A Dance of Swords - Oziah/Delilah

Set after Full Metal Archivist (5/10). Delilah and Oziah, swords, bants and just a coupla girls being idiots. Co-written with Riah 🖤 Ghesh used with permission.

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They had barely cleared the Swamp Gate before Deimos broke into a full gallop. His long, skeletal legs were a blur underneath him, kicking up red dust as he bore the two women eastward at an almost frenzied pace. Delilah reflexively tightened her arm where it was slung around Oziah’s waist, bunching a fist in her cloak to not be unseated. Oziah either didn’t notice or didn’t care – clearly needing the exertion of a dead sprint to clear her head.
They crested a hill and the updraft caught Deimos’ wings, buffeting him, and for a brief moment Delilah could have sworn he was going to take flight and soar into the bright blue autumn sky. Instead he charged forward, still bound to the red earth beneath them. The Pale Daughter wondered briefly if his tattered wings would ever be able to carry him. Oziah – possibly mulling over the same quandary – growled her frustration under her breath and urged him forwards.

They’re almost halfway to Fort Ettin when Deimos finally slows his pace and Oziah straightens her back. She’s breathing deeply in time with her mount and Delilah can feel how she slowly, consciously lowers her shoulders and gets her breathing under control, like a steel wire slowly uncoiling under her arm.

“Feel better?” comes the quiet velvet voice behind Oziah. She can hear the grin around the words.

Delilah feels rather than hears the short laugh from the other woman.

“Marginally. I’d feel fantastic had I not made an absolute tit of myself back there. I pride myself on being a professional and somehow I fell on my face more times than I actually hit the fucking thing.”

Delilah is silent for a moment. “Tit or no, at least you were doing something sort of helpful.” She leans to the side a little. “And your face seems fine to me.”

They clear another hill and in the distance Fort Ettin rises from the red ground. Oziah glances briefly over her shoulder.

“You seemed to know it. Him? The modron. Who is he?”

“He’s a hexadron, to be precise,” Delilah replies. “Jack. Once he was a prisoner of the previous Twilight Queen, now he is a fugitive. His untimely escape just so happened to be on the day of the her assassination.”

“Hm. So he’s in league with someone. And presumably you’re looking to stop them from enacting some sort of nefarious plot. Am I getting warmer?” Her words may have sounded dry and almost mocking if it weren’t for the undercurrent of amicable banter.

“Pretty much. Though before you ask, I don’t have all the pieces to know what sort of plot he may be concocting.” She pauses. “Today has only raised even more questions,” Delilah practically growls out.

They ride in silence for a moment, the large red Fort drawing steadily closer.


“Why does it matter so much that others perceive you as a ‘professional’?”

Oziah’s back stiffens once more, taking on the ramrod posture of a trained soldier. She doesn’t turn her head to reply but after a moment the words come anyway, dark and heavy like rain clouds.

“Because I am one. Because I worked hard to be one. There was a time in my life when people could have claimed that I had been handed all of my abilities on a silver platter. But I was broken down to nothing and had to build myself back up. Now I demand the respect that I have earned. That I am owed.”

She turns her head almost imperceptibly to glance back at the other woman.

“Why do you hide your face?”

“Because it is not my face that will be remembered, it will be my blade,” comes the short, sharp reply. A single eyebrow arcs upwards. “Respect you are owed, hmm? I’ve known plenty of people who claimed they were owed something, only to be given death as payment. I certainly hope that won’t be where your path leads you. You seem…” Delilah didn’t actually know how to finish that sentence and so opted for a vague hand gesture instead.

She suddenly wished she could slink away into the shadows. Now Oziah turned her head, showing a distinct curve to the corner of her mouth and a pointed, raised eyebrow.

“Fear not. I have no plans of dying for either cause or gold. And my face will remain intact – I want it to be the last thing they see.”

Another moment passes in silence before Oziah continues.


“Your skill with the blade is impressive. A thing worth being remembered by. Question is, how does it hold up against adamantine splint mail?”

The challenge is laid out plainly before the other woman, almost obvious enough to be a trap. Even as the Pale Daughter’s eyes narrow her heart quickens.

