A/N: SSB fanfic strikes again. In this episode, Marth is emo, and Roy tries to be less of a jerk than usual.
Warning for implied homosexuality and other abominations.
Disclaimer: The following contains characters and concepts that are NOT the property of the author. They are the intellectual property of Nintendo, HAL Laboratories and their associates. This work of fanfiction is NOT endorsed by the original creators and is NOT in any way meant to insult the original work. The author has received NO monetary benefit from this piece of ****.
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Do your worst, old frost,
You can no longer wound me,
I, the last chrysanthemum.*
--Oemaru
He stood, his upper-body draped over the railing. His hair dangled into his face. His eyes were fixated on the water below rather than on the city lights on the horizon.
Had Roy been a stranger, he would not have noticed this portrait. The street lights colored them both like neon ghosts. The street beside them was empty of traffic. Before him, a shadow of dark coat and evening-sky hair stood alone, whispering something to the ocean waves below.
Roy brought the brown paper bag in his hand into the crook of his right arm.
At the sound of rustling paper, Marth looked over from his place at the railing. His face appeared a bit golden in this light. He straightened up.
Roy shifted weight to his other leg. "Uh, hey." He held up his offering with one hand. "I brought you something."
Marth brushed away a few strands of indigo hair from his eyes. He smiled.
Roy's stomach clenched hard.
That had to have been an invitation.
"I see you still carry your sword."
Roy shrugged. "Sometimes." The bundle, tightly-bound in cloth, rested on the ground between them, alongside Marth’s, similarly wrapped.
Beneath him, the concrete was hard. Sitting hunched over with his knees drawn up near his chest, he was aggravating multiple points along his spine. Roy unfurled himself and leaned back, palms against the sidewalk, legs stretched out into the street. A passing car would have mangled his lower limbs. But the bridge had been clear of cars since they'd met up.
Marth stared at Roy's knuckles, at the white bandages wrapped around them.
There was still money to be made outside of corporate-sponsored tournaments. It took very little to hold a fight. Just two guys, a room somewhere--a basement or a backroom--spectators willing to part with cash, and maybe a doctor on standby (maybe).
Roy had found out a while ago that he didn't need to be the best. He only had to be better than the other guy. He could stay in the unofficial, unacknowledged, illegitimate caste for as long as he wanted. He could win as long as he knew he was up against a weaker fighter. He could win as long as he picked the right opponent, the one with the sloppy moves, slow footwork, and a weak guard--the one who was overeager, inexperienced, or just plain stupid. He could win as long as he made sure he out-classed all of them and never got in over his head.
This strategy earned him spare change. Meanwhile, the pros made millions.
Yet Marth, with those millions, still chose to sit next to him on the cold pavement of a bridge, drinking booze from a paper bag. They were both at equal risk of getting picked up by the cops.
Without warning, Marth reached over and placed a hand on Roy's face. Roy held a breath. His friend traced the scar over his eye.
He had once come close to losing that eye. But whenever he looked into a mirror, he thought less of his near brush with blindness and more of his distorted features. Maybe he really was as vain as everyone else accused him of being. Did he ever step into the ring without having gone through a thirty-minute pre-fight battle with hair gel?
Pride was an asset to a fighter, and, sometimes, a malady. Roy had it in abundance, and wounded pride--like a compound fracture--didn’t always heal right.
The scar looked uglier every time he caught sight of his reflection in a mirror. His torso was itself a wreckage of skin--all scar tissue and faded lacerations--but it was the blemish on his face that bothered him the most. Was it his fault that the girls had liked his face? They had liked his hair too--the color of dried blood, styled to look careless and wild, because he knew people were going to look and he might as well let them see what he wanted them to see: a street brawler with fire for brains, one who never planned ahead, who charged into the fray without hesitation--someone who didn‘t think.
They got overconfident and exposed their weaknesses. He played dumb and masked his own.
When they thought they had him, that was when he changed course, feinted, and barreled through the openings they had so generously exposed to him.
No one saw through the facade--no one but Marth, and had that scar at his eye been drawn by Marth’s blade, Roy would have suffered no injury to his pride.
Had it not been a rookie with a boyish grin, wide eyes, and a cheeky attitude, Roy would have swallowed his pride. As it turned out, defeat tasted the most bitter when it came at the hands of a lesser opponent. Roy knew how to hold a grudge; he could still recall their pre-fight exchange:
‘Hi!’ the boy had greeted him. ‘Do you remember me?’
‘No,’ he had answered honestly.
‘Oh, well, we fought in the prelims last year. You sent me home real fast.’ His smile beamed.
‘Get ready for a repeat performance,’ Roy said.
The expression on the other’s face hardened. ‘I’ll give you a good fight this time. I want to make it into the league, as one of you.’
Roy’s grin turned cocky. ‘You’re not ready yet.’
But the newcomer had figured out two things about Roy: 1) Roy had no air game, and 2) Roy had no long-range capability. The swordsman usually tried to hide these deficiencies by forcing his opponents to fight him on the ground and at close range. But the newcomer would have none of that. When Roy closed in, the other took to the air. From a distance, the swordsman found himself assailed with arrows.
