There he stood still and was born of platinum, his torso spurned of skin yet full of silver.
Reed lifted his forearm to witness the details of his lengthy blade, then looked down at his body to witness the rigid silver across half his torso and up to his head as if the metal was brushed upwards.
He took a few steps and felt the bottom of his torso bend the silver comfortably before he heard something behind him.
A voice parched of wetness, croaking words in his ears, put its breath in him before swinging the blade across the back, scraping it against the wall.
Dark red paint scrapped and fell to the wooden ground, and behind Reed stood no one but his fear. He felt something, yet his eyes told him otherwise.
That voice, however, was familiar to him. He didn't know what to think the few times it came to him, but to fear it.
"Who's there!" He shouted, gritting his teeth, ignoring his visage, which he scarcely had time to take in. But no reply came. Instead, he looked around the room, weary of anything that might startle him, before raising his arm to watch himself in the reflection of his clean blade.
His eyes had turned a minor silver hue. The mask washed half his face from the right side and covered his left eye, which peaked through a diagonal slit. His right eye showed under his now reflective eyebrows. His hair perched atop the twisted part of the silver covering his face.
Reed winced at his blade's angle when it matched a point of light in the silver that had dug into his pupils.
"What is this?" He wondered.
He swung his blade to the side as it made the sound of a fingernail rubbing across the ice. He felt a little cooler. The room temperature dropped ever so slightly. He noticed as the tiniest bits of droplets fell from the blade.
"Is this what Zemizel saw before taking the user's power hood?"
For the time being, Reed tried inspecting the material of what had grown on him. He was worried that a part of it had been a part of his skin, his body melding cleanly and effortlessly with the medallion.
Where the medallion was, instead, were strings of silver steel protruding outwards in all directions in his chest.
"I got it on." Reed told himself, "Now, how do I get it off?"
He tried many things. He thought of the same thing he did when trying to focus on the fear of losing precious memories, but nothing came of it.
For an hour, Reed was the Argent Knight that Zemizel had called it, and he noticed his strength getting sapped at a quick rate. He thought that if he could exhaust himself, it would dissipate, but nothing came of it.
I need Penburns' help. He thought.
As he waited, Reed wondered back to when Penburn beckoned his Khopesh. It just appeared, but his eyes were empty.
He thought he saw the same thing with Tainch, his eyes darkening, not of color, but of will.
It wasn't long before some of the silver began retracting into nothing, but not much of it did. Some parts were left in places and some had disappeared over another hour.
By now the streets outside were loud and, just in time for desperation, Penburn had opened the door in front of Reed with a bag of vegetables.
Penburn quickly raised one arm as he beckoned his medallion, with the other arm holding the bag of food. Reed noticed something off about when he summoned the Khopesh that he hadn't noticed the first time.
Penburn's shoulder twitched slightly.
"Reed?" He asked calmly.
Reed nodded. The silver on his face had not left whatsoever, and he sat there on the couch lazily tired, drained of any energy.
"Dusted hells." Penburn continued, "You got it to work, and look at you." His arms gestured widely.
"I can't this shit off me," Reed said, his voice still different from before.
"Is that the helmets doing?"
"it is," Reed stated.
"Right. Just discard any bit of yourself to it and it'll go away." Penburn told him.
Reed had no idea what he meant by that. He sat there thinking of what it meant before remembering Penburn's eyes.
"Your eyes," Reed began, "they looked empty for a second. You know when you let go of your blade?"
"Exactly." Penburn nodded.
Here's a rephrased version that aims for a more readable flow:
He approached Reed cautiously, surveying his surroundings and examining the armor encasing Reed's upper body. Reaching out, he ran his hand along the spiked, rigid silver, occasionally wincing to avoid catching the bright flames flickering on the walls in its reflective surface.
"You two are alike," Penburn whispered to himself.
"What was that?"
"Your medallion and Rhewls have similar effects," he continued. "Medallions can be categorized by their different functions. But that's just general knowledge from the kingdoms, which I won't get into."
"What of Rhewl's medallion?" Reed asked.
"His, well..." He stopped to think for a moment, "Like you, his medallion is the only one I have seen that can change the subject's physical features before yours, of course."
"Prodomor is like me?" Reed repeated.
"I guess it's something you'd have to see yourself to understand. I do think he would be the best of help, but the piece of advice I can give you is that you should discard any care for your ambitions, as that will discard the medallion's properties itself."
"You're asking me to give up?" Reed exclaimed, confused about the ridiculous advice.
"Not necessarily. If you truly believe in your ambitions to find answers, then doing anything to get those answers, and possibly taking back the life you had, is a doable sacrifice."
Penburn noticed Reed not quite understanding his ideals of aid.
"What I'm saying is," he continued, "you should be able to understand that you can sacrifice anything to achieve something. And to achieve peace, which the properties of the medallion do not have, you can achieve time to find those answers. It is said that medallions were tools of an ancient war long forgotten. In retrospect, without them, you should be in the prospect of peace, leaving it all behind, dissipating and learning to control the feeling of separation."
Reed raised his hand to quiet Penburn down as he thought for a moment. He thought of the feeling of failure. What would happen if he fails? Would his life continue without the burden of being the friend he wants to be? Would that bring peace? How would it all be if he let go of the tether of ambition? Could he accept something that immense?
"I don't know, Penburn," he told him. "I just can't accept the prospect of leaving it all behind."
"But that isn't what you are doing," Penburn interjected. "It's learning to accept that you leave behind something to gain another."
Reed engaged in deep reflection, contemplating what he would leave behind and what had already been left behind. And that's when it hit him.
"I'm already here," he started, "Ashlet is far away, Linette is not within my grasp at the moment, Geraint is of no conclusion, and everything thus far has already been forcefully let go, not by me, but by external forces."
"Use it."
Reed pondered his past struggles, realizing that the things he could utilize were present with him in Dromair. There was no use worrying about those former troubles when he had no means to directly confront them. For now, the only thing occupying his mind was discarding what lay beyond his control, and instead taking command over that which he could control, thereby potentially influencing even those past afflictions.
"I think I understand," Reed said to Penburn, realizing his eyes had been shut the entire time.
Opening them, all he could see was mist. Looking around him, he noticed his torso was back to normal, as skin showed. His face lightened a bit as he realized his hand had not been tightly bonded to the steel he recently held.
"Initially," Penburn said, smirking, his face showing egotistical expressions of 'I was right.' "It was hard to grasp the ideal when Zemizel first explained it to me, but like you, it had not taken me long to grasp at what he meant, same thing with Tainch, Rhewl on the other hand was a different man for a day."
Both of them laughed off the bit, one of them proud at successfully passing down the knowledge of his helpful hand to yet another member of the Hardly Hearts, and the other, a sense of relief that he at least got some bit of success in these troublesome times.
"I think you'll make a good eighth member of the Hardly Hearts," Penburn told him.
"Who said I would join your silly club?"
"I can tell you're gonna be a hindrance to my beautiful choice of words." Penburn ignored him with an odd choice of words instead.
"Wait, who are the other two?" Reed asked.
"They escape me, always gone off doing something. Breaks my heart." He said, ignoring the initial question.
"Right, I think it's best to clue you in on a few things, Reed Riddance."