“I have never tried,” she begins, the jet black pyramid orbiting her head flashing across Delilah’s vision, “but I would enjoy it greatly if I could find out. Perhaps you won’t fall as quickly as others have wearing such cumbersome protections.”

Oziah doesn’t dignify the rhetorical question with a response. The grin at the corner of her mouth sharpens and then Delilah has to grab on to the other woman’s cloak again as Deimos takes off at breakneck speed once more.


They pass under the open gates of the Fort as the sun tips further into the west. Delilah silently and deftly jumps off the skeletal, winged monstrosity the moment Deimos slows down. As she turns back to the mount and its rider, a blur of black fur preceded by a feline yowl darts under the skeletal horse’s legs. Deimos starts a little but the black cat has already passed through, leaping up to the masked woman’s shoulder.

“Hello, my little trouble maker,” Delilah says in Elvish to the cat headbutting her cheek. Oziah can hear the little thing purring from where she is as she also dismounts. It is the first time she’s seen any kind of softness from the slight woman. Oziah doesn’t comment but places a gentle hand on Deimos’ neck before he turns and walks quietly to the stables.

“You’ve been to the Fort before, I presume?” Delilah asks, that softness gone as the cat leaps down. Something catches its amber eyes and it begins to slink away, clearly on the hunt.

Oziah’s blue eyes scan the courtyard, unreadable.

“I used to live here.” She lifts her pack and slings it over one shoulder, unbothered by the weight of the newly-acquired armor in it.

“And while the Flourished Hooks is better suited to my taste in food, drink, lodging and patrons – present company excluded of course-”, the sharp grin tugs at the corner of her mouth again, “-I’ll admit I do miss having a training yard.”

She gestures politely to the western side of the massive courtyard, her eyes the only indicator of impropriety.

“After you.”


Delilah gives a low chuckle and the two head over to the training yard. Neither speak as the courtyard grows dim. Unseen tabards light torches and lanterns, illuminating the mezzanine balconies above and casting a warm, flickering light over the sanded square. Oziah undoes buckles and straps of her armour, stripping her old splint mail with meticulous efficiency. Delilah starts limbering up, but her dark eyes keep slipping over to the other woman every now and then, assessing her movements, amongst other things. Oziah makes a neat pile of her now downgraded armour and starts the process of donning her adamantine splint. In the ten minutes it takes, a small crowd begins to gather, some familiar faces amongst the crowd – a few with a leg of meat, others with a tankard of drink, some quietly exchanging coins. The two do not pay the gallery any attention though. It is in the flicker of firelight that Oziah looks Delilah dead in the eye as she fastens the last buckle.

“Let’s dance.”

Grinning under her mask, the Pale Daughter draws two blades – a green tinged dagger and a golden shortsword that looks like a bow – whilst Oziah hefts her shield and cleaves the air with her dark longsword. The two circle each other slowly, each step precise, daring the other to break and make the first move. From the curtain wall two stories above, more residents of the Fort have gathered to watch the fight.

Oziah lunges first, getting a two strikes in, but Delilah is fractions of a second behind with her own attacks. The two swing and hit without slashing or wounding, simply getting the measure of the other. They clash for a moment, only to break apart and begin circling again. Delilah narrows her eyes above her dagger, held at the ready, the jet black triangular pyramid orbiting her head glinting orange-red in the torchlight. Despite their run-in with Jack earlier that day, her hand is steady as a rock.

“If you’re done coquetting…” she says, voice low.

Oziah bares her teeth.

In a flash they’re both moving too fast for the eye to really see. The spectators on the walls and outside the dirt yard cheer as they finally get some real action. It’s over in less than a minute, yet for the two fighters it is like a quickstep – powerfully flowing and sprinkled with syncopations. They stop and start, darting from shadow to shadow, weaving magic and breaking skin. Oziah moves with magically enhanced speed only to be stopped short by Delilah’s uncanny knowledge of where to strike to lock her entire body up mid-step. In twists and turns they wrench control of the fight from one another. For a second, Delilah looks like the clear winner but Oziah straightens, her teeth bloody as she grins. She heals herself and lashes out with a shadowy surge of energy, halfway between radiant and necrotic, the smaller, slighter woman barely able to keep her feet under her as she dodges the heavy blow.

