springkink fic. [Bend to the Earth, Final Fantasy XII, Noah/Basch]
Title: Bend to the Earth
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Incest.
Word count: 4083 words
Summary: Pre-game. Noah is thirteen when Landis burns. Basch is thirteen, too, and so much the run-away. Prompt: June 21 - Final Fantasy XII, Noah/Basch: Teenage rebellion - Load up on guns/bring your friends/It's fun to lose/and to pretend.
It’s summer and the days are long. The sun seems to hang in the sky motionless each day, and the light is too bright, too burning. The wheat in the southern fields is tall and golden, and when the wind blows, hot and gritty, the wheat bends to the earth. Dust is thick in the air, coating skin and tongues, and the end of summer seems a far off dream.
The household is sleepy, barely murmuring in the daytime. The servants lie in the kitchen, pressed against the cold stones of the floor, and the kitchen fires haven’t been lit for weeks now. Noah wanders from room to room, searching for a place to hide from the summer heat, but he can find none. The lower rooms of the household are filled with servants, and the upper rooms are drenched in sunlight. His own rooms are filled with his brother, and his brother’s boundless energy.
The summer never seems to wear on Basch. He grows beneath the sun, lean and tan and tall, and never stops running. Noah feels exhausted just watching him, and so waits in the faint coolness of the tree-shade while Basch races the neighboring boys. After, Basch stands on the edge of the shadow, dappled with shade and light, and Noah turns toward him, shielding his eyes against the sun.
“It was a good race, Brother,” Noah says, and Basch laughs as he throws himself to the grass, a long arm thrown over Noah’s legs. Noah shifts, leans back on his hands, and watches as Basch picks a thread of grass, twirls it between his fingers.
“You’d beat us all,” Basch says, “if you wanted.” He spins the grass between his fingers, then starts pulling it to pieces. Noah watches him, blinking against the drowsy day.
“It’s too hot,” he says after a long while. Basch’s smile is lost to the shade, but Noah can hear him laughing, still out of breath and stinking of sweat. “It is,” Noah says, feeling defensive, and Basch’s fingers brush his knee, then begin to tear at the grass again.
Noah’s half-asleep again, feeling hot and heavy and so tied to the earth, when Basch shakes his leg, says, “Jochen’s brother went to the capital.”
“And?” Noah asks, trying to rouse himself, and not much succeeding. Basch shakes his leg again and Noah grunts, raising himself on a hand. “And?”
“He says there’s going to be a change this summer.” Basch’s face looks flushed, his eyes fever-bright, and Noah raises himself up further. “He says it’s Archadia.”
“Stupid--” Noah can hear the buzzing of a fly, but he can’t see it, and so he swats at the air blindly. It’s summer, the world thousands of miles away, and it’s just them, lying in the shade of a tree, surrounded by fields of wheat. “Archadia wouldn’t want anything from Landis. Besides, we’re allies.”
“Noah,” Basch begins to say, and Noah pushes him off, rolls over to press his face against the cool grass, the damp dirt.
“Quiet,” he says, and he feels Basch rise to his feet beside him. “Nothing will happen. It’s just a rumor, like before. You’ll see.”
x
The threat of change terrifies Noah. He loves the household the way it is, not particularly small, not particularly big. He likes to know the names of all the servants, to know the names of the chocobo and the dogs and the cat that’s hidden a late litter of kittens in a lower cellar. He likes the quiet monotony of the fields, where the wheat grows green, then turns golden, under the same yellow sun, year after year. Rumors, and all the threats of change they bring, terrify Noah, somewhere in his gut he can’t explain.
Jochen’s brother’s returned from the capital, riding in company of a half-dozen landowner’s sons, and they make a group that’s equal parts sober and riotous. They’re all older than Noah and Basch, covered in dust and time, and they sit at men’s tables, clustered together at the ends. Basch sits near them, face turned towards them eagerly, and even Father is sitting there, listening with a sharp look on his face. Noah watches from the doorway, and when Father raises a hand, motions him inwards, Noah steps further into the room.
“The king,” one of the men says, “hasn’t spoken yet. We think it’s a matter of time. Archadia’s grown too friendly, they’re stepping over the borders.”
“Border disputes.” Father sounds unconcerned and Noah steps closer, reaches the back of Father’s chair. “There have always been disputes over the borders. Their farmers want our land, we want theirs.”
“It’s bigger than that,” one of the men says. He has lines deep-set around his mouth, and he frowns at the table, at Father.
“Yes,” Father says, and now it’s dismissive, and Noah lays a hand on the back of Father’s chair. Father looks back at Noah, and his mouth is thin, but his eyes are smiling. “It’s bigger than that for every generation.”
The men begin arguing, louder and louder, and one is hitting the table with his fist. Basch is leaning forward, looking excited and half-ready to begin yelling himself. Father pushes back from the table, stands with a tired sigh, and he lays a hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“It’s border disputes, Noah,” he says. “Nothing will come of it.” Noah nods, and maybe he nods too quickly, or too desperately, because Father’s smile looks pained, and his hand on Noah’s shoulder is heavy. “Nothing will come of this. Don’t worry.”
x
The first blood is spilt before mid-summer. It’s an outpost some thirty miles from the border, manned by half a dozen soldiers, and by the time Landis realizes something is wrong, the Archadian line is twenty miles past the outpost. When Noah stands outside the house, beneath the weeping trees, he squints against the sun, and thinks he can see the rising smoke from the Archadian line.
