What a Good Day Looks Like [fic]
Title: What a Good Day Looks Like
Game: Pre-Game Binding Blade (FE6)
Characters: Guinivere, Zephiel, Desmond, Hellene, Brenya, Murdock
Genre: Family, Slice of Life
Prompt: FE6 - Guinivere (gen)-Coping with her family situation.
Warnings: Emotional abuse through parental manipulation, isolation, witnessed physical abuse
Summary: One summer Guinivere was invited on a royal tour of Etruria with her older brother.
Guinivere remembered the way the queen's mouth trembled when she called the princess to her on a bright spring day. Since being allowed to move into the Queen's apartments in the royal capital almost five years ago, Queen Hellene's interactions with Guinivere had been more frequent, but brief, lengthening only into deep kindness the week her mother had died. Guinivere still remembered that week, even if the unflinching support while her father raged and mourned and banished Zephiel from Guinivere's side grew ever more dream-like in the face of stern disapproval, and occasional anger.
That day, despite the singing birds rejoicing for the end of winter, Queen Hellene's words were clipped, forced out of her mouth from a jaw that seemed to be held shut by some external force. “My royal husband has determined that you are to come with us on our tour of Etruria this summer, while Zephiel meets his distant cousins. You are to behave yourself-the King of Etruria is much less formal, as a person, than the King of Bern, and he will take your youth into account, but remember, in the eyes of Etruria's court, you are a disgrace, and you must carry yourself with the utmost deference and politeness to rise above that opinion. Your tutors will be giving you proper instruction for the next two weeks, and while we journey on the road. Obey them, and do not be troublesome, child.”
Later, Guinivere heard the sounds of shouting from the royal apartments. Her nurse, as always pretended not to hear. Guinivere breathed in shakily, and asked if she could take her dancing lesson in the East Wing, instead. Just as Zephiel had told her, her tutor, who had been flinching at every high pitched shriek, was only too glad to guide her away.
That night, when Guinivere occupied herself with writing a letter to her brother, she caught her nurse reading over her shoulder, instead of brushing her hair. Guinivere smiled her best smile, the one that she knew made grown ups give her things, and continued to write, careful to praise her father in every line, and say how pleased she was to be going to Etruria this summer. She wanted to let him know that they were going to be traveling together, but so many bad things had happened when people read her letters. Hopefully, when Zephiel returned from his recent posting to the northern mountains, there would be no recriminations about trying to spread his unwanted influence to Guinivere, like last time.
As the royal household began to pack for the tour, a letter arrived from one of the lesser courtier's little sister. Guinivere's father smiled kindly at her as he handed it to her at breakfast.
“My little daughter, so industrious with her lessons to have already mastered good writing. It is sweet of you to make connections,” he told her. “Just remember that not everyone trying to speak with you is doing so to be your friend. Baron Holbruch is a decent man, though. His sister greatly desires to meet you. Would you like that?”
Servants had been cast out due to her temper tantrums when she was seven. At ten, Guinivere knew never to turn down an invitation, just in case she made her father think that she disapproved of the person. She nodded eagerly, and thanked the king for bringing the letter to her personally.
She opened the letter with trepidation while waiting for the eternally late history tutor, worried that if she waited for a more conventional time, her nurse would want to know her reply. If her father's judgment of the Baron was wrong, prevarication on her part might lead to more screaming from behind closed doors.
Baron Holbruch was a decent man. In the folds of his own letter, protected by his wax seal, another slip of paper with Zephiel's elegant calligraphy winked at Guinivere. She hastily scanned it, noting that Zephiel was being detained in his command lessons at the fort due to practical applications of bandits, and would be joining the royal party en route to Etruria, rather than traveling back to the Royal palace on his own. Guinevere's heart was light as she slid the important piece of parchment between the pages of her personal psalter.
For three weeks on the road in early summer heat, Guinevere had that hidden piece of knowledge by her side. Her father remarked delightedly on what a quiet, dutiful girl he had raised, so engrossed by her religious studies. There was talk of finding a new companion for her, one devoted to Elimine, to properly train her as a devout and courtly maiden.
Guinivere ignored this all, knowing that whatever decision was made, it would be made, and she had better endeavor to accept it. Instead she smiled and laughed with other courtiers her own age, trying to judge when it would be best to step back, lest someone believe that she was becoming inappropriately friendly, or when it was essential to push her friendship forward, as her father always had an eye on his generals, and keeping them happy was always of utmost importance.
