He practices with it as he grows. He grows quicker than his peers, because he is half-human, but it is still so slow. It takes him another twenty years before he can properly swing it, even though he realizes eventually that it is strangely light for a blade its size.

He gets good with it, eventually. Very, very good.

It is the prettiest sword. It's perfectly balanced, its edge never dulls, and whatever that glossy black blade is made of, it proves impossible to scratch or tarnish; even the delicate golden filigree remains pristine no matter how many times he accidentally bangs it against a rock. For all that, though, it doesn't actually seem to be magic. At least, not in any detectable way. At least, not at first...

It may not have a magic aura, but something doesn't add up. Tintin knows enough by now to realize that a sword like this is not simply abandoned in the forest. He should have found a body next to it, at the very least. But the fact of the matter is that it is a very nice sword, and it is his, and he loves it very much. He practices with it every day, and polishes it even though it does not really need polishing, and he would not trade it for the world.

Besides, this is not the only inexplicable thing that has ever happened to him. Inexplicable things happen to him on a fairly regular basis.

The first thing the sword ever feels is the shock of impact and the taste of blood on his blade.

It's a good feeling.

There are other good feelings after that. Being drawn and swung is exhilarating; being polished and sheathed is restful. The world is a place of sleepy timelessness and pleasant sensations.

Slowly, he awakens to his wielder's sensations as well as his own. The feeling of motion, first, and then touch, and taste, and if he were awake enough to have expectations he'd expect that was all the senses there were, but he's wrong; there's hearing, too, and sight. Sight is a surprise. His first clear memory of having thoughts about his own experience of the world is being surprised by sight.

The next surprise, not long after that one, is when he starts getting echoes of thought and emotion.

Fondness. The thrill of sparring. An unexpected opening, a quick, elegant slash, the taste of blood (just barely a taste, barely a papercut).

"-parry, Eskandar, parry! You're lucky I'm better at this than you are!"

     "Bite me, Tinuvian!"

"Hit me, Vanellon!"

Parry, parry, dance out of the way, slash again. This time it doesn't quite connect.

Oh what good feelings these are!! What lovely and pretty and delightful feelings!!

Later...

"Well, my friend, it would seem we are needed," Tintin says, patting the blade on his hip. "There is a dire wolf, and I am known to kill wolves, and I suppose that is enough for some people to decide that the problem is mine to solve. What they would do without me, I do not know."

Words... words are a thing. There are thoughts in them. It's easier to hear the thoughts, overall, but he's starting to catch some of the words too.

Light gleams from his filigreed hilt. He thinks he will like solving this problem. He thinks he likes being a friend.

"Perhaps when they reward me for my heroic efforts I will take you to a wizard and have you enchanted," he muses, advancing among the trees. "You are a lovely sword, but the maintenance of one's blade cannot be neglected."

Enchanted? What an odd idea... anyway, he doesn't need maintenance, he's perfect.

"Ah, how indignant and vain you are," Tintin laughs.

"...I do not think that entirely followed. Mon épee, have you influenced me in some way?"

Influenced...? Oh! Is his Tintin starting to get echoes of his feelings? That's so good! Friendship!!

"Well, that certainly did not follow. But it is good to know that you consider me a friend... you would, I suppose, either consider me a very dear friend or a very dear enemy."

Friend!! Friend friend friend. Good friend. Best friend!! The best out of all imaginable friends!

One gets the impression that if swords could hug people, this one would be trying.

"I suppose I cannot argue with that. I do not know if I would be so sanguine about having been in someone else's possession... though perhaps I do not know my own mind."

He strokes his sword's pommel absently. "If you are so clever that you can be friendly, perhaps you need a name?"

The sword is still kind of shaky on the concept of words, let alone names, and isn't sure what he might need one for, but maybe it will make more sense when he has more practice with this whole language thing. Sight took a long time to start making sense too.

"Well, you do not need to have a name, I suppose, but it would be convenient for me to give you one if I am to explain you to anyone else. How would you feel if I called you Zarhan?"

That's some sounds. He likes the sounds, he thinks. It's hard to be sure. He likes the way his Tintin says them, anyway.

"Zarhan, mon petit épee, you are so possessive. I suppose it is only fair, when I am so possessive of you."

Once again he rubs Zarhan's pommel. "Can you feel it when I pet you? Or should I beam affection in your general direction? Perhaps I will do that anyway." He makes his best effort.

He can, he can feel it when Tintin pets him!! Affection-beaming is also good, though. He beams affection back. (There is a lot of it.)

It is at this point that a fuckhuge wolf leaps out of the trees.

Tintin draws his sword and dances away from the beast in one fluid motion. "Putain de merde de bordel-"

!!

Suddenly he's all focus. Protecting Tintin is the most important thing, and also fighting is—immersive, it pulls all his attention together into the things that are happening.