At the end of the day, Roy was the one who got sent home with stitches on his face and his entire left eye taped up with gauze.
He left, without a word to anyone. He did not stop to congratulate his opponent in the usual show of sportsmanship.
When he got to the main road, walking, someone called to him: Are you surprised?
There appeared to be no one about, but when he looked behind him, he saw the grey cat hovering just above the ground, forelimbs crossed, alien face unreadable.
‘Get out of my head. What’s it to you?’
The Pokemon’s voice only got louder in Roy’s mind: Everyone knows. Of all the wins attributed to you, 95% were fought against the bottom tier. The overall number looks impressive, but your reputation does not hold up to deeper scrutiny.
Roy turned his back on Mewtwo and followed the road.
He vowed that the next time he met that kid, he'd hack off both of those wings.
Marth withdrew his hand. Roy’s cheek felt cold.
“You could make a comeback if you tried,” Marth said, his voice drowsy with alcohol.
“You could take your title back if you wanted to,” Roy answered.
Marth turned away. His face, appearing now in profile, was the same face Roy had seen peering over the bridge.
The knot in Roy’s stomach tighten. Clouds lingered in his head and buzzed through his arteries, taking some of the edge off of everything, but the rest of his body stayed alert to certain cues.
Marth's moods were stable only when he was on a winning streak. His victories kept him afloat. His defeats sent him plummeting to depths beyond reach. Roy didn't understand it. He couldn't. After all, Roy had been born to lose.
The thing about the prince was that his sadness had no cure. The melancholy that swathed his days and nights like a cowl never lifted. Sometimes, it thinned enough to let a shimmer of moonlight through. Other times, it just got heavier.
One day, Roy thought, Marth was going to stop talking to the waves. One day, he’d be too exhausted to keep fighting the gravity that had been pulling at him all his life.
Marth whispered, “I’m tired.”
The stars were invisible. City skies always looked like this. Roy caught sight of a plane, a blinking red dot overhead.
In the left corner of the sky, another pinpoint of light shone, one that did not flash.
He knew it was not a star.
He made a living exploiting weaknesses. So he asked, “How long has it been like this?”
“I don't know. A year. Longer. Two. I think.” When Marth hid his eyes, it meant he was hiding tears.
Roy leaned over and pressed a kiss to his temple. Two years ago, Roy had left the pros.
Marth didn't look at him. “I thought we weren't doing this anymore.”
“That's up to you,” Roy managed to croak. He cleared his throat. “You'll be fine either way. I know you. You're--”
“I'm not. Whatever you think I am, I am not that. Pretending is the hardest part. I don't have the strength to keep it up anymore.”
In a moment of silence, Roy tried to figure out what that meant. “I guess you needed me around,” he said, “so you could feel better than someone.”
He immediately regretted it.
Marth was on his feet, ready to bolt, and Roy wanted to know why his tongue always seemed to throw his insecurities out into the open. He once swore off alcohol to keep from saying stupid things like that. He wished he had kept to that resolution.
He jumped up and caught Marth mid-flight. Roy got both arms around him and trapped him against the railing.
A height disadvantage meant he had to speak to Marth’s shoulder. “Sorry. You know I didn’t mean that.”
A whisper, somewhere above Roy’s head, answered: “Shut up. I hate you.”
That was okay, Roy thought. Marth didn’t mean it. And if he did…it was still okay. Roy kissed the exposed hollow of his throat. Marth closed his eyes and shivered under his thin coat. Then he sagged, like dead weight, like an anchor, and dragged both of them to the ground.
Roy held on. Through the coat, he felt the contours of his friend’s body. Beneath fluid muscles, there were slender bones still strong enough to carry the weight of the both of them. Together, they slumped onto the concrete, Marth propped up against the metal bars, Roy crouched in front of him.
Roy cupped one side of his friend’s face. After a moment, Marth opened his eyes. He lifted a hand and wrapped his fingers loosely around Roy’s wrist. The cast on his right hand and forearm showed itself.
Twenty-four hours ago, Marth had lost the championship title. It was then that the world of competitive fighting had borne witness to the most major upset in Smash history since the time Pichu owned Bowser during a preliminary a few years back. This time, it came at the hands of a little-known challenger. He had entered as the underdog. He went by the name of Meta Knight.
Champion and challenger had been evenly matched until the middle of the fight, when Meta Knight displayed the utility of his strange sword, which included prongs protruding out of both cutting edges of the blade. It was an unorthodox weapon. No one had ever seen those extraneous side fixtures used in battle before. For this reason, Marth must not have known how to react when both fighters clashed blades and his own sword slipped neatly into one of those prongs. Meta Knight had slid his weapon down to his opponent’s hilt and trapped the other swordsman’s hand. Then, propelled by a single flap of his right wing, he’d leapt into the air and cartwheeled over Marth’s sword, turning his own weapon like a wrench. This succeeded in disarming the former champion. It also completely fractured the top-ranked fighter’s wrist, broke several bones in his hand, and tore apart various tendons and ligaments.