“Don’t worry,” Father says, but he looks tense, and he moves slowly, like an old man. Noah wants to say something, but he can’t look away from the southern skies.
“Basch,” Noah says at night, when Basch is sitting on the edge of Noah’s bed, cleaning a pistol. The pistol is old, belonged to a great-grandfather from the east, and it hasn’t been fired in years, long before Noah and Basch were born. “Basch,” Noah says again, and Basch bends further over the pistol.
“What?” Basch asks, turning the pistol over in his hands, frowning. Noah leans back on the bed, chin tucked to his chest.
“What do you think?”
“What?” Basch looks up from the pistol and Noah looks away.
“This. The war. Father says--”
There are faint freckles across Basch’s face, from being in the sun too long, and Noah wonders if he has the same freckles, or if he’s paler from sleeping beneath the trees. Basch’s face comes closer, his breath hot on Noah’s face, and Noah swallows, watches the lines of Basch’s throat move as he swallows, too.
“Are you scared?” Basch asks, and his voice is high and tight, like when he’s too excited for something, can’t keep calm enough to think straight. Noah frowns, fists his hands in the blankets.
“No, I just--” But Basch is kissing him, mouth over Noah’s, and Basch can never think straight when he’s excited, always rushing head-first into everything. And this is why Mother always tells him Noah has to be careful, has to watch out for Basch, because Basch is the younger one, and is the one who never thinks. And Noah always has to think, for both of them, and be patient, for both of them. And when the world looks like it’s going to burn, Noah has to be afraid for both of them, because Basch is never afraid.
“Idiot,” Noah says when Basch pulls back, mouth shiny with spit. “The door’s not locked.”
Basch laughs, lying his hands on Noah’s waist, and then they’re tumbling over, and Noah puts his elbow in Basch’s stomach, twists and pulls until he’s pinning Basch, and the bed’s too small to wrestle on, but they’re more one person that two, and when their limbs tangle together like this, Noah doesn’t know who’s who, and the freckles across nose and cheeks are his, and the hands fitting on his waist are his, and the hands catching in the hair are his, or Basch’s, or one and both.
It’s hot, the summer night pouring through the open windows, and when Noah arches his back, pinning his shoulders, or Basch’s, against the mattress, the cold metal of the pistol presses against the small of his back. And the fingers that are in his mouth taste of oil and grease, the sharp metallic of gunpowder. Noah bites, tastes his blood, and Basch’s, and the voice in his ears groans, “Brother--”
x
Fields in western Landis are burning, smoke filling the sky beyond the fields. Noah watches the smoke throughout the day, sitting in Mother’s weaving room, and Mother sits near him, the sound of her loom clacking slowly. Her fingers, when he looks at her, are pale, and shaking, and the thread on the loom is red, like the edge of the horizon as the day turns to dusk. When night comes, there’s the hint of firelight over the curve of the land, and Noah stands in front of the household with Father, watches the world begin to burn.
“Noah,” Father says, “take care of Basch.” Noah tries to say yes, but he coughs instead, his throat dry and his mouth tasting of ash. Father rests a hand on Noah’s shoulder, then grabs the base of Noah’s head, pulls Noah close enough to kiss Noah’s forehead.
“You,” Father says, “are my son. Take care of Basch, and take care of your mother.”
Father leaves before dawn, half a dozen men with him. Another dozen leave before noon, and by the time dusk has set, there are few men left, and fewer boys. Basch is furious, storming through the house, and Mother is following him, her skirts sweeping through the doorways.
“Basch,” Mother says, and she lays her fingers on his arm, and Noah watches them. “Basch, don’t be angry--”
“Why can’t I go?” Basch asks, pulling his arm away roughly. Mother reaches out, grabs Basch’s arm, and when Basch tries to pull back, she rises up on her toes, grabs Basch’s chin and turns his face towards her.
“Because,” she says, “I can’t lose you, too. I need you here. I need my sons.”
“I don’t want this,” Basch says before he pulls away, and Noah follows him from the house, to the empty stable, all the chocobo turned south and west, towards Archadia, with men upon their backs. “I don’t want this--”
Noah punches him, knocks him to the dirt, and when Basch scrambles to his feet, Noah punches him again, throws him to the ground and straddles him. Basch turns his face to the side, spits blood from his mouth, and Noah wipes Basch’s chin, blood slicking his thumb. “Don’t,” Noah says, “make Mother cry, or I’ll punch you again.”
Basch is quiet for a long moment, still beneath Noah, and when he finally moves, he pushes Noah off him, rolling over to bury his head in his arms.
