Scales and Swords ✓

47: Weaknesses

"Philip," I said to the hunched figure, sitting in the centre of the railed wooden platform on the tree tops.

He turned, face flushed, throwing me a lazy smile. "Mo, is that you my girl?" His eyes vacant and his smile fleeting. This wasn't right.

I huffed and climbed onto the platform. An empty bottle laid against the rails. When I laid my hands on his shoulder, the coldness stung my skin. "You're freezing!"

I threw the blanket over his shoulders.

"Really?" He muttered, staring up at me, his lips twisting into a frown. "I feel toasty."

"Philip let's go down, it's too cold up here," I said softly, kneeling before him.

He shook his head, his gaze glued to something behind me. "The little ones told me, up here, I could touch the heavens." He raised his hand, the blanket slipping off his shoulder. I quickly replaced the blanket and sighed, following his gaze. He wasn't lying, the stars looked magnificent up here, but I could hardly enjoy them not when he was like this.

I took off my scarf and placed it securely round his neck. I lowered his hand, lifted the other and rubbed them warm with my own. The cold barely bothered me.

"You're warm, Mo," Philip smiled. I continued rubbing his hands, noting how huge his were compared to mine. "Can I get a hug?" On a normal day, I'd have probably refused, but when my friend was obviously torn apart and his smile seemed so forced, I knew he truly needed a hug.

I moved under the blanket, stretching an arm over his broad back. Another over his shoulder, his cold cheek pressed against mine. His long arms encircled me with an urgent squeeze, not like when he had hugged me when he had missed me but with a deeper longing, with a need to feel safe. His body void of warmth, his mind a haze, his fire drowned by the alcohol. I held him, wanting to keep him warm for as long as he needed.

"I'm sorry Mo," he whispered in my ear.

I sat back, still keeping my arm round his back, as he held me close as well.

"Don't say that, you did nothing wrong," I murmured.

He forced a smile. "If we'd met when we were younger you'd have hated me and I'd have hated you as well." I remained quiet, allowing him to go on. "I was a bratty kid who went along with what everyone said. I hated vuruks. I've said and done things to vuruks, I can't ever be forgiven for. And even when I found out I was a one, I didn't want to believe that I was anything like the monsters I believed they were. Then I became a knight, and I fought alongside them and they died for me, laid in my arms till their last breaths and I realized how stupid I was all along. I don't deserve you." His hand fell and left me longing for his touch.

"You were young then, now you know better. It's all part of growing up, you learn, you regret, you move forward," I said tenerderly.

"Have I actually grown?" A bitter laugh left his lips as his eyes glassed over. "I never should've promised La-ance." At the break in his voice, my heart dropped. "He knew and he played me right into it."

"He'll understand."

"Does it matter?" His words hit me like a hot slap. Words I'd heard before, but just as weighty every time they're said. "I hurt him. I love my old man but Lance is like a second father to me. He thought me all I know. He made me into the knight I always longed to be, the knight I so" —he pounded his chest as the first tear escaped —"proudly flaunt. But now I've raised my sword against him and I can't go back from that."

A tear trickled past his cheek and stained the wood. I rubbed a hand down his cold back, forcing my own tears back. After my first test, after I had almost gone down a path I knew I'd never return from, he had been there for me. He wiped my tears and he told me I'd be fine. And I hadn't yet thought of him as a friend then, but that had hardly mattered to him.