So, in such fashion, Meta Knight was able to ascend the winner’s podium and accept the title. He had been almost too small to pick up on the stadium cameras. But when he opened both wings--dark and bat-like--he seemed twice as large. The crowd had roared and risen to its feet to honor him like a true champion.
So, in such fashion, Marth now sat with Roy on a bridge to nowhere, under a sky without stars.
Marth leaned into his friend’s touch. His right hand--his sword hand--could not form a proper grip around Roy's.
“Marth. It’ll heal.”
“No. It won’t.” For all the fatigue in his voice, he sounded convinced. “Doctor Mario already gave me the prognosis. They tried. They used their best machines and their strongest magic. They can’t fix this.”
Somewhere behind Roy, their swords still lay next to each other.
“Get another opinion.”
“It’s over,” Marth said. “What I was. Is over.”
Roy brought their foreheads together. When the other fighter closed his eyes again, Roy pressed his mouth against Marth’s. There came a taste of something stronger than alcohol, something half salt and half sulfur--like bitter potions and medicine, something for the pain. He was soft beyond his outer skin, but he didn’t respond.
Roy drew back. He knew the right answer this time.
“You really think your life is over?”
“Yes.”
“Then, you want to come die with me?”
Marth opened his eyes. “What?”
Without a word, Roy turned and reached for the liquor bottle in the paper bag. He found his switchblade in one jacket pocket and his lighter in another. He opened the knife, flicked the light, and passed the blade through the flame. He closed the lighter and pocketed it. Then he looked at Marth.
“Trust me.” He offered an open palm.
Marth took it with the hand that was still intact.
A single prick each, on their pinky fingers, offered enough blood to dribble down the insides of the amber glass. Roy, in the past, enjoyed drawing the blood of others. He did not enjoy drawing his own. He stared, determined, at the dark red drop as it separated from his finger. An unexpected pain burned at his fingertip. He didn’t know why a small thing like this hurt so much--he had been pummeled, kicked, stabbed, slashed, and bludgeoned with an array of objects designed to maim and kill. There was no reason for him to be as bothered by this as he was.
He glanced at Marth. Roy recalled how he had not flinched when the knife cut him.
There were some napkins from the liquor store at the bottom of the bag. Roy reached in, grabbed a couple, and pressed them against the small cut on Marth’s finger. It was just a tiny puncture wound, like a prick from a needle. But he held onto Marth’s hand and kept applying pressure, as if it were a severed artery.
After a time, Marth pulled one of the tissues free with the index and middle finger of his injured hand. He wiped the napkin along Roy’s forearm. Only then did Roy notice that he had a long red trail creeping down toward his elbow.
Suddenly, the chill in the air hit him, straight to his bones.
Marth cleaned off the blood. Roy’s finger smarted when the napkin touched it, but the blood there had already clotted. After folding the tissue paper in half, Marth dabbed it against Roy’s forehead, where beads of sweat had formed.
Roy took a few calming breaths and finally released his friend’s hand. He wiped the knife and put it away. Then he stuffed the bottle with the bloodied tissues and the crumpled up paper bag, which he twisted so it would fit into the neck of the bottle. He left it protruding from the mouth.
He took Marth by the hand and pulled him to his feet. He led him over to the railing. There, Roy held the bottle over the edge.
He pulled the lighter from his pocket again.
“Lover’s suicide.” He adjusted the flame intensity and flicked the trigger, but the ocean winds were too strong. The cold air stung his face and fingers, and the fire died. He flicked the lighter again and again.
Marth reached out to shield the spark with one hand, the wounded one.
The flame shot up, four times the height it had been some minutes ago.
Marth leaned back slightly. He looked at Roy.
“I modified it,” Roy said in answer to the unspoken question. The fire caught to the paper bag. They waited until the flame grew brighter, stronger, and began to burn down into the bottle.
“Ready?” Roy whispered. “Three, two, one…go!”
At once, they both let go.
The fire sank into the dark. In a flash, they saw the surface of the ocean, its wrinkled grey surface, its waves. Then the flames vanished.
Roy watched, waiting for a sound of impact that never came. Then he looked up and found Marth gazing at the horizon.
“If this is what it feels like to be drunk,” Marth whispered, “I’d like to be drunk all the time.”
“Drunk? I’m only a little buzzed. You’re more of a lightweight than Zelda.”
The prince laughed.
Roy liked his smile. He would have said this, but some things just sounded stupid out loud. Instead, he leaned with his arms on the railing and flicked his lighter. The city, in the distance, still shone, still glittered.
A small bright dot stood out somewhere ahead of him, to the left, looking like the light of a stationary ship on the water.
Not a ship, he told himself.
“I missed this,” Marth said.
“You missed me?”
Marth leaned out over the abyss. His smile stayed in place.
“Fame is a joke,” Roy told him. “You leave for a year or two, and everyone forgets you.”
“No one ever noticed you in the first place, Roy.”