“I need you, too,” Noah says, and he sits next to Basch, and when Basch’s shoulders shake, Noah leans down, and grabs fistfuls of Basch’s shirt, and cries against Basch’s back, until Basch’s shirt is wet and their shoulders aren’t shaking anymore.
x
Landis pushes the Archadian army west, long day after long day. Noah spends the days in the fields, only meters from Basch. The wheat is growing heavy, is starting to bend to the earth, and it gets hotter every day, the air more still. Noah ties his shirt about his waist, shades his eyes from the sun, and listens to the world spin. It’s slow, but tense, like it’s about to fall, and sometimes, when he’s bending to the earth, then rising up again, his heart stops, and his lungs can’t draw breath, and he has to stand straight, and look for Basch. And when he can’t see Basch through the wheat, can’t see anything but thick stalks of gold, he starts to yell, yells until his voice is hoarse and Basch is grabbing his shoulder, spinning him around.
“I’m here,” Basch says, and it’s loud, but Noah can’t make himself stop screaming, can’t make sense of the world when they’re ringed around by gold, and the world is burning to the west. “I’m here, I’m here!”
“Don’t,” Noah says, and Basch grabs his hand, drags him further into the wheat, and they sit in the dry dirt, their skin covered in dust and ash.
“Do you think,” Basch asks, or says, and he’s tracing patterns in the dirt, circles and squares and lines that are pushing forward, then falling back, then pushing forward again. Noah writes their names in the dirt, wipes them out with a sweep of his hand, and writes Father’s name instead.
“He’s fine,” Noah says, and it’s been weeks since a letter, and Mother looks paler by the day, sitting by her loom, staring out the window.
“I think,” Basch says, and the wheat is growing heavy, and Noah is, too, pulled further and further down, closer and closer to the earth, and he wonders how many men are buried beneath the dirt.
x
“Jochen left,” Basch says as he puts his hands on Noah’s shoulders, leans close. Noah frowns, aims again, and fires. Basch’s hands get heavier on Noah’s shoulders as he leans forward, over Noah’s head, and Noah can hear his breath. “Oh-- You got it.”
Noah reloads the gun, then presses the butt against his shoulder again, sights down the long barrel. “When did he go?” he asks, then takes a breath, holds it, and fires again.
“Again,” Basch murmurs, and then he’s reaching down, taking the gun from Noah’s hands. “He went west. I heard that the army’s getting pushed back.”
Noah sits back, holds still as Basch stands over him, aims, and shoots. The shot rings in the air, and then Basch is lowering the gun, shielding his eyes with a hand as he squints.
“Missed?” Noah asks, and when Basch frowns down at him, Noah reaches for the gun. “You’re a lousy shot.”
“Be quiet,” Basch says, and when he shoves Noah, Noah falls with the movement, pulling Basch down with him. Basch lands with his knees on either side of Noah’s body, his left hand braced against the dirt near Noah’s head, his right hand holding the gun to their sides. “Noah?”
Noah slips his hand on the gun, spins it in the dirt away from them, and when he pulls Basch down, he curls his arms around Basch’s head, turns Basch’s back to the ground. It’s not a scuffle, but it’s not a caress, and Noah doesn’t know how to be a better brother to Basch, no matter how he tries. He tucks himself close to Basch, and when Basch presses up against him, Noah can feel his heart, so much faster than his own. He wants to be faster, wants to be able to catch up with Basch, because Basch is always moving on while Noah’s left behind, looking to family and lands and the late morning mist, rising over fields golden.
“I’ll get better,” Basch says as Noah pulls away, crawling to where the gun was pushed. Noah picks it up, cocks it, and he sights down the long barrel. “Noah-”
“You don’t need to be able to shoot,” Noah says, and the shot rings heavy on his lie, fields burning south and west.
x
Basch runs away before dawn, and when Noah stands in the doorway, Mother’s hand upon his shoulder, the yards look empty, grass and gravel stretching silently down to the road, further to the river. Mother’s hand is cold, is shaking, and he grabs it, kisses her cheek. She looks old, crowfeet from her eyes, hair twisted against the nape of her neck, and Noah wonders what more it will take to snap her.
“I can bring him back,” Noah says, and Mother’s smile looks more like a grimace.
“We can’t,” she says, “without you here,” and when she turns to the kitchen, to the remaining servants, all old women and girls, Noah sits on the step of the house, and waits with a rifle across his lap.
The days go by slowly, and the women scatter through the fields, bending with the wheat. Their skirts catch in the wind, dull grays and browns against the golden wheat, and when the ring of a shot echoes through the sky, closer every day, their aprons flash white as they turn. Noah bends with them, through the fields, and when the sun spins hot above them, he watches the far horizon, and waits for dusk, and the glow of fires.
Harvest is the flash of sickles, wheat falling to the ground slowly as the women work their way from the house, further every day. The servant girls gather the wheat, golden dust caught on their eyelashes, in their hair, and the dogs follow after them, wagging their tails in the stubbled fields. The fields are long, though, and wide, and when Noah straightens, his sickle hanging heavy in his hand, he knows the fields will burn, like the rest of Landis, because he’s never fast enough, can never run fast enough.
x
The soldiers arrive before the first frost, in the dark before early morning, and the dogs go wild, hounds baying and mastiffs rushing forward. Half a dozen are shot down before Noah’s out the door, half-dressed, rifle forgotten inside the door. He stumbles to a stop, on the edge of the house step, and the soldiers’ armor, Archadian, glints dully in the faint light from the house. Noah feels his heart beat wild, like Basch’s when Basch had been running, running, and Noah wants to run, wants to chase after Basch, be anywhere but here.