This is good, because a lot of things are happening very quickly. Tintin is slashing and dodging and being bitten in the leg (a flash of searing pain that coasts into a deep throbbing agony) and swearing loudly and swinging Zarhan in a close-in arc that sweeps the wolf's head off its shoulders.

He stands there, panting. "I did not enjoy that."

Oh, wow, how about that. Zarhan did! Except for the part where Tintin got bit, Tintin getting hurt is terrible. But all the rest of it was very good.

"...I suppose it would make sense that a sword might be a bit bloodthirsty. I enjoyed parts of it, I will admit - there is a thrill to fighting. But it was somewhat eclipsed by the bite. Speaking of which-"

He cuts his trouser leg off at the knee and does his best to bandage the wound. "I do not think I am too badly hurt, Madame Felicity will be able to take care of it. But it is best to be safe."

Yes. Important to be safe. Tintin is a very good and beloved friend and he should be SO safe ALWAYS and NOT get hurt.

Tintin returns to town and stops in at the Temple of Calistria. "Madame Felicity?"

A woman emerges from a back room, drying her hands on a silk cloth. "I see you've managed to mangle yourself."

This is all very mysterious but Zarhan is still a little keyed up from the fight and is a little bit wondering if they are going to end up stabbing her. She seems like she would be fun to stab. Then again, it is possible that Zarhan thinks this about most living creatures.

Tintin pets Zarhan absently. "Indeed I have; sharp as ever, my lady. Heal me?"

"Oh, fondle your sword at me about it, why don't you?" Her eyes glow viridescent, and there's a wash of prickling energy through the room, and the wound on Tintin's leg closes up.

"I'm not fondling him at you," Tintin apologizes.

Oh!! This person should NOT be stabbed!! This person did a very good thing and Zarhan is happy about it. What is the opposite of stabbing? He wants to do the opposite of stabbing to her. Is it pats? Can he pat her?? He probably cannot pat her because he is not independently mobile. Can Tintin pat her?

Tintin's hand twitches. "Ah - Felicity, this may sound like an odd question - may I hug you?"

"You're right," she says. "That sounds like an odd question."

"...my sword has awoken," he attempts to explain. Noticing her expression: "Um. My - the - this one," patting Zarhan, "the actual sword, not - anyway. And he wanted me to express my gratitude for your healing me. And his suggestion was to pat you, as I pat him, but - a hug seemed more appropriate? And. I wish to model positive behaviors?"

She takes pity and hugs him. "So that old thing turned out to be magic, huh?"

Oh, that IS the opposite of stabbing!! There are nice feelings and no one is bleeding! What a good thing to learn.

"He did turn out to be magic! I have named him Zarhan. He is pleased to learn of hugs."

"Plan on giving him any other lessons?" Felicity asks.

"Not at present," Tintin answers. "It was lovely to see you."

"Same. Come around when you're not bleeding sometime."

Friend? Friendship?? Is this a friendship?? Friendship is very good.

Tintin leaves the temple with a spring in his step and collects a reward from the town elder, a papery-skinned elf whose eyes are white through. Then he leaves her house and is accosted by a small dog.

     "Androvel Tinuvian!" the dog says in a deep, confident voice.

"You are a dog," Tintin says intelligently.

What's a dog? Apparently that's a dog. Do they not normally talk?

     "Yes," the dog sighs, "I am currently in the form of a dog. I'm actually an archon."

Tintin's brow furrows. "A hound archon? Aren't those usually -"

     "Not a hound archon. A harbinger archon, if you must know. I am in this form because it allows me to pass beneath the notice of the forces that wish you harm. For the most part."

"For the most part?"

     "Well, as it happens I was not... as successful in avoiding notice as would be ideal," the dog hedges, "and there may be a small swarm of imps pursuing me. Let's call killing them your, um, qualification exam."

"My qualification exam for what-"

At this point, a swarm of tiny devils bursts out from the trees. The dog scampers to hide behind Tintin.

?I

What an unhelpful dog! Zarhan vibrates indignantly. People should NOT lead swarms of hostile creatures to Tintin!!

Tintin tries gamely to hit the tiny hostile creatures with his sword while simultaneously protecting the unhelpful dog and avoiding their sharp little claws and teeth. Unfortunately, there are dozens of them, and though he dances back from the swarm with each cut he makes, a few manage to surge forward and bite him. Their bites are shallower than the wolf's, but they burn, a dull ache spreading from the site through Tintin's body.

     "They're poisonous!" the dog says unhelpfully. "Try not to let them bite you!"

"Putain de- I am trying! It is difficult to kill forty devils with one sword!"

—nope. No. None of this. Absolutely not.