In one smooth motion, unhindered by his injury, Marth climbed up onto the railing. He stood straight, facing the ocean, and slowly stretched out his arms. The wind picked up his hair and the loose edges of his coat.
Roy froze. He was sober now. He lowered his arms to his sides, fists clenched. He recalled Marth’s hair-trigger reflexes. He tried to not make any sudden moves.
For a long time, they both held still. Finally, Roy summoned the voice necessary to call his friend’s name.
And then, Marth lifted his right foot, crossed it behind his left leg, and touched it down onto the steel rail.
Roy stared at the flex of his toes, at the ball of his foot firmly planted, straining the canvas of his flimsy sneakers. He remembered, then, that Sheik had once taught Marth how to walk a tightrope. It was the position of that right leg that allowed Roy to release a shaky breath. The tightness in his gut eased.
Marth fell.
And Roy was in place in catch him. Turned sideways, he got one arm across Marth’s back, the other behind the knees. In his arms, Marth felt solid, a heavy curtain, not a dream, not a portrait. Roy swayed back with the momentum. Then he dropped his friend, feet-first, onto the ground.
Marth held onto Roy’s sleeve and didn’t let go. “How did I know you would do that?” He was breathless but still smiling.
Roy suddenly had trouble breathing himself. His throat felt raw and cold. “Yeah, how did you know?” he panted out. “We can’t fly, and you could’ve cracked your head wide open.”
“Someday. We’ll figure it out.” Marth stooped and picked up something off the pavement. He slipped the lighter back into Roy’s hand.
“Or you could just try training the sword with your left hand.”
The steel railing bumped against Roy’s back. Marth was at his front, pressed up to him, arms around his neck.
“I could take lessons from Link.”
Roy wound his arms around Marth’s waist. His pulse raced. His whole body shook, but he tried to hide it. “Maybe he can teach you how to fight evil with a sock on your head,” he retorted as steadily as he could.
“Can he teach me how to do a barrel roll?”
Roy almost laughed. He couldn’t because he needed the air to breathe normally. “No, that’s different because--you know--it’s actually useful sometimes.”
The tips of Marth’s fingers found the scar at Roy’s eye again. He ventured softly, “Does it still hurt?”
“Huh?”
“Pit’s arrow.”
Roy clenched his teeth.
Two years ago, his left eye had been pierced by an arrow shaped from divine light. Even now, he could still recall the exact moment it hit--he could recall every second of it. He remembered the brightness, the blindness, and the impact, like a full-force punch to the face. It had burned through him--searing an everlasting impression into his retina before it lodged deeply into his skull. He had felt every millimeter of its penetration.
Then the energy dissipated, setting off fireworks inside his head. Pain pounded into the center of his being, drowning out sounds, drowning out thoughts, and filling his vision with mind-numbing flashes of color. He’d collapsed as convulsions racked his entire body.
He’d never known a greater agony than what he’d felt during those torturous minutes spent thrashing against the ground.
Everyone said that he didn’t stop screaming until he was sedated.
When he woke up, a day later, the wound was stitched shut and his eye bandaged, but he could not rid himself of the absolute brightness imprinted on his eye. It shone on, left of center, and it never went away, no matter how dark the night was, no matter how tightly he shut his eyes. He could not get rid of the light; he could not stop seeing it.
As the wound healed, the light did not fade. It merely condensed into a refined dot. It shone, even now, on the bridge with Marth--a small sun against the shadows. It did not waver. Wherever he cast his eyes, it followed his gaze. Flares and streetlights appeared with halos when he looked toward them, when their radiance overlapped with the brightness in his head. When he closed his eyes, it stood out like a pinhole cut into a box, or a lighthouse on a remote shore, one that neither approached nor retreated--nor dimmed.
Marth asked him: “Did you really call for me?”
“I couldn’t hear myself. Maybe I did. I don‘t know.”
The prince fell against him, as warm and as real as he’d been in their past. He smelled the same.
The pulse pounding against Roy’s chest felt just as real. The front of Marth’s coat was open, and Roy caught a glimpse of the powder-blue tunic underneath, a costume like the many they all wore for the fighting stage. It was ceremonial dress. Marth had officially handed over his title to Meta Knight at the victory celebration hours earlier.
Roy held his mouth against his friend’s neck, close to the jugular.
“Stay the hell away from bridges, Marth.”
“Why? I like it up here.”
“I don’t like you up here.”
His voice whispered into Roy’s ear: “I’m not afraid of heights. We live by the sword.”
Yes, Roy thought. He’d had no reason to fear the bridge. They would, like the ones before them, die by the same rules by which they lived.
Marth was dressed for a ritual, one that required a second sword to finish the job. He always called upon Roy. Roy never refused him, but he never followed through either.
So, they went on.
“Together,” Roy said. “Or not at all.”
Marth breathed against him, warm, against the cold, against gravity.
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*Trans. by Peter Beilenson, [1955], provided by sacred-texts.com (http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/jh/jh05.htm). [Punctuation and re-structure of last line added to original translation by this author, for stylistic purposes only.]
A/N: Comments and criticism appreciated. No, I don't know what I was smoking either.