The sounds of guns being reloaded is loud in the quiet, and Noah swallows, feels a dog, whimpering, nose at his hand. He can’t look away, can’t turn from the Archadian armor, and his tongue feels dry, his throat closed up.
“Boy,” and when Noah looks past the line of soldiers, there’s a Judge astride a chocobo, “are there any soldiers here?”
“No,” he says, but his voice is small, softer than the sound of cocking guns. “No,” he says again, louder, and then, “there’s only women.”
The chocobo shifts to the side, and the Judge’s helm bends. “Who?”
“My mother.” Noah swallows, feels the dog nose at his hand again. “Servant women.”
The Judge is turning to the side, is saying, “bring them out,” and then half a dozen soldiers are pushing past Noah, crowding into the house. Noah falls back, confused, and moves his mouth, tries to say, “wait-”
“Do you have a gun?”
The Judge’s voice is closer, and when Noah realizes the Judge’s chocobo is next to him, he feels sick. He stares at the chocobo, can’t lift his eyes to look at the helm.
“Don’t kill them,” he says, feeling his voice break on the words. He glances up at the helm, then looks at the breastplate instead. “Don’t kill them-”
“Do you have a gun?” the Judge asks again, and his voice echoes in the helm, sounds empty. Noah blinks quickly, wonders why his eyes feel like they’re burning, and says, “yes, sir.”
“And the women?”
“No, they’re servant women, they don’t-” His throat closes off when he hears a scream, then another. Then he can hear sobbing from the house, and he’s screaming, too, clawing at the Judge’s armor, trying to drag him down, kill him. “Don’t kill them, don’t kill them, don’t kill them-”
The blow sends him to the ground, limbs like a dead weight, and the world’s a dizzy mess, a rush in his eyes and ears. He groans, tastes blood on his teeth, and when he tries to push himself upwards, his arms give out beneath him. Archadia’s armor turns above him, makes him feel ill, and then he’s sick, turning his head to throw up on the dirt. He wipes his mouth, sour blood on his tongue and his hand, and the sounds from the house are louder. Noah tries to get up, legs shaky, and another blow sends him to the ground, arm twisted beneath him.
“Don’t kill him,” someone, the Judge, says, and there’s armor standing over him. Noah wants to get up, wants to run, find Mother, find Father, find Basch, but the world turns gray as he breathes, makes him feel as though he’s falling off the ground. He wants to dig his fingers into the ground, hold onto the earth, but his left arm’s twisted, nothing but pain, and his right hand is weak, fingers trembling.
The shadows from the doorway twist, lengthen, and then the soldiers are coming from the house, and the women with them. The girls are crying as they come across the house step, their heads bent, hair covered their faces. They’re in thin nightshifts, arms bare, and there are bruises where the soldiers’ hands grip their arms, twisting them into the yard. The women are brought along after, but the women are silent, cold and brittle in the late night. Mother is in the midst of them, and her face, white, looks like stone, and when she sees Noah, lying in the dirt, her eyes look black.
“Mother,” Noah tries to say, and he hears the Judge say, “let him up.” When Noah tries to stand again, there’s no blow, and so he stumbles to the women, feet heavy and dragging in the dust. The women, when he’s close enough to see, are shaking, but one of them smiles at him. Noah lets them reach out, touch him, pull him inwards, and when Mother touches his face, he turns to her, watches her hands turn wet and sticky with his blood.
“I couldn’t,” he tries to say, his voice hoarse. Mother’s hands are cool on his face, sting when they press against his forehead, and her voice is lined with pain and worry.
“We couldn’t,” she says, “without you,” and he stands with them in the midst of Archadian armor, guns pointed to their breasts, as soldiers search the house and the stable, the summer kitchen and the orchards of fruit trees beyond. It’s nearly morning, the sky lightening, when the soldiers gather again.
A soldier stands near the Judge, says, “there’s no one else,” and the Judge turns toward the women, towards Noah, his helm’s horns twisting towards the blue-black sky.
“Women and children,” the Judge says, and his voice, if not so empty, would be pitying. “Burn the fields.”
x
The fields are too wide, and the fires burn too hot. In the end, they can save nothing, and so they stand before the house and watch the fields burn. The ashes from the fires catch on the wind, and falls in their hair and eyelashes, turning their skin the gray of the dead. Noah crouches, his face sticky with his blood, and watches one of his dogs, shot, lie down to die. One of the women, old and wrinkled, is crying, her face pressed against a shawl, and Mother is standing near the edge of the gravel, half a pace from the road. When his dog is dead, and he can no longer hear the old woman crying, Noah stands upon the road, an arm’s length from Mother.
“I don’t know,” he says, “what to do.”
Mother touches him, her hands cold, still trembling. Her voice is strong though, and she, half a pace from the road, stands sharp against the world, the wind spilling ashes into her eyes. “Don’t,” she says, “leave me.”
Noah stands by her throughout the day, turned towards the road, and when night comes, they turn from the road, towards the house. And in the morning, with soot lying like snow across Landis, soft down to the river, Noah whistles for what dogs are left, and sits on the house’s wide step, listening to the world spin like so many bending women.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Incest.
