Saw this post about straight dudes feeling emasculated at the thought of taking their wife’s last name, and it gave me a sudden craving for fantasy media where some dude is called Leopold THE DESTROYER or some shit and there are all these rumors going around about how he got his moniker, all these made up stories about how he must have razed a village to the ground or slayed 12 dragons or some shit and it turns out he just took his wife’s last name.
“What was your name before?”
“Meadowalker.”
“…”
“I miss it sometimes y’know, but eh,” he smiles wistfully as he looks over to where his wife is sharpening her sword. “What can you do when you marry for love.”
Seconds after he had strolled in, most of the patrons at the tavern noticed the unbelievably large man striding toward the bartender. His tunic was slashed apart and soaked in blood and ichor. The general murmur of the tavern shrank to a frenzied web of whispers.
Melquir leaned over the table, as if telling a secret to his fellow mercenaries, “Is that Leopold the Destroyer?”
“I think so,” Jespin replied, slowly raising his empty hand from the blade at his belt onto the table, trying not to stare. “They say he earned his name after crushing an entire invading army, then left his village the same night to go conquer their nation. After two days of silence, plumes of smoke appeared on the horizon, and he came back to town with a cart full of riches.”
Melquir choked on a cough, “By himself?”
His companion shrugged, “That’s what I heard.”
The third woman at the table, thicker with muscle than the two men on her sides, continued shaping her fingernails with a knife’s edge. “I heard he was a farmer, and found a wolf hounding his livestock. So he picked up a cheap sword from the local smith, set off into the woods, and disappeared for months. After the village held his funeral, and moved on with their lives, he came back clad in wolf pelts, tens of kilograms heavier, with a cudgel spiked with canine fangs. They also say that was the only time it had ever taken him longer than a week to wipe out an entire population.”
“Come off it, Lylia. No one has ever survived a herd of wolves attacking, even the strongest guys in our company.”
“No one we know,” Lylia replied, casting an eye over the rim of her spectacles and matching gazes with Melquir. “Man that big, you think a wolf has a weight advantage on him?”
The wood of the fourth stool at the table groaned as the bloodied man dropped himself bodily into the seat, setting his mug of honeyed mead onto the table gently as he sat. His voice was surprisingly soothing, touched with an accent far from this tavern’s other occupants. “You would be surprise. Wolf bigger in eastern forest.”
Melquir and Jespin both suppress, though barely, the immediate instinct to run screaming from the table. Lylia continues filing her nails. A few droplets of blood and oozing, tarry gore plop audibly on the table. “Forgive for sudden appearance. Many person at tavern, not room much to sit elsewhere.”
“Help yourself,” Lylia replies, carefully keeping her tone even despite a fractionally visible shake to her fingertips. Melquir relaxes back fully into his seat, but cannot seem to bring himself to speak. Jespin offers a meek, “Sure,” and immediately downs the rest of his drink.
“Please,” Leopold offers, “let buy drink for table.”
Despite his appearance, the barmaid chats amiably with Leopold briefly after collecting the table’s drink orders, and accepts a generous tip from the man still dripping with the spilled life of countless monsters. When the drinks come around, the table settles into animated chatter, while Jespin and Melquir try to ignore the side-glances from all the nearby tables. Leopold doesn’t seem to notice the stares.
Half an hour into their third round of drinks, Lylia is the first to ask the question everyone else at the table hasn’t drawn up the nerve yet. “How did you get the name Leopold the Destroyer, anyway?”
The brute of a man raises his right hand, gesturing with this thumb. “Married into Destroyer clan. Kind in-laws, have excellent barbecue, terrifying during Lent. Some give up killing. Never see so much rage as when Destroyer line not destroy.”
“You… married into the Destroyer name?”
Leopold shrugs. “What can do? When man fall in love, have to accept consequence.”
“What were you before you got married?”
“Cobbler.” He admits with a smile. “Always need good sole, customer come in and have good soul. Hard to say no to perfect deal.”
“No, I mean what was your original name.”
Leopold laughs a rich, booming peal of laughter that shakes the stool, table, and the next three tables around them. “Meadowalker.”
Melquir chokes on his drink, mid-sip. Jespin fails to stifle a laugh into his scotch. Lylia just laughs openly.
“What? I like flower.”
Lylia, after a few minutes, manages to bring her laughter to a controlled chuckle between words. “How did you end up like this?”
Leopold shrugs, a motion somehow too small and self-conscious for a man twice the weight of everyone else at the table combined. “Marriage is give and take. Wife give explanation of honeymoon, Leopold take swordfight lessons.”
“Lessons?” Melquir asks, finally managing to speak more than a few uncertain words at a time. “You got that strong from swordfighting lessons?”
“Goodness no. Leopold follow lessons with two year as gladiator.”
Jespin asks, “Were you and the missus that hard up for cash?”
“No, like I said. Was honeymoon.”
Lylia hides another smirk into her drink, and sets the mug back down. “I can imagine you’d do that alright, massive as you are. How did your wife survive the arena?”
Leopold laughs, “You think Leopold big? You should see wife.”
Published
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