memory, later.
• To that effect, Luthe likes Jack very much, he reminds Luthe of the Aerin easily as much as his sister, and although Jack is far from being a full mage, Luthe teaches him a few tricks.  One that Jack particularly loves, because of the way it makes his sisters yell at him in mock aggravation, includes turning little posy rings of pimchie flowers into golden birds that sing before flying away into nothingness.  Luthe observes Jack’s talent for this particular parlor trick and very scrupulously does not burst out laughing.

Hari

• The youngest child of Harry and Corlath is two things above all else: an incredibly skilled rider and the fucking family prankster.  Tor adores her from the minute she’s born, a wrathful little thing with jet black hair and tiny clenched fists, and he makes a fantastic babysitter, and she gets on her first horse at two years old because she talked Tor into letting her ride his stallion.  It was a terrifying experience for Tor as well as all the sofor who witnessed their teeny baby sol shrieking with delight as she clung to the horse’s mane like a burr.  It was also the moment that Tor realized his baby sister could probably ask him to hand over the kingship and he might actually do it.
• Hari and Aerin trade custody of Gonturan, sometimes, more just for variety than anything else.  Aerin usually carries it because Aerin actually likes swords, whereas Hari likes to fight with a pair of knives.  This is considered something of a sneak-thief’s weapon, in Damar, but Hari is very stubborn and Harry isn’t exactly a strong candidate for telling any of her children “No, you can’t, Because Tradition” and Corlath is too thrilled with his life to take a hard line on something so unimportant.  So it’s mostly Hari’s tutors kind of moaning through their teeth as she learns to throw knives and Hari young woman is that your brother’s best tunic you’re using for target practice.  
• Yes, it absolutely is Jack’s best tunic, because Hari, in the fashion of younger siblings everywhere, is, after all, something of a sneak-thief, and she stole it to see how long it would take him to notice.  
• It has been three weeks and while Aerin and Tor have both noticed, Jack shows no sign of picking up on it.

Anonymous asked: do you think that during the scene where harry and corlath sit at the fountain he was like holy shit holy shit holy shit she's holding my hand holy shit and then later was like sheheldmyhandsheheldmyhandsheHELDmyHAND and one of the riders (probably mathin) was like im gonna tell this story at your wedding

Well, as we all know, the exact order of people who realized that Harry and Corlath were in love* was:

1. The Riders
   
2. The hafor
3. Bystanders at the laprun trials
4. Sungold
5. Corlath, probably immediately after she took his mask at the trials
6. Gonturan
7. The City hafor
8. Random City folk
9. Various Damarian soldiers, including Senay and Terim at different times
10. Luthe/Aerin
11. Jack Dedham
12. Random Outlanders following mad Harry into battle
13. Kentarre and her archers
14. Richard Crewe, probably because Jack tells him
15. Small animals on the side of the path
16. Passing birds
17. Thurra probably????
18. MAUR THE BLACK DRAGON, DEAD THESE MANY CENTURIES
19. PEOPLE IN SUNSHINE, WHO AREN’T EVEN IN THE SAME UNIVERSE
20. Harry

*Narknon is not included because, as it has no bearing on her life besides the improvement of her porridge quality, she maintains catlike, disdainful disinterest

So what I’m saying is: yes, yes he does.  And at their wedding Mathin, in his capacity as Harry’s stand-in entire family, presents her as the Daughter of the Riders and tells the entire assembled city about how it took a fight, a mutiny, a war, a miracle, and a near-death experience for Harry to see what was right in front of her nose, and in the meantime their noble king was blushing like a teenager after so much as touching her hand.

littlestartopaz asked: Harry, Corlath, and Mathin! For the headcanon meme!

Topaz, coming through with the obscure fandoms!  For this ask meme, and Harry, Corlath, and Mathin are from The Blue Sword.

A: what I think realistically

I have said this before, but you can pry the headcanon from my cold dead hands.  The Damarians have some tradition in which the family of the bride (and normally the husband, but Corlath is the last of his family and it’s terrible) gives her away at the wedding.  Mathin stands in as Harry’s father, a parent from the Hills, and gives her away as the Daughter of the Riders after riding roughshod over Richard’s protestations.  Mathin cries a little and Harry cries a little and Corlath cries a little and no one ever says anything about it except in songs and stories where the devotion of them all is hailed as Serious Business.

Corlath very quietly slaps Mathin with a small title, whatever he can get away with, as the father of the new Queen.  It takes Mathin a full year to notice.