Word count: 4083 words
Summary: Pre-game. Noah is thirteen when Landis burns. Basch is thirteen, too, and so much the run-away. Prompt: June 21 - Final Fantasy XII, Noah/Basch: Teenage rebellion - Load up on guns/bring your friends/It's fun to lose/and to pretend.
It’s summer and the days are long. The sun seems to hang in the sky motionless each day, and the light is too bright, too burning. The wheat in the southern fields is tall and golden, and when the wind blows, hot and gritty, the wheat bends to the earth. Dust is thick in the air, coating skin and tongues, and the end of summer seems a far off dream.
The household is sleepy, barely murmuring in the daytime. The servants lie in the kitchen, pressed against the cold stones of the floor, and the kitchen fires haven’t been lit for weeks now. Noah wanders from room to room, searching for a place to hide from the summer heat, but he can find none. The lower rooms of the household are filled with servants, and the upper rooms are drenched in sunlight. His own rooms are filled with his brother, and his brother’s boundless energy.
The summer never seems to wear on Basch. He grows beneath the sun, lean and tan and tall, and never stops running. Noah feels exhausted just watching him, and so waits in the faint coolness of the tree-shade while Basch races the neighboring boys. After, Basch stands on the edge of the shadow, dappled with shade and light, and Noah turns toward him, shielding his eyes against the sun.
“It was a good race, Brother,” Noah says, and Basch laughs as he throws himself to the grass, a long arm thrown over Noah’s legs. Noah shifts, leans back on his hands, and watches as Basch picks a thread of grass, twirls it between his fingers.
“You’d beat us all,” Basch says, “if you wanted.” He spins the grass between his fingers, then starts pulling it to pieces. Noah watches him, blinking against the drowsy day.
“It’s too hot,” he says after a long while. Basch’s smile is lost to the shade, but Noah can hear him laughing, still out of breath and stinking of sweat. “It is,” Noah says, feeling defensive, and Basch’s fingers brush his knee, then begin to tear at the grass again.
Noah’s half-asleep again, feeling hot and heavy and so tied to the earth, when Basch shakes his leg, says, “Jochen’s brother went to the capital.”
“And?” Noah asks, trying to rouse himself, and not much succeeding. Basch shakes his leg again and Noah grunts, raising himself on a hand. “And?”
“He says there’s going to be a change this summer.” Basch’s face looks flushed, his eyes fever-bright, and Noah raises himself up further. “He says it’s Archadia.”
“Stupid--” Noah can hear the buzzing of a fly, but he can’t see it, and so he swats at the air blindly. It’s summer, the world thousands of miles away, and it’s just them, lying in the shade of a tree, surrounded by fields of wheat. “Archadia wouldn’t want anything from Landis. Besides, we’re allies.”
“Noah,” Basch begins to say, and Noah pushes him off, rolls over to press his face against the cool grass, the damp dirt.
“Quiet,” he says, and he feels Basch rise to his feet beside him. “Nothing will happen. It’s just a rumor, like before. You’ll see.”
x
The threat of change terrifies Noah. He loves the household the way it is, not particularly small, not particularly big. He likes to know the names of all the servants, to know the names of the chocobo and the dogs and the cat that’s hidden a late litter of kittens in a lower cellar. He likes the quiet monotony of the fields, where the wheat grows green, then turns golden, under the same yellow sun, year after year. Rumors, and all the threats of change they bring, terrify Noah, somewhere in his gut he can’t explain.
Jochen’s brother’s returned from the capital, riding in company of a half-dozen landowner’s sons, and they make a group that’s equal parts sober and riotous. They’re all older than Noah and Basch, covered in dust and time, and they sit at men’s tables, clustered together at the ends. Basch sits near them, face turned towards them eagerly, and even Father is sitting there, listening with a sharp look on his face. Noah watches from the doorway, and when Father raises a hand, motions him inwards, Noah steps further into the room.
“The king,” one of the men says, “hasn’t spoken yet. We think it’s a matter of time. Archadia’s grown too friendly, they’re stepping over the borders.”
“Border disputes.” Father sounds unconcerned and Noah steps closer, reaches the back of Father’s chair. “There have always been disputes over the borders. Their farmers want our land, we want theirs.”
“It’s bigger than that,” one of the men says. He has lines deep-set around his mouth, and he frowns at the table, at Father.
“Yes,” Father says, and now it’s dismissive, and Noah lays a hand on the back of Father’s chair. Father looks back at Noah, and his mouth is thin, but his eyes are smiling. “It’s bigger than that for every generation.”
The men begin arguing, louder and louder, and one is hitting the table with his fist. Basch is leaning forward, looking excited and half-ready to begin yelling himself. Father pushes back from the table, stands with a tired sigh, and he lays a hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“It’s border disputes, Noah,” he says. “Nothing will come of it.” Noah nods, and maybe he nods too quickly, or too desperately, because Father’s smile looks pained, and his hand on Noah’s shoulder is heavy. “Nothing will come of this. Don’t worry.”
x
The first blood is spilt before mid-summer. It’s an outpost some thirty miles from the border, manned by half a dozen soldiers, and by the time Landis realizes something is wrong, the Archadian line is twenty miles past the outpost. When Noah stands outside the house, beneath the weeping trees, he squints against the sun, and thinks he can see the rising smoke from the Archadian line.