Zarhan's blade ignites, a gold-edged black flame streaked with drops of strangely liquid red, and he—shifts, somehow, in Tintin's hand—and now it is Tintin who is the passive partner in this relationship.

The world seems to slow to a crawl around them. Zarhan moves through the air with grace and certainty, first cleaving an arc through the swarm, then curving out to the side to flick the tip of his blade through a straggler before coming back around to slice the swarm from another direction. A creature darts forward, teeth aimed for Tintin's arm, but Tintin's arm is long gone when it gets there and Zarhan is exiting the swarm in plenty of time to take its tiny head off its body on the backswing.

Being wielded by a sword like this is strange, inside and out. They are unified, a single being, with barely any distinction between blade and body; Zarhan isn't fighting the way a person holding a weapon would fight. Every movement of Tintin's body is fluid and efficient, and his body is moving—Zarhan has not discovered a capacity to levitate—but it's the sword that's leading the dance, and it shows. They never stop moving, never flinch or freeze or stall, until the last creature in the swarm falls to the ground in two smoking pieces and Tintin's body pivots so that Zarhan is pointing, still on fire, directly at the dog.

He wants to say something, something like how dare you be so careless with my Tintin, but he can't figure out how to make the voice parts work, it's not obvious the way it's obvious how to move the body around. After a heartbeat or two, he just lets go instead.

At which point Tintin's arm falls to his side, and his thighs press together, and he collapses to his knees.

     "What in the Hells was that?" the dog is asking, and Tintin does not respond because he is too busy being absolutely exhausted, and having a very quiet panic attack, and trying not to dampen his breeches because fuck, that was hot and that should not have been hot.

          "What just happened?" the village elder asks, finally opening her door.

This time Tintin manages, "Get - Madame Felicity. Lesser Restoration. Please."

           The elder nods and jogs off. Tintin's head hits the dirt in front of him, and his eyes close, and he falls unconscious to the sound of a dog yelling at him very loudly.

Zarhan is alarmed, but with his Tintin unconscious there's not much he can do about it. After a moment, he reluctantly douses his flames. He's feeling—not exactly sleepy, not the way Tintin gets sleepy, but something close. He did a lot of Things and now it feels like a good idea to do Less Things for a bit.

He wakes up a few minutes later, feeling much better.

"Thank you, Madame Felicity," he says from the dirt, then wrenches himself back to a sitting position.

"Your life has somehow managed to get even weirder since the last time I saw you," she observes. "Try harder not to die."

She nods to the dog, then retreats back to her temple.

Oh good, Tintin is okay. This is very important.

Zarhan is still SO SUSPICIOUS of that dog, though. He showed up suddenly and said some hard-to-understand things and then a bunch of little bitey creatures attacked and it sounded like it was all his fault!! Distrust.

     The dog is pacing back and forth in a remarkably undoglike way, not that Zarhan can particularly tell. "I... would like to apologize," he says, clearly reluctantly. "I failed in my duty towards you by leading those creatures to you."

"Your duty towards me?" Tintin asks, a bit sharply.

     "Well. Yes. Let's start from the beginning. I'm a harbinger archon. You, Androvel Tinuvian-"

"Tintin," Tintin corrects him. "Please."

     "Alright. You, Tintin, are... well placed to have an impact on the world. We won't say that you will save the world, because - at some point someone bigger would get involved, you know? But you will have an impact. The forces of Heaven saw this, and they sent me to make you a paladin."

Tintin digests this. "I don't... follow rules," he says slowly. "I'm actually very bad at it. I'm more of the Arcadia type than the Heaven type. Are you sure you have the right man?"

     "It's not strictly necessary to be a paragon of Law and Good," the dog says. "We would obviously prefer if you did, but - we care more that you do the right thing."

Tintin ruminates further.

Then he sighs.

"I guess you do have the right man," he says unhappily. "What do I have to do?"

Why does he have to do anything?? Why is he listening to the dog?? The dog got him attacked by little bitey creatures!

"Um. Zarhan, I-"

     The dog's ears perk up and he looks around. "Zarhan?"

"My sword. He's intelligent, but he doesn't - know a lot of things yet."

     "I was not briefed on this," the dog mutters. "Why was I not briefed on this."

"Complain to your superiors," Tintin recommends. "Zarhan... can you look at, um, a concept that I point out to you in my mind?"

He thinks so?

Tintin attempts to outline a concept.

Some things are important. Tintin is important to Zarhan. Zarhan is important to Tintin. Also important to Tintin: a lot of other people. Most of the people that exist, actually. There are not exceptions, per se. There are people whose actions have made them predictably dangerous to be around, or people who metaphysically cannot be redeemed, and while those people shouldn't suffer unduly, it is difficult or impossible to accommodate their preferences alongside anyone else's. These are the people Tintin kills. He does not feel good about it. He does not do it because he wants to. He does it because it makes other people safer, because it helps them more than it hurts who he is killing, because it is something that someone has to do and he is someone in a position to do it.

