Because the Stars Do Not Care [fanfic] [fanart]
Title: Because the Stars Do Not Care
Game: Binding Blade (FE6)
Characters: Miledy, Gale
Pairing: Miledy/Gale
Genre: Angst, Romance
Prompt: Gale/Miledy - funeral pyre
Warnings: Boss character death
Summary: It was a long day at the Shrine of Seals. Now the night has come on, and Gale and Miledy watch a funeral pyre burn. Written for Spring-Summer FE-Fest 2014.
Because the Stars Do Not Care
Sparks danced towards the stars.
Miledy tried not to breathe in the pungent odor of a body turning to ash. Next to her, Gale's face was a study in harsh statuary, angles and sheer surfaces picked out by unforgiving firelight. But that was the way he always looked. Father Sky had given him a face most wyvern riders acquired only after years of study in the law courts, all in the hope that they could have the chance to use it on a recalcitrant traitor to the kingdom. He couldn't help it.
The happiest days of my life. Or perhaps he could help it, but knew if he showed any other face he would have given enemies of the crown an opening. Or invited in the enemies who detested his quick rise to high office, his youth, and foreign, possibly not even noble, blood.
“Thank you very much,” his soft voice was almost drowned by the crackling fire, “for making me your prisoner.”
They were close enough to the giant construction that they could not hear the dying cries of the defeated army all around them. They couldn't hear the reinforcements from reluctant Etrurian lords, and indifferent Ilian companies sorting the remains of the Northern Army into the dead and wounded prisoners of war. They couldn't even hear any remaining calls from dying wyverns that had so distressed Trifinne as the afternoon wore on.
“It isn't much of a kindness,” Miledy said, not daring to reach out for his hand the way she would have half a year ago. “Just because Ellen was willing to heal you before the army went into the Shrine-there are a lot of people here who cannot forgive Bern for this war. They will not want you as our prisoner any more than you wish to be our ally.”
“I can't turn on the King. General Murdock,” a long pause filled with too many words that had never been said came between them. Gale managed to finish the thought after swallowing all those tumbled thoughts and observations. “He had nothing else.”
In the heat of the flames, and the crackle of sparks, Miledy could feel the icy shell that ignored every whispered word and saw the world as it really was tremble. She didn't ask how long he had known there was something wrong with their king. She didn't say that she would never ask him to turn on Zephiel because she already had, and even now she was pleading in her head for him to change his mind.
He turned his head suddenly, looking away from the fire he had been contemplating since they heaved the general's massive frame-almost too heavy to lift, even with the plate stripped from him, down to the arming doublet, and Zeiss' help-onto the bier and set it ablaze.
“I'm sorry, for betraying the queen.”
Betraying Guinevere? Miledy looked at him in shock. “She's not a queen.” Not yet. He had never sworn any oaths to protect her-any oaths that protected Guinevere were superseded by the oaths to Zephiel and Bern.
“She will be, though. The next time you have to build one of these.”
The glacier cracked in his voice. His hollow eyes couldn't even look at the bier anymore. Miledy felt her own eyes skitter away from his, trying to draw comfort from the night pressing around them. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He should have been at her side, the good soldier and great general that he was. Guinevere spoke of betraying Bern, and Miledy had done so, too, but her heart had known the right of it, and Gale would have felt the same.
The next time they built one of these, Guinevere would be right beside her, hanging onto her grief for a man no one else in the army would care to mourn. “If she is your queen as well as mine-”
Gale tried to smile, an exercise made more horrifying by the sudden brightness of the dancing flames. “But the general was my commander, and I know what his dying wishes were.”
Miledy nodded, staring back at the flames. She was supposed to watch until the body burned to ash, just to be sure dark spirits did not steal the moral vessel away. Gale had to watch, knowing the damage had been done to General Murdock long before any spirits got there. Maybe the mischief had been done while Gale and she were still in training at the castle, during those three days when their prince had been lost. Or maybe the dark spirits had eaten Murdock from the inside out, over years and years, and they had never known anything but a hollow version of the man.
Gale knew that they had all been traitors, every last one of them. And he still loved them all behind his sleepless eyes, reticence, and unhappiness.
She sought his hand in the dark, and that was the moment when the ice cracked, melting and crumbling into an abyss as Gale drew in a shallow choking gasping breath. At the slightest pressure of her hand, he fell, doubling over in hiccupping sobs that were not covered at all by the snapping branches and popping embers. The work and effort of building the pyre that would burn hot enough, the flight training of the morning, the war on opposite sides, the life in Bern's military, everything that they had shared crashed together, and smashed between them.
Quiet, reasonable, shy, retiring Gale grabbed her surcoat-thrown on more to give some formality to her battle worn arming doublet than because she was at all ready to look presentable and respectable-and cried into her shoulder. Miledy had never seen Gale so undone. She pulled him close to her, struggling with everything else that came with him, as though her arms were enough to protect him from grief and pain.