“Don’t worry,” Father says, but he looks tense, and he moves slowly, like an old man. Noah wants to say something, but he can’t look away from the southern skies.
“Basch,” Noah says at night, when Basch is sitting on the edge of Noah’s bed, cleaning a pistol. The pistol is old, belonged to a great-grandfather from the east, and it hasn’t been fired in years, long before Noah and Basch were born. “Basch,” Noah says again, and Basch bends further over the pistol.
“What?” Basch asks, turning the pistol over in his hands, frowning. Noah leans back on the bed, chin tucked to his chest.
“What do you think?”
“What?” Basch looks up from the pistol and Noah looks away.
“This. The war. Father says--”
There are faint freckles across Basch’s face, from being in the sun too long, and Noah wonders if he has the same freckles, or if he’s paler from sleeping beneath the trees. Basch’s face comes closer, his breath hot on Noah’s face, and Noah swallows, watches the lines of Basch’s throat move as he swallows, too.
“Are you scared?” Basch asks, and his voice is high and tight, like when he’s too excited for something, can’t keep calm enough to think straight. Noah frowns, fists his hands in the blankets.
“No, I just--” But Basch is kissing him, mouth over Noah’s, and Basch can never think straight when he’s excited, always rushing head-first into everything. And this is why Mother always tells him Noah has to be careful, has to watch out for Basch, because Basch is the younger one, and is the one who never thinks. And Noah always has to think, for both of them, and be patient, for both of them. And when the world looks like it’s going to burn, Noah has to be afraid for both of them, because Basch is never afraid.
“Idiot,” Noah says when Basch pulls back, mouth shiny with spit. “The door’s not locked.”
Basch laughs, lying his hands on Noah’s waist, and then they’re tumbling over, and Noah puts his elbow in Basch’s stomach, twists and pulls until he’s pinning Basch, and the bed’s too small to wrestle on, but they’re more one person that two, and when their limbs tangle together like this, Noah doesn’t know who’s who, and the freckles across nose and cheeks are his, and the hands fitting on his waist are his, and the hands catching in the hair are his, or Basch’s, or one and both.
It’s hot, the summer night pouring through the open windows, and when Noah arches his back, pinning his shoulders, or Basch’s, against the mattress, the cold metal of the pistol presses against the small of his back. And the fingers that are in his mouth taste of oil and grease, the sharp metallic of gunpowder. Noah bites, tastes his blood, and Basch’s, and the voice in his ears groans, “Brother--”
x
Fields in western Landis are burning, smoke filling the sky beyond the fields. Noah watches the smoke throughout the day, sitting in Mother’s weaving room, and Mother sits near him, the sound of her loom clacking slowly. Her fingers, when he looks at her, are pale, and shaking, and the thread on the loom is red, like the edge of the horizon as the day turns to dusk. When night comes, there’s the hint of firelight over the curve of the land, and Noah stands in front of the household with Father, watches the world begin to burn.
“Noah,” Father says, “take care of Basch.” Noah tries to say yes, but he coughs instead, his throat dry and his mouth tasting of ash. Father rests a hand on Noah’s shoulder, then grabs the base of Noah’s head, pulls Noah close enough to kiss Noah’s forehead.
“You,” Father says, “are my son. Take care of Basch, and take care of your mother.”
Father leaves before dawn, half a dozen men with him. Another dozen leave before noon, and by the time dusk has set, there are few men left, and fewer boys. Basch is furious, storming through the house, and Mother is following him, her skirts sweeping through the doorways.
“Basch,” Mother says, and she lays her fingers on his arm, and Noah watches them. “Basch, don’t be angry--”
“Why can’t I go?” Basch asks, pulling his arm away roughly. Mother reaches out, grabs Basch’s arm, and when Basch tries to pull back, she rises up on her toes, grabs Basch’s chin and turns his face towards her.
“Because,” she says, “I can’t lose you, too. I need you here. I need my sons.”
“I don’t want this,” Basch says before he pulls away, and Noah follows him from the house, to the empty stable, all the chocobo turned south and west, towards Archadia, with men upon their backs. “I don’t want this--”
Noah punches him, knocks him to the dirt, and when Basch scrambles to his feet, Noah punches him again, throws him to the ground and straddles him. Basch turns his face to the side, spits blood from his mouth, and Noah wipes Basch’s chin, blood slicking his thumb. “Don’t,” Noah says, “make Mother cry, or I’ll punch you again.”
Basch is quiet for a long moment, still beneath Noah, and when he finally moves, he pushes Noah off him, rolling over to bury his head in his arms.