The amaranthine splint armour holds true as Delilah tries to bend her blades past Oziah’s defenses but her head is singing a tune that does match the beat of the dance. She flits across the yard, but the dark-winged angel does not let her get far. With another swing of her longsword, Oziah cuts at Delilah. Blood sprays the ground, the shadows roil, and Delilah uses the momentum to pirouette around. The fight turns again for the last time, the girl of shadows knowing the steps of the dance that Oziah does not, blades piercing and slashing through the opening presented to her – and suddenly it is over.

The aasimar hits the dirt with a heavy thud. The night is still for a breath. Then a long-suffering volunteer at the medical tent shuffles over to pour a healing potion down her throat. She comes to coughing and tips sideways to spit blood in the sand next to her before rolling over on her back. Oziah looks at the first few stars in the darkening sky and then the woman standing over her, face obscured by darkness, and laughs.


The spectators on the balconies slowly begin to disperse when they gather that there will be no more fighting. Oziah lets out a groan as she gets to her feet, but her smile remains firmly on her face. It’s a genuine one, wide and carefree, unguarded even. Granted, they haven’t known each other long but it’s the first time Delilah has seen the other woman smile in this way and it takes her a moment to realise her heart is still racing, the fire not leaving her veins. She had reached a hand out to help Oziah up and now the aasimar is on her feet but somehow their hands are still clasped. Strange.

“It’s been a long time since someone bested me in single combat. You are… formidable.”

Delilah gazes a moment longer at Oziah’s beautiful visage, her eyes so blue, like the sky as the sun begins to set and the night rolls in. Her fingers twitch, and it’s then she realises she is still holding onto the other woman’s hand and she lets go, as if scalded by some unknown heat.

“I try to be,” she says, taking a small step back, a poor attempt at hiding her sudden withdrawal. “With that armour, your ability to heal, and that incredible weapon you are…” It was the second time that day she did not know how to finish her sentence and a mild panic began to sweep over her. Then her mind catches up with her mouth and she finds the words she thinks she was looking for.

“…someone I would not wish to cross lightly.”

An eon passes as the two lethal women stand in the yard, blushing ever so slightly, and fumble for words that have ruthlessly deserted them.

“Uh, ‘scuse me, are you… Done?”

Ghesh, the Skull Drake Inkarnate and Legend of Kundar shuffles his feet a little awkwardly, as if the strange tension between Delilah and Oziah is now permeating the air around them. The enormous dragonborn gestures to the rest of the training yard with one of the many weapons he seems to be in possession of.

“I was hoping to get some work in before bed, is all.”

The spell broken, Oziah quickly snatches up her discarded armour.

“Yes. Certainly. I mean, of course. We’re done. With the training.”

Delilah nods quickly in agreement and the two make a hasty retreat. Wandering a little aimlessly around the courtyard they eventually find a corner outside an unoccupied room. The balcony above casts a long shadow, hiding them from the many prying eyes of the adventuring community. Oziah clears her throat a little before speaking.


“So. That was… nice.” A look of consternation crosses her face briefly. “I wouldn’t be averse to doing it again. Sometime?”

“Yes,” came the almost too quick reply. “Yes. I, too, would like that. Are you going to be staying in the Fort? I need to go to my Draconic lessons but perhaps we can spar again… tomorrow evening?”

“Yes!” Oziah replies, just as fast, before frowning suddenly. “Fuck. Sorry, no, I have… A thing. And then maybe a job? Something about a tanner, lost his tapestry. So maybe five or six days hence?”

“It’s a date,” Delilah says.

The words reverberate back and forth between the two for a moment.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Oziah says eventually, after tearing her eyes away from Delilah’s. “Any news of Jack or Farstep, you’ll be the first to know.”

She gives a small bow, clutching her bundle of old splint to her chest.

“Goodnight, my lady.”

Delilah barks a laugh. When Oziah gives her a look, she holds up her hands.

“Apologies. I’m not used to being called a lady. It’s…” she trails off and frowns. “It’s certainly not something I ever expected to be called.”

Delilah straightens up and then bows rather formally. “May the stars light your path, Lady Oziah.”

Oziah pauses for another long moment, just looking. Then she laughs and shakes her head, seemingly at herself, and with a final smile makes towards the stairs leading up to the second floor.



To Be Continued.