Zephiel arrived the night before the van reached the border. The land all about was owned by an old wyvern rider family, and they were toasting the King and his family eagerly. One of the queen's guards decided that a little girl was not the right company for a group of nobles being entertained by very military jokes made by a jester, and ushered Guinivere out into the courtyard to watch the sunset and play with the other youngsters in the castle. None of the young ones were her age, all of the sons and daughters of the family having been chosen to go to the hatcheries by at least age nine, as Dame Greda proudly declared to the king. Those that were left were small and mostly couldn't walk without help.
Guinivere had settled down to play a game with acorns that involved keeping the acorns in large squares drawn on the earth, and then stealing other people's acorns with rocks that could move and encounter each other. The striped rocks had different movement abilities, and no matter how she built up the terrain around her boxes, the six year old daughter of the castle always managed to position at least one of her rocks to snatch another acorn.
As Guinivere fretted over her latest loss, leaving her with just two acorns, one of them very small and green, someone adult sized sat down beside her. “May I play?”
Turning on her knees-later her maid and the Queen would be out of their minds with how dirty Guinivere's good feast dress managed to get that night-Guinivere saw her brother smiling and flung herself into a hug. “You can play only if everyone else says you can, and you sit next to me. Oh! And be nice when I lose,” she ordered, glad at last, to be rude as she liked. Zephiel would never tell on her, or allow someone to be hurt because she was being selfish.
“Well,” Zephiel surveyed the group of five children absorbed in the game. “May I play?”
The eldest son, who had a rabbit-like deference towards his sister, even if she was two years younger, looked for her nod before nodding uncertainly himself. “But-we'll have to remake all the castles.”
“Oh no, I'll just take over Guinivere's castle, if that's alright. That way it's not unfair. I came late, so I should start off with a bit of a disadvantage, also,” he scooted closer, surveying the playing board in the the dying sunset light, “she doesn't have too much of a disadvantage. Can any of you tell me what she was doing right all along?”
The current clear winner with her stripey stones and all of the acorns clustered in small groups at strategic points in the map scowled. “She's still got all her stones. Neva and Derry have been fighting it out, while Jossu has been trying to poach from all of us, and keeps losing, and I've lost a few of the foot stones, even if I've kept all my wyverns. I've been swiping from her, but that's only 'cause she keeps moving her stones out of danger.”
“Exactly,” Zephiel's grin was pleased. “You're a real genius at this game, aren't you?”
“Nah. My brother and sister both do that when they're at home. They let us fight it out and then late round us,” the girl replied philosophically. “I just didn't figure the princess knew the strategy to it when she wouldn't sacrifice even a single stone to protect her castle, or gain other castles.”
“Well, now you all know what my strategy would be,” Zephiel told the other children before turning to Guinivere. “Princess, will you let me take on your cause?”
“Yes, yes,” Guinivere agreed, relieved to turn the game over to someone who knew the rules and how to play. She wormed her way into her brother's lap as he conquered castles, and returned the acorns to her castle, gracefully calling for an alliance with the wyvern stone girl when the shadow of the castle walls blocked the game.
Guinivere smiled up at him as the other children ran off to play. “You were excellent.”
“Thank you,” he handed her one of the striped wyvern stones she had kept alive for him. “And how have you been on this journey?”
“Traveling is hard,” Guinivere sighed. “There's so much that I have to learn, and so many new people. I don't want to be troublesome, and I'm tying really hard, but it's so long and tiring every day. I'm glad you're here. Maybe the Queen will be happier now.”
Zephiel's chest moved in a heavy sigh that never escaped his lips. “Maybe. She will be getting to see her family again, and I know she'll like that. I only hope Father can see how good she is when she is happy.”
“He must,” Guinivere murmured, feeling a shade desperate with the pronouncement. “And he'll see how brave you've been this year, and how well I've learned my lessons, so I'll not be a disgrace.”
“You've never been a disgrace, Guinivere,” Zephiel hugged her tightly. “A little too in love with getting your own way, perhaps, but since your way is good, there is nothing wrong in that. Father loves you more than the moon and stars. He will be happy with your conduct in Etruria. He wouldn't have invited you along, otherwise.”
“Have you ever been to Aquelia, Zephiel?” Guinivere asked, never wanting the hug to end, and hoping that Zephiel would not remember to put in an appearance at the feast if she kept asking him questions.
Unfortunately her ruse was too obvious, as Zephiel was letting go. “No. I've been sent far and wide for the last few years, but never outside of Bern's borders. It will be a big adventure for both of us.”
Guinivere leaned back, looking at the tall surrounding wall, gilded in harsh orange. “I'm so glad you're here, brother. Otherwise, I think I might be a little scared.”