Warning for implied homosexuality and other abominations.
Disclaimer: The following contains characters and concepts that are NOT the property of the author. They are the intellectual property of Nintendo, HAL Laboratories and their associates. This work of fanfiction is NOT endorsed by the original creators and is NOT in any way meant to insult the original work. The author has received NO monetary benefit from this piece of ****.
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Wings for the Wounded
Do your worst, old frost,
You can no longer wound me,
I, the last chrysanthemum.*
--Oemaru
---
He stood, his upper-body draped over the railing. His hair dangled into his face. His eyes were fixated on the water below rather than on the city lights on the horizon.
Had Roy been a stranger, he would not have noticed this portrait. The street lights colored them both like neon ghosts. The street beside them was empty of traffic. Before him, a shadow of dark coat and evening-sky hair stood alone, whispering something to the ocean waves below.
Roy brought the brown paper bag in his hand into the crook of his right arm.
At the sound of rustling paper, Marth looked over from his place at the railing. His face appeared a bit golden in this light. He straightened up.
Roy shifted weight to his other leg. "Uh, hey." He held up his offering with one hand. "I brought you something."
Marth brushed away a few strands of indigo hair from his eyes. He smiled.
Roy's stomach clenched hard.
That had to have been an invitation.
---
"I see you still carry your sword."
Roy shrugged. "Sometimes." The bundle, tightly-bound in cloth, rested on the ground between them, alongside Marth’s, similarly wrapped.
Beneath him, the concrete was hard. Sitting hunched over with his knees drawn up near his chest, he was aggravating multiple points along his spine. Roy unfurled himself and leaned back, palms against the sidewalk, legs stretched out into the street. A passing car would have mangled his lower limbs. But the bridge had been clear of cars since they'd met up.
Marth stared at Roy's knuckles, at the white bandages wrapped around them.
There was still money to be made outside of corporate-sponsored tournaments. It took very little to hold a fight. Just two guys, a room somewhere--a basement or a backroom--spectators willing to part with cash, and maybe a doctor on standby (maybe).
Roy had found out a while ago that he didn't need to be the best. He only had to be better than the other guy. He could stay in the unofficial, unacknowledged, illegitimate caste for as long as he wanted. He could win as long as he knew he was up against a weaker fighter. He could win as long as he picked the right opponent, the one with the sloppy moves, slow footwork, and a weak guard--the one who was overeager, inexperienced, or just plain stupid. He could win as long as he made sure he out-classed all of them and never got in over his head.
This strategy earned him spare change. Meanwhile, the pros made millions.
Yet Marth, with those millions, still chose to sit next to him on the cold pavement of a bridge, drinking booze from a paper bag. They were both at equal risk of getting picked up by the cops.
Without warning, Marth reached over and placed a hand on Roy's face. Roy held a breath. His friend traced the scar over his eye.
---
He had once come close to losing that eye. But whenever he looked into a mirror, he thought less of his near brush with blindness and more of his distorted features. Maybe he really was as vain as everyone else accused him of being. Did he ever step into the ring without having gone through a thirty-minute pre-fight battle with hair gel?
Pride was an asset to a fighter, and, sometimes, a malady. Roy had it in abundance, and wounded pride--like a compound fracture--didn’t always heal right.
The scar looked uglier every time he caught sight of his reflection in a mirror. His torso was itself a wreckage of skin--all scar tissue and faded lacerations--but it was the blemish on his face that bothered him the most. Was it his fault that the girls had liked his face? They had liked his hair too--the color of dried blood, styled to look careless and wild, because he knew people were going to look and he might as well let them see what he wanted them to see: a street brawler with fire for brains, one who never planned ahead, who charged into the fray without hesitation--someone who didn‘t think.
They got overconfident and exposed their weaknesses. He played dumb and masked his own.
When they thought they had him, that was when he changed course, feinted, and barreled through the openings they had so generously exposed to him.
No one saw through the facade--no one but Marth, and had that scar at his eye been drawn by Marth’s blade, Roy would have suffered no injury to his pride.
Had it not been a rookie with a boyish grin, wide eyes, and a cheeky attitude, Roy would have swallowed his pride. As it turned out, defeat tasted the most bitter when it came at the hands of a lesser opponent. Roy knew how to hold a grudge; he could still recall their pre-fight exchange:
‘Hi!’ the boy had greeted him. ‘Do you remember me?’
‘No,’ he had answered honestly.
‘Oh, well, we fought in the prelims last year. You sent me home real fast.’ His smile beamed.
‘Get ready for a repeat performance,’ Roy said.
The expression on the other’s face hardened. ‘I’ll give you a good fight this time. I want to make it into the league, as one of you.’
Roy’s grin turned cocky. ‘You’re not ready yet.’
But the newcomer had figured out two things about Roy: 1) Roy had no air game, and 2) Roy had no long-range capability. The swordsman usually tried to hide these deficiencies by forcing his opponents to fight him on the ground and at close range. But the newcomer would have none of that. When Roy closed in, the other took to the air. From a distance, the swordsman found himself assailed with arrows.