Alsooooo, Corlath can draw, although paper is expensive and therefore rare in the Hills.  He goes to the trouble of getting himself paper and charcoals during the winter rains for something to do with his hands and draws pretty much only Harry, Harry on Sungold, Harry bringing down the mountains, Harry laughing at dinner, Harry smiling at him stretched out on their bed.  Harry thinks it’s adorable.

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

I think we’ve discussed this but THE RIDERS HAVE TO GET BORED DURING THE WINTER RAINS.  

Y’all.  My dudes.  Hear me out here: the Riders playing pranks on each other.  Normally, the way these things shake out is “everyone is afraid of Corlath not because he’s the king but because he’s frankly terrifying between his tactical training and his kelar, but they’re more terrified of Mathin because Mathin is the ultimate Prank Lord.”  And then Harry shows up and radically changes the balance of affairs.

Because listen.  Harry has a bit of a learning curve to catch up with, so they go easy on her at first.  But then she lays a trap for Mathin after a little bit of idle conversation with Corlath and she gets him good.  Mathin, for three days, is dyed bright red with the concoction Harry managed to mix up.  And it’s war.  After a week and a half, Corlath and Harry make a truce of necessity–no pranks allowed in their own chambers–but otherwise Harry is an ally of whoever charms her most at the time.  The fact that the servants in the City all adore Harry means that she becomes the unquestioned champion by the end of her first winter.  Corlath doesn’t take it personally, honestly he’s kind of thrilled that she kicked his ass so handily–tbh Corlath is eternally that Will Smith picture when it comes to Harry, even when they’re fighting.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

Corlath is the last of his family.  His mother always had a fragile constitution, and died of a plague sweeping through the City.  His father died not long afterward–officially in battle, but everyone agreed that is was from a broken heart.  He just couldn’t face the world without her.  Corlath rose to power quite young, even by the reckoning of the long-lived Hill Kings, and quite alone.  The Riders were all he had left, and for all that they tried to be enough, it made the City ache to see their joyous child prince grow into a serious warrior king.  Corlath still smiled, of course, but not as easily, and his bright laughter was hard-earned–it wasn’t that Corlath was depressed, it was that he was controlled, and stiffly so, at all times.

It’s hard to have close friends, let alone anything near family, when you can’t be sure of meeting anyone’s eyes.  Both Corlath’s parents had kelar, and he envies them for that security–he, who carries more kelar than anyone in living memory, is always aware of how much damage he can do.  He drove a servant mad, once, by accident when he was a young boy, and cried for two days until his mother managed to restore most of the man’s mind.  Corlath has had few friends and fewer lovers, as a result.

Beyond all that Harry does to endear herself to the Riders, the thing that truly wins them over is that they haven’t seen so much emotion–anger and joy and frustration and everything in between–on their king’s face in long years.

D:  what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

First of all, canon is not shit and you can fight me.

But seriously, I’ve said this before too but I’m so serious about it, Harry meets Aerin in the flesh at some point.  And also Aerin visits Harry in her dreams and at first Harry’s very deferential and nervous, but she lightens up over time, and Aerin gives her advice on being a queen and being a legend and being a mother.  (At some point, when Harry is just exhausted of everything and frustrated with everyone and ready to ride off into the desert just to get away, Aerin turns up and tells a story about a very vain girl named Galanna who got her eyelashes shaved off and could have been rolled out a window, she was sleeping so heavily.  Harry laughs herself sick in the dream and wakes up smiling for the first time in weeks.)

Request from @littlestartopaz​ for Harry/Corlath from the Blue Sword on the music meme.   I got Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons, so…yeah…that happened.  ALL RIGHT HERE WE MOTHERFUCKING GO, goddamn but I love these books.

Corlath had known what it was to be king since his father’s death when he was a young man, only just eighteen.  He had known he would fight a war for even longer, since before his kelar came to him—maybe he’d known it forever, maybe it was what his mother sang to him at his birth and whispered to him when he was wakeful at night.  The first time he tasted the Meeldtar, it snatched him away from himself and brought him visions of Thurra and his fierce white stallion, streaked with blood and battle rage.  When he came back, he dropped the leather pouch as if his hands were suddenly as weak as a sickly child’s, and he wept for the terror that was not his and the battle he had seen, and his father had soothed him with a gentle hand and quiet voice.

It was not until he was on the field before the Bledfi Gap, his soldiers holding well against the mere trickle of Northerners coming through, and he felt the prickle of his kelar stirring, that he understood that old vision.  It was not his battle, no—but it was his terror.

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