“If you weren't here,” Zephiel promised faithfully, “I know I would be terrified. Being sent off to be reviewed before my cousins, who I have never met? I am so glad I have my little sister to watch out for me, and make sure I don't say anything too brash.”
“You're not brash!”
“Oh, I can be terrible, I promise you. I've spent three years with the army now, and I shock myself, sometimes, with what I deem is safe to say in front of any person. But I have you and Murdock standing right by me, as a reminder not to go beyond my bounds.”
Over Zephiel's shoulder someone coughed. “Your highness, you should be getting to the feast, to make your apologies.”
Guinivere knew that rumble to be Murdock, watching over the prince's duty as always. Sometimes she wanted him to just drop off the edge of the world for always advising caution, and seeing Zephiel as the next king rather than her brother. She knew he meant well, but sometimes she wished no one would ever make Zephiel king one day, just so that the people constantly insisting upon his time would go away.
She rose dutifully, anyway, trying not to pout too much. It wouldn't do for Zephiel to know she felt angry that he had to desert her to be the prince. Zephiel did sigh this time, rising to his towering height. “Yes. Can't let anyone know I was playing child's games rather than sitting listening attentively to the same old jokes. You know what this means, Guinevere?”
“I'm to come into the great hall after you,” the little girl nodded, knowing the old routine. Sometimes she went ahead while he stayed behind. But either way, when the punch and mead was going around, it was safest not to be seen together.
Zephiel stopped to kiss her forehead, and then quickly walked away. Guinivere pretended not to see Murdock look back at her with sad eyes, as she waited patiently in the now lonely courtyard, trying to imagine what Etruria would look like.
It turned out that Etruria looked very much like the lowlands of Bern until the border mountains were a passing thought. Zephiel rode up front with their father, and Guinivere was glad because it looked right, just as her traveling in the Queen's litter also seemed right. Queen Hellene had seemingly forgotten her cloak of constant hard edges as soon as they hit the river lands. She dismissed Guinivere's nurse to the baggage line on the first day, and braided the little girl's hair with ribbons and gems just like any of the young ladies attending upon the Queen. The reverent veils that Guinivere's nurse had been favoring since the king remarked upon his daughter's piety were stuffed into trunks and forgotten.
“That is for mature women who feel the call of Father Sky in their bones,” the Queen lectured when the nurse protested that Guinivere was looking too foreign. “She's a girl, in her last few years of girlhood. How dare you take that from her, particularly here where children are allowed to laugh freely and be happy, in the Saint's sight! Let the princess look like any girl in her station, with hair unbound. A child may braid her hair and wear adornments without needing to fear for her modesty.”
Queen Hellene drew the line, quite firmly, at Guinivere riding with the knights in the train. “You are a noblewoman. Riding when it is not necessary is not seemly in Etruria. Every peasant rides. Every uncouth Bernian and ridiculous Sacaen rides, for that matter. You, however, must be transported as befits your station.”
Even in the hot and stuffy conditions of the litter, Guinivere was glad for Queen Hellene's demands, because they spent the whole day watching the bright sunny countryside of Etruria roll by, and Hellene told Guinivere all manner of secrets and confidences about the land and the people. She had been little older than Guinivere now when she left this place, and its parties and friendships. Queen Hellene had a devious plan to break away from the party while in the capitol, and take the river barges to the southern estate of her cousin. She promised to take Guinivere along.
“She has a young son, maybe half your age. I realize it is not as good as someone who was truly in your age group, but there is no one quite so young at the court at present, and my cousin would adore you so very much. She, at least, is a good mother.”
For a week, Guinivere had a taste of what it would be to be Queen Hellene's daughter. It was almost as good as being Zephiel's sister. They were very similar people, in fact, both being strong and firm in their beliefs. Guinivere recognized the harder version of Zephiel's conviction when his mother spoke of what was proper for a lady of her station, and what was not. Guinivere knew she had taken after her own mother, in respect to conviction. Her father often praised her for being as yielding as his lamented dearheart.
However, when they reached the barge that would take them to the heart of the country over a few days, a messenger waited to dash everything to pieces. Guinivere only caught the deep purple and silver of royal livery when her father shouted something, and stormed away from the man, heading straight for the litter. The queen was taking a nap while the baggage was being loaded onto the barge, and Guinivere was out stretching her legs as she had been told to.
The shout already had her staying well back with the honor guard, hoping the common burnished orange skin of the wyverns would hide her bright red dress, but curiosity prompted her to peek around the snoozing bulk of her chosen cover. Her breath caught in terror as her father wrenched the curtains of the litter open and hauled out the queen by her hair. Then arms scooped Guinivere up, and passed her to one of the wyvern knight guards, probably the rider of the mount she had hidden behind.