At the end of the day, Roy was the one who got sent home with stitches on his face and his entire left eye taped up with gauze.
He left, without a word to anyone. He did not stop to congratulate his opponent in the usual show of sportsmanship.
When he got to the main road, walking, someone called to him: Are you surprised?
There appeared to be no one about, but when he looked behind him, he saw the grey cat hovering just above the ground, forelimbs crossed, alien face unreadable.
‘Get out of my head. What’s it to you?’
The Pokemon’s voice only got louder in Roy’s mind: Everyone knows. Of all the wins attributed to you, 95% were fought against the bottom tier. The overall number looks impressive, but your reputation does not hold up to deeper scrutiny.
Roy turned his back on Mewtwo and followed the road.
He vowed that the next time he met that kid, he'd hack off both of those wings.
---
Marth withdrew his hand. Roy’s cheek felt cold.
“You could make a comeback if you tried,” Marth said, his voice drowsy with alcohol.
“You could take your title back if you wanted to,” Roy answered.
Marth turned away. His face, appearing now in profile, was the same face Roy had seen peering over the bridge.
The knot in Roy’s stomach tighten. Clouds lingered in his head and buzzed through his arteries, taking some of the edge off of everything, but the rest of his body stayed alert to certain cues.
Marth's moods were stable only when he was on a winning streak. His victories kept him afloat. His defeats sent him plummeting to depths beyond reach. Roy didn't understand it. He couldn't. After all, Roy had been born to lose.
The thing about the prince was that his sadness had no cure. The melancholy that swathed his days and nights like a cowl never lifted. Sometimes, it thinned enough to let a shimmer of moonlight through. Other times, it just got heavier.
One day, Roy thought, Marth was going to stop talking to the waves. One day, he’d be too exhausted to keep fighting the gravity that had been pulling at him all his life.
Marth whispered, “I’m tired.”
The stars were invisible. City skies always looked like this. Roy caught sight of a plane, a blinking red dot overhead.
In the left corner of the sky, another pinpoint of light shone, one that did not flash.
He knew it was not a star.
He made a living exploiting weaknesses. So he asked, “How long has it been like this?”
“I don't know. A year. Longer. Two. I think.” When Marth hid his eyes, it meant he was hiding tears.
Roy leaned over and pressed a kiss to his temple. Two years ago, Roy had left the pros.
Marth didn't look at him. “I thought we weren't doing this anymore.”
“That's up to you,” Roy managed to croak. He cleared his throat. “You'll be fine either way. I know you. You're--”
“I'm not. Whatever you think I am, I am not that. Pretending is the hardest part. I don't have the strength to keep it up anymore.”
In a moment of silence, Roy tried to figure out what that meant. “I guess you needed me around,” he said, “so you could feel better than someone.”
He immediately regretted it.
Marth was on his feet, ready to bolt, and Roy wanted to know why his tongue always seemed to throw his insecurities out into the open. He once swore off alcohol to keep from saying stupid things like that. He wished he had kept to that resolution.
He jumped up and caught Marth mid-flight. Roy got both arms around him and trapped him against the railing.
A height disadvantage meant he had to speak to Marth’s shoulder. “Sorry. You know I didn’t mean that.”
A whisper, somewhere above Roy’s head, answered: “Shut up. I hate you.”
That was okay, Roy thought. Marth didn’t mean it. And if he did…it was still okay. Roy kissed the exposed hollow of his throat. Marth closed his eyes and shivered under his thin coat. Then he sagged, like dead weight, like an anchor, and dragged both of them to the ground.
Roy held on. Through the coat, he felt the contours of his friend’s body. Beneath fluid muscles, there were slender bones still strong enough to carry the weight of the both of them. Together, they slumped onto the concrete, Marth propped up against the metal bars, Roy crouched in front of him.
Roy cupped one side of his friend’s face. After a moment, Marth opened his eyes. He lifted a hand and wrapped his fingers loosely around Roy’s wrist. The cast on his right hand and forearm showed itself.
Twenty-four hours ago, Marth had lost the championship title. It was then that the world of competitive fighting had borne witness to the most major upset in Smash history since the time Pichu owned Bowser during a preliminary a few years back. This time, it came at the hands of a little-known challenger. He had entered as the underdog. He went by the name of Meta Knight.
Champion and challenger had been evenly matched until the middle of the fight, when Meta Knight displayed the utility of his strange sword, which included prongs protruding out of both cutting edges of the blade. It was an unorthodox weapon. No one had ever seen those extraneous side fixtures used in battle before. For this reason, Marth must not have known how to react when both fighters clashed blades and his own sword slipped neatly into one of those prongs. Meta Knight had slid his weapon down to his opponent’s hilt and trapped the other swordsman’s hand. Then, propelled by a single flap of his right wing, he’d leapt into the air and cartwheeled over Marth’s sword, turning his own weapon like a wrench. This succeeded in disarming the former champion. It also completely fractured the top-ranked fighter’s wrist, broke several bones in his hand, and tore apart various tendons and ligaments.