The flames continued to wheel and dance around the wyvern general of Bern, crackling into the star filled sky.
Game: Binding Blade (FE6)
Characters: Miledy, Gale
Pairing: Miledy/Gale
Genre: Angst, Romance
Prompt: Gale/Miledy - funeral pyre
Warnings: Boss character death
Summary: It was a long day at the Shrine of Seals. Now the night has come on, and Gale and Miledy watch a funeral pyre burn. Written for Spring-Summer FE-Fest 2014.
Because the Stars Do Not Care
Sparks danced towards the stars.
Miledy tried not to breathe in the pungent odor of a body turning to ash. Next to her, Gale's face was a study in harsh statuary, angles and sheer surfaces picked out by unforgiving firelight. But that was the way he always looked. Father Sky had given him a face most wyvern riders acquired only after years of study in the law courts, all in the hope that they could have the chance to use it on a recalcitrant traitor to the kingdom. He couldn't help it.
The happiest days of my life. Or perhaps he could help it, but knew if he showed any other face he would have given enemies of the crown an opening. Or invited in the enemies who detested his quick rise to high office, his youth, and foreign, possibly not even noble, blood.
“Thank you very much,” his soft voice was almost drowned by the crackling fire, “for making me your prisoner.”
They were close enough to the giant construction that they could not hear the dying cries of the defeated army all around them. They couldn't hear the reinforcements from reluctant Etrurian lords, and indifferent Ilian companies sorting the remains of the Northern Army into the dead and wounded prisoners of war. They couldn't even hear any remaining calls from dying wyverns that had so distressed Trifinne as the afternoon wore on.
“It isn't much of a kindness,” Miledy said, not daring to reach out for his hand the way she would have half a year ago. “Just because Ellen was willing to heal you before the army went into the Shrine-there are a lot of people here who cannot forgive Bern for this war. They will not want you as our prisoner any more than you wish to be our ally.”
“I can't turn on the King. General Murdock,” a long pause filled with too many words that had never been said came between them. Gale managed to finish the thought after swallowing all those tumbled thoughts and observations. “He had nothing else.”
In the heat of the flames, and the crackle of sparks, Miledy could feel the icy shell that ignored every whispered word and saw the world as it really was tremble. She didn't ask how long he had known there was something wrong with their king. She didn't say that she would never ask him to turn on Zephiel because she already had, and even now she was pleading in her head for him to change his mind.
He turned his head suddenly, looking away from the fire he had been contemplating since they heaved the general's massive frame-almost too heavy to lift, even with the plate stripped from him, down to the arming doublet, and Zeiss' help-onto the bier and set it ablaze.
“I'm sorry, for betraying the queen.”
Betraying Guinevere? Miledy looked at him in shock. “She's not a queen.” Not yet. He had never sworn any oaths to protect her-any oaths that protected Guinevere were superseded by the oaths to Zephiel and Bern.
“She will be, though. The next time you have to build one of these.”
The glacier cracked in his voice. His hollow eyes couldn't even look at the bier anymore. Miledy felt her own eyes skitter away from his, trying to draw comfort from the night pressing around them. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He should have been at her side, the good soldier and great general that he was. Guinevere spoke of betraying Bern, and Miledy had done so, too, but her heart had known the right of it, and Gale would have felt the same.
The next time they built one of these, Guinevere would be right beside her, hanging onto her grief for a man no one else in the army would care to mourn. “If she is your queen as well as mine-”
Gale tried to smile, an exercise made more horrifying by the sudden brightness of the dancing flames. “But the general was my commander, and I know what his dying wishes were.”
Miledy nodded, staring back at the flames. She was supposed to watch until the body burned to ash, just to be sure dark spirits did not steal the moral vessel away. Gale had to watch, knowing the damage had been done to General Murdock long before any spirits got there. Maybe the mischief had been done while Gale and she were still in training at the castle, during those three days when their prince had been lost. Or maybe the dark spirits had eaten Murdock from the inside out, over years and years, and they had never known anything but a hollow version of the man.
Gale knew that they had all been traitors, every last one of them. And he still loved them all behind his sleepless eyes, reticence, and unhappiness.
She sought his hand in the dark, and that was the moment when the ice cracked, melting and crumbling into an abyss as Gale drew in a shallow choking gasping breath. At the slightest pressure of her hand, he fell, doubling over in hiccupping sobs that were not covered at all by the snapping branches and popping embers. The work and effort of building the pyre that would burn hot enough, the flight training of the morning, the war on opposite sides, the life in Bern's military, everything that they had shared crashed together, and smashed between them.
Quiet, reasonable, shy, retiring Gale grabbed her surcoat-thrown on more to give some formality to her battle worn arming doublet than because she was at all ready to look presentable and respectable-and cried into her shoulder. Miledy had never seen Gale so undone. She pulled him close to her, struggling with everything else that came with him, as though her arms were enough to protect him from grief and pain.
The flames continued to wheel and dance around the wyvern general of Bern, crackling into the star filled sky.