“Get her out of here,” the woman handing Guinivere off hissed in a way that drew a rumble from her wyvern.
General Murdock appeared in an instant. “I will take her, Knight Commander.”
“By the stars,” the woman growled, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “Not a moment too soon.”
Her oath only partially cut off the furious yell, “-this insult, you scheming hag!”
General Murdock lifted Guinivere with terrifying ease. Even her brother had to put his strength into giving her piggyback rides. General Murdock made Guinivere feel weightless, holding her to his chest as he strode from the assembled household and royal staff into the fields on the side of the road. It wasn't until birdsong had replaced shouting that he let Guinivere gently down. Far off, Guinivere could see a team of peasants bent over the neat rows of earth in the fields, their backs covered with sweat from the sun and the work, and not with the cold clammy fear that coursed through her.
She bunched her fists in her dress, knowing, without being told, that she had done something. Her father never got this mad at Queen Hellene unless Guinivere was involved. If he started throwing things-sometimes his moods could take him like that, he always apologized, but-Guinivere realized with guilt that her psalter with its incriminating secret letter was in the litter. She should have burned it.
“Here,” General Murdock sank to his knees, offering Guinivere a handkerchief that stank of metal from begin so close to his ever present chain mail.
He didn't tell her it was all right, the way her nurse sometimes did in these situations. He didn't tell her that her father loved her, the way Zephiel always did. He just sat with his huge knees sinking slowly into an Etrurian field and waited for Guinivere to use the handkerchief. Her eyes were brimming, and her nose had closed shut in a hot, damp way, but no tears spilled until the giant man looked at her very seriously, and whispered: “If you need to, please, do cry. No one else dares to.”
He might as well have unleashed a flood. Guinivere tried her hardest to be quiet and not draw attention to it. She tried so hard that she shook, and the hiccups burst forth more loudly that the sobs would have until the wyvern general of Bern scooped her up again in a welcome hug, and let her drown him in his blank canvas surcoat and chain mail.
He didn't let go until she stopped trembling and pushed him away, rubbing at her nose and cheeks with her sleeve, as the handkerchief was now too wet to use. “What did I do this time?” Guinivere asked, sounding thick and phlegmy.
“Nothing,” the wyvern general assured her. “You did nothing. I promise you, Guinivere, out of all of us, you and your brother have never done anything wrong. King Mordred and his house have simply decided to go on a summer tour of the Western Isles this year, so much of the important business that was supposed to occur will not be able to commence. We will still go to Aquelia. You will get to see the sights, and be exposed to the minor court. In a lot of ways, this is better, there won't be so many people trying to get a look at you and pressuring the prince.”
“But-the queen and I were going to see her cousins,” it slipped out of Guinivere in her bitterness over knowing the plan was now just a fruitless dream.
Murdock's face went very still. “So, that was how she was going to get around it,” he murmured, his eyes looking into the far distance. Then he focused on Guinivere again, his expression nothing but understanding. “Well, you and your brother can go out, and see the university and the Holy Tower, and whatever else you two wish to see in the capital. It might not be as comforting as being with friendly faces for a week with no responsibilities, but I will see to it that you have at least a whole day together with no interference.”
He held out a hand. Guinivere took it readily. When someone spoke so seriously, particularly when that someone was Murdock, she had to be able to trust him. He had been keeping her brother alive for years.
When they made their way back to the assembled household everything was on board the barge. It was as though nothing had happened. Guinivere's psalter wasn't even upset. The Knight Commander of the honor guard handed it to her personally, mumbling something about knowing that she was a good girl who liked to sing her graces, and she shouldn't lose such a valuable book, with such valuable contents. The queen was red eyed, but silent at the prow of the barge. Guinivere tiptoed around her, and tried to hold her hand the way she would have to comfort Zephiel, but Hellene jerked away as though she had been burned.
Guinivere searched for Zephiel before cast off, but found her father instead, and spent the rest of the ride with him fussing over the state of her face, demanding to know why she had been crying one minute, and readily consoling her the next, all the while promising vengeance on the sneaking Etrurians who had found his little darling's presence so distasteful that they slunk away rather than give her her honor as a crown princess. Guinivere tried not to cry again, as she realized even Murdock could lie. Everything had been ruined by her not being Zephiel's full sister, and Hellene's daughter.