“I need you, too,” Noah says, and he sits next to Basch, and when Basch’s shoulders shake, Noah leans down, and grabs fistfuls of Basch’s shirt, and cries against Basch’s back, until Basch’s shirt is wet and their shoulders aren’t shaking anymore.
x
Landis pushes the Archadian army west, long day after long day. Noah spends the days in the fields, only meters from Basch. The wheat is growing heavy, is starting to bend to the earth, and it gets hotter every day, the air more still. Noah ties his shirt about his waist, shades his eyes from the sun, and listens to the world spin. It’s slow, but tense, like it’s about to fall, and sometimes, when he’s bending to the earth, then rising up again, his heart stops, and his lungs can’t draw breath, and he has to stand straight, and look for Basch. And when he can’t see Basch through the wheat, can’t see anything but thick stalks of gold, he starts to yell, yells until his voice is hoarse and Basch is grabbing his shoulder, spinning him around.
“I’m here,” Basch says, and it’s loud, but Noah can’t make himself stop screaming, can’t make sense of the world when they’re ringed around by gold, and the world is burning to the west. “I’m here, I’m here!”
“Don’t,” Noah says, and Basch grabs his hand, drags him further into the wheat, and they sit in the dry dirt, their skin covered in dust and ash.
“Do you think,” Basch asks, or says, and he’s tracing patterns in the dirt, circles and squares and lines that are pushing forward, then falling back, then pushing forward again. Noah writes their names in the dirt, wipes them out with a sweep of his hand, and writes Father’s name instead.
“He’s fine,” Noah says, and it’s been weeks since a letter, and Mother looks paler by the day, sitting by her loom, staring out the window.
“I think,” Basch says, and the wheat is growing heavy, and Noah is, too, pulled further and further down, closer and closer to the earth, and he wonders how many men are buried beneath the dirt.
x
“Jochen left,” Basch says as he puts his hands on Noah’s shoulders, leans close. Noah frowns, aims again, and fires. Basch’s hands get heavier on Noah’s shoulders as he leans forward, over Noah’s head, and Noah can hear his breath. “Oh-- You got it.”
Noah reloads the gun, then presses the butt against his shoulder again, sights down the long barrel. “When did he go?” he asks, then takes a breath, holds it, and fires again.
“Again,” Basch murmurs, and then he’s reaching down, taking the gun from Noah’s hands. “He went west. I heard that the army’s getting pushed back.”
Noah sits back, holds still as Basch stands over him, aims, and shoots. The shot rings in the air, and then Basch is lowering the gun, shielding his eyes with a hand as he squints.
“Missed?” Noah asks, and when Basch frowns down at him, Noah reaches for the gun. “You’re a lousy shot.”
“Be quiet,” Basch says, and when he shoves Noah, Noah falls with the movement, pulling Basch down with him. Basch lands with his knees on either side of Noah’s body, his left hand braced against the dirt near Noah’s head, his right hand holding the gun to their sides. “Noah?”
Noah slips his hand on the gun, spins it in the dirt away from them, and when he pulls Basch down, he curls his arms around Basch’s head, turns Basch’s back to the ground. It’s not a scuffle, but it’s not a caress, and Noah doesn’t know how to be a better brother to Basch, no matter how he tries. He tucks himself close to Basch, and when Basch presses up against him, Noah can feel his heart, so much faster than his own. He wants to be faster, wants to be able to catch up with Basch, because Basch is always moving on while Noah’s left behind, looking to family and lands and the late morning mist, rising over fields golden.
“I’ll get better,” Basch says as Noah pulls away, crawling to where the gun was pushed. Noah picks it up, cocks it, and he sights down the long barrel. “Noah-”
“You don’t need to be able to shoot,” Noah says, and the shot rings heavy on his lie, fields burning south and west.
x
Basch runs away before dawn, and when Noah stands in the doorway, Mother’s hand upon his shoulder, the yards look empty, grass and gravel stretching silently down to the road, further to the river. Mother’s hand is cold, is shaking, and he grabs it, kisses her cheek. She looks old, crowfeet from her eyes, hair twisted against the nape of her neck, and Noah wonders what more it will take to snap her.
“I can bring him back,” Noah says, and Mother’s smile looks more like a grimace.
“We can’t,” she says, “without you here,” and when she turns to the kitchen, to the remaining servants, all old women and girls, Noah sits on the step of the house, and waits with a rifle across his lap.
The days go by slowly, and the women scatter through the fields, bending with the wheat. Their skirts catch in the wind, dull grays and browns against the golden wheat, and when the ring of a shot echoes through the sky, closer every day, their aprons flash white as they turn. Noah bends with them, through the fields, and when the sun spins hot above them, he watches the far horizon, and waits for dusk, and the glow of fires.
Harvest is the flash of sickles, wheat falling to the ground slowly as the women work their way from the house, further every day. The servant girls gather the wheat, golden dust caught on their eyelashes, in their hair, and the dogs follow after them, wagging their tails in the stubbled fields. The fields are long, though, and wide, and when Noah straightens, his sickle hanging heavy in his hand, he knows the fields will burn, like the rest of Landis, because he’s never fast enough, can never run fast enough.
x
The soldiers arrive before the first frost, in the dark before early morning, and the dogs go wild, hounds baying and mastiffs rushing forward. Half a dozen are shot down before Noah’s out the door, half-dressed, rifle forgotten inside the door. He stumbles to a stop, on the edge of the house step, and the soldiers’ armor, Archadian, glints dully in the faint light from the house. Noah feels his heart beat wild, like Basch’s when Basch had been running, running, and Noah wants to run, wants to chase after Basch, be anywhere but here.