So, in such fashion, Meta Knight was able to ascend the winner’s podium and accept the title. He had been almost too small to pick up on the stadium cameras. But when he opened both wings--dark and bat-like--he seemed twice as large. The crowd had roared and risen to its feet to honor him like a true champion.
So, in such fashion, Marth now sat with Roy on a bridge to nowhere, under a sky without stars.
Marth leaned into his friend’s touch. His right hand--his sword hand--could not form a proper grip around Roy's.
“Marth. It’ll heal.”
“No. It won’t.” For all the fatigue in his voice, he sounded convinced. “Doctor Mario already gave me the prognosis. They tried. They used their best machines and their strongest magic. They can’t fix this.”
Somewhere behind Roy, their swords still lay next to each other.
“Get another opinion.”
“It’s over,” Marth said. “What I was. Is over.”
Roy brought their foreheads together. When the other fighter closed his eyes again, Roy pressed his mouth against Marth’s. There came a taste of something stronger than alcohol, something half salt and half sulfur--like bitter potions and medicine, something for the pain. He was soft beyond his outer skin, but he didn’t respond.
Roy drew back. He knew the right answer this time.
“You really think your life is over?”
“Yes.”
“Then, you want to come die with me?”
Marth opened his eyes. “What?”
Without a word, Roy turned and reached for the liquor bottle in the paper bag. He found his switchblade in one jacket pocket and his lighter in another. He opened the knife, flicked the light, and passed the blade through the flame. He closed the lighter and pocketed it. Then he looked at Marth.
“Trust me.” He offered an open palm.
Marth took it with the hand that was still intact.
A single prick each, on their pinky fingers, offered enough blood to dribble down the insides of the amber glass. Roy, in the past, enjoyed drawing the blood of others. He did not enjoy drawing his own. He stared, determined, at the dark red drop as it separated from his finger. An unexpected pain burned at his fingertip. He didn’t know why a small thing like this hurt so much--he had been pummeled, kicked, stabbed, slashed, and bludgeoned with an array of objects designed to maim and kill. There was no reason for him to be as bothered by this as he was.
He glanced at Marth. Roy recalled how he had not flinched when the knife cut him.
There were some napkins from the liquor store at the bottom of the bag. Roy reached in, grabbed a couple, and pressed them against the small cut on Marth’s finger. It was just a tiny puncture wound, like a prick from a needle. But he held onto Marth’s hand and kept applying pressure, as if it were a severed artery.
After a time, Marth pulled one of the tissues free with the index and middle finger of his injured hand. He wiped the napkin along Roy’s forearm. Only then did Roy notice that he had a long red trail creeping down toward his elbow.
Suddenly, the chill in the air hit him, straight to his bones.
Marth cleaned off the blood. Roy’s finger smarted when the napkin touched it, but the blood there had already clotted. After folding the tissue paper in half, Marth dabbed it against Roy’s forehead, where beads of sweat had formed.
Roy took a few calming breaths and finally released his friend’s hand. He wiped the knife and put it away. Then he stuffed the bottle with the bloodied tissues and the crumpled up paper bag, which he twisted so it would fit into the neck of the bottle. He left it protruding from the mouth.
He took Marth by the hand and pulled him to his feet. He led him over to the railing. There, Roy held the bottle over the edge.
He pulled the lighter from his pocket again.
“Lover’s suicide.” He adjusted the flame intensity and flicked the trigger, but the ocean winds were too strong. The cold air stung his face and fingers, and the fire died. He flicked the lighter again and again.
Marth reached out to shield the spark with one hand, the wounded one.
The flame shot up, four times the height it had been some minutes ago.
Marth leaned back slightly. He looked at Roy.
“I modified it,” Roy said in answer to the unspoken question. The fire caught to the paper bag. They waited until the flame grew brighter, stronger, and began to burn down into the bottle.
“Ready?” Roy whispered. “Three, two, one…go!”
At once, they both let go.
The fire sank into the dark. In a flash, they saw the surface of the ocean, its wrinkled grey surface, its waves. Then the flames vanished.
Roy watched, waiting for a sound of impact that never came. Then he looked up and found Marth gazing at the horizon.
“If this is what it feels like to be drunk,” Marth whispered, “I’d like to be drunk all the time.”
“Drunk? I’m only a little buzzed. You’re more of a lightweight than Zelda.”
The prince laughed.
Roy liked his smile. He would have said this, but some things just sounded stupid out loud. Instead, he leaned with his arms on the railing and flicked his lighter. The city, in the distance, still shone, still glittered.
A small bright dot stood out somewhere ahead of him, to the left, looking like the light of a stationary ship on the water.
Not a ship, he told himself.
“I missed this,” Marth said.
“You missed me?”
Marth leaned out over the abyss. His smile stayed in place.
“Fame is a joke,” Roy told him. “You leave for a year or two, and everyone forgets you.”
“No one ever noticed you in the first place, Roy.”
In one smooth motion, unhindered by his injury, Marth climbed up onto the railing. He stood straight, facing the ocean, and slowly stretched out his arms. The wind picked up his hair and the loose edges of his coat.
