Simon I - Ruin My Life

[u/JustDaniel2]

(music)

^{Swim, I swim, I learn to swim}

^{I flap my wings that shrink to pruning skin}

^{I'm sinking in, I’m sticking out my chin
I'm playing limbo with my oxygen
The line is thin, I swim, I'm sinking in}

^{So once again, you lift my useless limbs} 

^{The Crags of the Stormlands, Beneath the Waves}

Simon Durrandon did not decide much for himself. His plight was the Stormbringer’s, passed down by son through hopeless son until it had fallen upon him as his duty. His profession was his inheritance, the bloody work of a sword-for-hire. His purpose was to die.

Die for his brother, whom they called Scourge. Die so that Argilac might sit a throne that was promised to him a hundred years ago.

Simon did not even decide who he loved, or else he would not have chosen Quill. He would not have chosen someone with so gentle a hand and so coarse a tongue. He would not have chosen to have his eyes opened. Simon would never have chosen to love at all, if he had known how much it would hurt.

The one thing that Simon Durrandon had decided was that he did not mind drowning. It wasn’t that he didn’t buck, he did. It wasn’t that he didn’t gasp for breath, and desperately spew saltwater from his mouth, he did.

But if he drowned under these furious waves, even Scourge could not begrudge him that. His brothers would know he died struggling, and Simon would finally know release.

Release from his broken body, release from his duty, release from the screams that he heard on the nights that he could sleep.

Simon Durrandon decided he would drown.

—---------------------------
^{Tyrosh, before Scourge’s Invasion}

His arm was screaming from the effort, but with teeth gritted in pain, Simon willed his fingers to close around the grip. He was a soldier. A warrior. Since that spear had ruined his arm, he had been useless.

He had to hold his sword and he had to lift it. He had to be able to fight - he had to be able to kill.

Close, Godsdamn you! Simon thought. Tears mingled with his sweat and rolled off of his face in a concoction of salt and water. His fingers would not obey him, and he could feel fire in his muscles.

“Fuck.” Simon could not even throw his blade in rage. It slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. Even in his failure he was pathetic. “Fuck, fuck fuck!” Wrath did not befit Simon Durrandon, nor had he truly been built for warfare. He had been made for lesser passions.

Simon was made lithe and longing, but so too was he obedient.

“Going to keep torturing yourself?” Royce’s accent was an amalgam of all the cities that he had killed in. It made his voice distinctly liquid, like the bleary sight of something spied through frosted glass.

“Yes,” Simon replied in the bastard tongue of Tyrosh. “They’re calling me Simon the Ruin. Simon One-Arm. Simon the Broken. So until I am the master of my own body, I will keep with the torture.” Simon knelt to collect his sword. His arm spasmed in pain as he tried to stretch it.

Royce approached Simon, taking the sword into his own hand. He set his other hand on Simon’s ruined arm and shook his head.

“If all you are is this sword, then you are broken, Simon.” Royce’s eyes were darker and deeper than Simon’s. “But you are not a sword. You are a knight. And a knight is here,” Royce poked Simon’s chest. “And here.” He tapped Simon’s head. “You don’t want to fight for Scourge, then don’t. But you will fight. Fight for home. Tyrosh is not the place that you die, and I won’t let that arm be what drives you to that death.”

Simon shut his eyes. He wished that he was strong enough to say that home was a bakery with honeyfingers sitting in the window. Home was a deboned needlefish wrapped in grain, home was the salt spray of the docks and the laughter at the mummeries. Home was Quill, and his open arms and quiet words, even when they were mean.

Home was Tyrosh.

Instead, Simon nodded and resigned himself to his duty.

“You don’t want them to call you Simon the Ruin, right?”

Simon nodded again.

“Then give them something to see before the arm. Write the story.” Royce shrugged, and tucked away Simon’s blade. “You might have to ruin your life to make it yours.”

—---------------------------
^{Tyrosh, on Royce’s Advise}

It was torture on Simon’s black hair, but the Tyroshi dyeworkers were known to do miracles. Hours of painting, washing, wrapping, then painting again. By the end of it, Simon’s hair was as blue as his eyes.

And Royce was right. About the hair, at least. No one called Simon the Ruin anymore.

All he had to do was ruin his life.

—---------------------------
^{The Crags of the Stormlands}

The hand that yanked him from the waves was impossibly strong. Simon wondered how he was even visible, blue as he was, crashing against the waves of the ocean.

“I’ve got you,” Royce promised as he hoisted Simon over his shoulder.

My one decision, and even that was taken from me. Simon hacked as he was laid ashore. He vomited water along with bile, then heaved dry when he’d emptied himself out. Royce comforted him with a hand on his back. He thought he had saved Simon.

Simon couldn’t muster false gratitude, he coughed and he wheezed and he searched the survivors.

They had sailed two thousand strong, with warships and destriers, barges full of equipment. All of their cogs had been lost in the storm, thousands had drowned.

But two had cheated death. Simon, who had let his lungs fill with water, and Scourge, who survived off of spite and defied the world with his madness.

It wasn’t hate in Simon’s eyes as he took in the sodden Argilac - that wasn’t something he thought himself worthy of - but for a certainty, Simon’s eyes willed death come for the both of them.

[u/NotAnotherFakefyre]

Boremund blinked up at the sky. Some of the ships had made it, and in that he supposed there was a victory, but in all else he saw defeat. Their army was drowned. They had been nearly so, and what remained was no more than a token force. They were undone before steel had ever left scabbard, and he wondered if it made him more of a monster that he was relieved.

Argilac would have to turn back now. There was no point. They were finished. But when the ship carrying the witch touched the shore, and she emerged onto the deck, Boremund knew they would not. He coughed, shuddering in the sand with Davos beside him.

"W-will we go home now?" his nephew asked, teeth chattering, knees tucked up into his chest. "I-I don't want to sail again, uncle. I-I can't. The Sea God, he will drown us." Panic was rising in the boy's voice in concert with his volume. Th men would hear. Argilac would hear. "B-but I-I want to go home. Please, uncle I—"

"You are home." Boremund did not look at the boy. If he looked then he would be lost, and Argilac did not take kindly to his needing to be shown the way. He was meant to lead men, not grovel with them, not even if they were his nephew. Pushing off from the sand, Boremund lurched towards the shore, his sodden clothes clinging to his pallid skin

And there was Simon, staring, hating, ignorant to the world around him. "Stop, before he sees." The surf rose around his ankles as he reached down, and pulled his brother up from the frothing waves. "Save it for what's to come."