The sounds of guns being reloaded is loud in the quiet, and Noah swallows, feels a dog, whimpering, nose at his hand. He can’t look away, can’t turn from the Archadian armor, and his tongue feels dry, his throat closed up.
“Boy,” and when Noah looks past the line of soldiers, there’s a Judge astride a chocobo, “are there any soldiers here?”
“No,” he says, but his voice is small, softer than the sound of cocking guns. “No,” he says again, louder, and then, “there’s only women.”
The chocobo shifts to the side, and the Judge’s helm bends. “Who?”
“My mother.” Noah swallows, feels the dog nose at his hand again. “Servant women.”
The Judge is turning to the side, is saying, “bring them out,” and then half a dozen soldiers are pushing past Noah, crowding into the house. Noah falls back, confused, and moves his mouth, tries to say, “wait-”
“Do you have a gun?”
The Judge’s voice is closer, and when Noah realizes the Judge’s chocobo is next to him, he feels sick. He stares at the chocobo, can’t lift his eyes to look at the helm.
“Don’t kill them,” he says, feeling his voice break on the words. He glances up at the helm, then looks at the breastplate instead. “Don’t kill them-”
“Do you have a gun?” the Judge asks again, and his voice echoes in the helm, sounds empty. Noah blinks quickly, wonders why his eyes feel like they’re burning, and says, “yes, sir.”
“And the women?”
“No, they’re servant women, they don’t-” His throat closes off when he hears a scream, then another. Then he can hear sobbing from the house, and he’s screaming, too, clawing at the Judge’s armor, trying to drag him down, kill him. “Don’t kill them, don’t kill them, don’t kill them-”
The blow sends him to the ground, limbs like a dead weight, and the world’s a dizzy mess, a rush in his eyes and ears. He groans, tastes blood on his teeth, and when he tries to push himself upwards, his arms give out beneath him. Archadia’s armor turns above him, makes him feel ill, and then he’s sick, turning his head to throw up on the dirt. He wipes his mouth, sour blood on his tongue and his hand, and the sounds from the house are louder. Noah tries to get up, legs shaky, and another blow sends him to the ground, arm twisted beneath him.
“Don’t kill him,” someone, the Judge, says, and there’s armor standing over him. Noah wants to get up, wants to run, find Mother, find Father, find Basch, but the world turns gray as he breathes, makes him feel as though he’s falling off the ground. He wants to dig his fingers into the ground, hold onto the earth, but his left arm’s twisted, nothing but pain, and his right hand is weak, fingers trembling.
The shadows from the doorway twist, lengthen, and then the soldiers are coming from the house, and the women with them. The girls are crying as they come across the house step, their heads bent, hair covered their faces. They’re in thin nightshifts, arms bare, and there are bruises where the soldiers’ hands grip their arms, twisting them into the yard. The women are brought along after, but the women are silent, cold and brittle in the late night. Mother is in the midst of them, and her face, white, looks like stone, and when she sees Noah, lying in the dirt, her eyes look black.
“Mother,” Noah tries to say, and he hears the Judge say, “let him up.” When Noah tries to stand again, there’s no blow, and so he stumbles to the women, feet heavy and dragging in the dust. The women, when he’s close enough to see, are shaking, but one of them smiles at him. Noah lets them reach out, touch him, pull him inwards, and when Mother touches his face, he turns to her, watches her hands turn wet and sticky with his blood.
“I couldn’t,” he tries to say, his voice hoarse. Mother’s hands are cool on his face, sting when they press against his forehead, and her voice is lined with pain and worry.
“We couldn’t,” she says, “without you,” and he stands with them in the midst of Archadian armor, guns pointed to their breasts, as soldiers search the house and the stable, the summer kitchen and the orchards of fruit trees beyond. It’s nearly morning, the sky lightening, when the soldiers gather again.
A soldier stands near the Judge, says, “there’s no one else,” and the Judge turns toward the women, towards Noah, his helm’s horns twisting towards the blue-black sky.
“Women and children,” the Judge says, and his voice, if not so empty, would be pitying. “Burn the fields.”
x
The fields are too wide, and the fires burn too hot. In the end, they can save nothing, and so they stand before the house and watch the fields burn. The ashes from the fires catch on the wind, and falls in their hair and eyelashes, turning their skin the gray of the dead. Noah crouches, his face sticky with his blood, and watches one of his dogs, shot, lie down to die. One of the women, old and wrinkled, is crying, her face pressed against a shawl, and Mother is standing near the edge of the gravel, half a pace from the road. When his dog is dead, and he can no longer hear the old woman crying, Noah stands upon the road, an arm’s length from Mother.
“I don’t know,” he says, “what to do.”
Mother touches him, her hands cold, still trembling. Her voice is strong though, and she, half a pace from the road, stands sharp against the world, the wind spilling ashes into her eyes. “Don’t,” she says, “leave me.”
Noah stands by her throughout the day, turned towards the road, and when night comes, they turn from the road, towards the house. And in the morning, with soot lying like snow across Landis, soft down to the river, Noah whistles for what dogs are left, and sits on the house’s wide step, listening to the world spin like so many bending women.