Roy froze. He was sober now. He lowered his arms to his sides, fists clenched. He recalled Marth’s hair-trigger reflexes. He tried to not make any sudden moves.
For a long time, they both held still. Finally, Roy summoned the voice necessary to call his friend’s name.
And then, Marth lifted his right foot, crossed it behind his left leg, and touched it down onto the steel rail.
Roy stared at the flex of his toes, at the ball of his foot firmly planted, straining the canvas of his flimsy sneakers. He remembered, then, that Sheik had once taught Marth how to walk a tightrope. It was the position of that right leg that allowed Roy to release a shaky breath. The tightness in his gut eased.
Marth fell.
And Roy was in place in catch him. Turned sideways, he got one arm across Marth’s back, the other behind the knees. In his arms, Marth felt solid, a heavy curtain, not a dream, not a portrait. Roy swayed back with the momentum. Then he dropped his friend, feet-first, onto the ground.
Marth held onto Roy’s sleeve and didn’t let go. “How did I know you would do that?” He was breathless but still smiling.
Roy suddenly had trouble breathing himself. His throat felt raw and cold. “Yeah, how did you know?” he panted out. “We can’t fly, and you could’ve cracked your head wide open.”
“Someday. We’ll figure it out.” Marth stooped and picked up something off the pavement. He slipped the lighter back into Roy’s hand.
“Or you could just try training the sword with your left hand.”
The steel railing bumped against Roy’s back. Marth was at his front, pressed up to him, arms around his neck.
“I could take lessons from Link.”
Roy wound his arms around Marth’s waist. His pulse raced. His whole body shook, but he tried to hide it. “Maybe he can teach you how to fight evil with a sock on your head,” he retorted as steadily as he could.
“Can he teach me how to do a barrel roll?”
Roy almost laughed. He couldn’t because he needed the air to breathe normally. “No, that’s different because--you know--it’s actually useful sometimes.”
The tips of Marth’s fingers found the scar at Roy’s eye again. He ventured softly, “Does it still hurt?”
“Huh?”
“Pit’s arrow.”
Roy clenched his teeth.
Two years ago, his left eye had been pierced by an arrow shaped from divine light. Even now, he could still recall the exact moment it hit--he could recall every second of it. He remembered the brightness, the blindness, and the impact, like a full-force punch to the face. It had burned through him--searing an everlasting impression into his retina before it lodged deeply into his skull. He had felt every millimeter of its penetration.
Then the energy dissipated, setting off fireworks inside his head. Pain pounded into the center of his being, drowning out sounds, drowning out thoughts, and filling his vision with mind-numbing flashes of color. He’d collapsed as convulsions racked his entire body.
He’d never known a greater agony than what he’d felt during those torturous minutes spent thrashing against the ground.
Everyone said that he didn’t stop screaming until he was sedated.
When he woke up, a day later, the wound was stitched shut and his eye bandaged, but he could not rid himself of the absolute brightness imprinted on his eye. It shone on, left of center, and it never went away, no matter how dark the night was, no matter how tightly he shut his eyes. He could not get rid of the light; he could not stop seeing it.
As the wound healed, the light did not fade. It merely condensed into a refined dot. It shone, even now, on the bridge with Marth--a small sun against the shadows. It did not waver. Wherever he cast his eyes, it followed his gaze. Flares and streetlights appeared with halos when he looked toward them, when their radiance overlapped with the brightness in his head. When he closed his eyes, it stood out like a pinhole cut into a box, or a lighthouse on a remote shore, one that neither approached nor retreated--nor dimmed.
Marth asked him: “Did you really call for me?”
“I couldn’t hear myself. Maybe I did. I don‘t know.”
The prince fell against him, as warm and as real as he’d been in their past. He smelled the same.
The pulse pounding against Roy’s chest felt just as real. The front of Marth’s coat was open, and Roy caught a glimpse of the powder-blue tunic underneath, a costume like the many they all wore for the fighting stage. It was ceremonial dress. Marth had officially handed over his title to Meta Knight at the victory celebration hours earlier.
Roy held his mouth against his friend’s neck, close to the jugular.
“Stay the hell away from bridges, Marth.”
“Why? I like it up here.”
“I don’t like you up here.”
His voice whispered into Roy’s ear: “I’m not afraid of heights. We live by the sword.”
Yes, Roy thought. He’d had no reason to fear the bridge. They would, like the ones before them, die by the same rules by which they lived.
Marth was dressed for a ritual, one that required a second sword to finish the job. He always called upon Roy. Roy never refused him, but he never followed through either.
So, they went on.
“Together,” Roy said. “Or not at all.”
Marth breathed against him, warm, against the cold, against gravity.
-------------------------------------------------
*Trans. by Peter Beilenson, [1955], provided by sacred-texts.com (http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/jh/jh05.htm). [Punctuation and re-structure of last line added to original translation by this author, for stylistic purposes only.]
A/N: Comments and criticism appreciated. No, I don't know what I was smoking either.