The dog ("What is your name?" he asks. "Milou," the dog responds distractedly.), Milou, has told him that he is in a position to help a great many people. That it is important to the world. Tintin wants to help people. Tintin cannot, realistically, not help people.

Laced through this grand concept are lesser concepts. One: he is not angry with Milou for getting him attacked by little bitey creatures, because if he had not fought them, then the dog would have died, and Tintin considers it his responsibility to protect... everyone? Everyone. Including annoying little dog-archons. Two: an archon is a creature of ultimate Good. And ultimate Law, but that's less relevant. Three: Tintin loves Zarhan very much and it is important to him that Zarhan understand why Tintin cares about others, because if Zarhan does not understand this then Tintin worries about whether Zarhan can understand him at all.

...it is hard to think about things this way because... it feels like it comes from a world that is so much... bigger than Zarhan is used to? Up until very recently, Zarhan's world was not much longer than his blade. He isn't sure he understands... what it is to be a person, separately from what it is to be himself and what it is to be Tintin. He definitely doesn't understand what it is to be a creature of ultimate Good; it sounds like it has something to do with the way Tintin wants to help people, but he can't figure out what the pieces of the ideas are or where they fit together.

He is... angry with Milou because... he was very very scared for his Tintin when the little biting creatures attacked, and if he hadn't somehow managed to take control of Tintin's body and kill the swarm, he isn't sure Tintin would have been able to get through the fight without being poisoned to death by little creature bites, and that would be the worst thing in the world, and the first thing he ever saw Milou do was show up and be incomprehensible and bring the little bitey creatures and—not act the way that Zarhan thinks he would act, if he somehow got separated from his Tintin and a swarm of such creatures was following him back—it would be the first thing he would want to say, to warn him about those! Milou made so many sounds that were not about the little biting creatures before he mentioned them and he did not sound upset that he had brought them here and he did not sound like warning Tintin about them was the most important thing! It feels like a mistake to trust someone who could be SO WRONG about what the most important thing is. It feels like a mistake to trust someone who says so many words that are hard to understand when he could INSTEAD be saying the words that mean that a swarm of little biting creatures is about to attack.

...he doesn't want Milou dead, though. He maybe wishes he had figured out how to use Tintin's voice to yell at him, but he doesn't want him dead. He is glad that saving Tintin from the swarm saved Milou too.

"Zarhan raises an interesting point," Tintin says to Milou, "which is that you might have warned me earlier about the swarm. Instead of getting snippy about terminology."

     "I'm sorry about that too," Milou sniffs, "but - I didn't think you were going to have so much trouble with them."

"There were dozens of them!"

     "I had perhaps given myself an elevated impression of your potency."

"Alright, well... don't. I am a swordsman. A good swordsman, but I'm not Cayden Cailean."

     "And thank Heaven for that."

That's... better. Maybe. Milou is still strange and hard to understand but at least it's possible to tell him he made a mistake. Zarhan reluctantly concedes that it would be acceptable to pat him.

Well, no objections from this corner. Tintin pets Milou, and scratches him behind the ears.

     Milou shakes himself vigorously and delightedly. "-ahem, right. You asked what you must do. I regret to say that, being only a minor functionary, I do not know the exact details. I know that you are opposed by both Hell and the Abyss, and that you will have an influence on more than one major conflict. I may sometimes be granted an augury, telling us to go in a certain direction or to investigate something, but most of the time we will be wandering on our own initiative, adventuring and helping people as we can. Any questions?"

Tintin caresses Zarhan's pommel thoughtfully. "...not really. It sounds... fun, really."

Will there be stabbing? Zarhan likes stabbing.

"There is very likely to be stabbing," Tintin says.

    "...I think I heard him that time," Milou comments. "I suppose that means the empathic bond is settling into place."

"Oh, excellent! Zarhan, Milou, Milou, Zarhan. I cannot make you friends, but I can hope that you will be, because I like you both."

Oh! It might be nice to have more than one friend.

"I cannot recommend it highly enough! So, Milou - have you any divine guidance, or shall I simply set off towards the nearest city to seek my fortune?"

     "The latter," Milou says. "And I'll try to get you up to speed on your new powers along the way."

"-new powers?" Tintin asks.

     "You are a paladin. That means you channel the power of Heaven. My job - or part of it - is to guide you in the use of that power."

Tintin beams. "I had thought that - this was more of an honorary arrangement."

     "No, you're an actual paladin. We're already sticking our necks out, and Heaven doesn't work in half measures."

Powers? Powers seem good! Powers would probably help if there were more bitey creature attacks.