She did not see Zephiel until their third day in Aquelia. The capital of Etruria was overwhelming. Bern's capital was dominated by the high fort of the royal palace, and surrounded on all sides by mountains, forcing the city to built up in spindly towers. Hemmed in by water on all sides, Aquelia should have been the same, but the city was vast, built all along the waterways, spreading out into the harbor in weird islands and lighthouses, and seemingly running away from the pale gray sculptural beauty of the royal palace and its pure white adjoining cathedral. Guinivere loved to look out at the twinkling sprawling city through the thousands of stained glass windows that the palace boasted.
The King of Bern engaged in negotiations with the Etrurian border lords. The debate occupied him from sunrise to sunset every day, leaving Guinivere alone to wander the halls and hide from curious Etrurian eyes. If this was the palace at a quarter of its capacity, the number of people it must hold when full staggered her.
After breakfast on the third day, she was trying to trace the path of the distant river through the wavey glass when Zephiel came upon her. “Would you like to go out, today, Guinivere? I was hoping to see the university. I met one of the mages studying there at the feast last night, and she promised to give me a tour. I would love for you to come along.”
Guinivere looked away from the greenish bruise on his cheek, maybe it was just the light of the stained glass. In the palace, so far, they all had been safe. But the river she had been studying for two days called to her, and she thought she could see the dome of the fabled school of magic and theology rising from one of the countless islands. “Yes, please, I would like that very much.”
Zephiel kept a firm hold of her hand as they walked through the busy Aquelian streets toward a large square dominated by a splashing fountain. At the base, a young woman in bright red student's robes with an icy blue border waved to them. The salt laced wind from the sea caught her hair and played with the lose curling ends, tossing them in magenta streamers. Guinivere hoped that she would like this young lady who bowed low to Zephiel-a shock to see the proper military greeting after so many fine ladies had been curtsying in Guinivere's direction since entering the palace.
“Crown Princess,” the student mage added, bowing just as deeply to Guinivere, “I am Brenya, also of Bern. I have been studying here for nearly eight years. It has been an honor to be asked to show you both around the university complex. Is there anything that you wish to see most? We have very few students on campus right now, due to summer recess until harvest time, but there are few practicing mages in the remedial lessons. As long as they are just working fireballs, it is quite safe.”
“Ah,” Guinivere squirmed. “Uh. Do you-do you have anything to do with all the pretty glass around the palace?”
The woman beamed, as though Guinivere had said something kind about her hair. “Ah! Yes. It is not my specialty, but I can take you to the glass makers on Market Street. Several magicians work there, putting charms on glass panes to weather proof them.”
She beckoned the pair forward, and began to walk at a rate that seemed unbelievable. Zephiel coughed. “Ah, I have been on a horse for most of the journey, Mage Brenya. It would be easier on my legs if you slowed down. Also, you said at supper that you were an unofficial expert on the history of the Holy Tower?”
Brenya slowed, looking embarrassed, but it allowed Guinivere to catch up with her brother. Everything about this student mage was amazing. Guinivere was not aware that such mature looking women could be so energetic, or so easily embarrassed. “Ah, I suppose so. Though not much of the architecture, if that is the Crown Princess' wish. The windows in the Holy Tower are protected by magic, I know that much. There is some sort of defense mechanism that the tower has-a true mechanism, mind you, like a siege engine-that makes unwarded glass impractical.”
“Oh,” Guinivere wasn't sure how she felt about seige engine mechanisms. That was the kind of thing that called her brother away from the royal palace. It was a different world, one he moved into with ease, abandoning her. “Uh, Mage Brenya?
If glass isn't your area, what is?”
“Combat magic,” the young woman replied with ease. “Specifically the deadly ice spells passed down from the dragons. I wish to return home and enter the army soon. Magecraft is just as much a soldier's trade as it is a scholar's, and if we are honest, only in Bern can a person be both.”
She had been speaking to Guinivere, but her eyes went to Zephiel's at that last part, and she colored, not very prettily, the blush clashing with her hair. Guinivere felt very small and unimportant as the part of her brother's life that took him away most often intruded on their walk.
However, Brenya let the matter drop, and went back to speaking of the reasons for the Holy Tower's construction, which was really interesting. Soon they were speaking of Saint Elimine and her crusade to get people to see the power of Father Sky and Mother Earth above those of other spirits in the world. Brenya confessed to wishing she would have the chance to travel to Sacae and Ilia one day, as they were the last human areas that kept to their pre-Scourging ways.
The glass shops were a wonder. Guinivere watched as smiths poured thick molten liquid into planes and twisted and pulled it to become the stems of delicate goblets. She stood very still in the display room, terrified by the merchant's injunction that children should not touch anything, and it would cost more than they could afford to replace one broken piece. Zephiel's grin was not lost on her as he bent to whisper in her ear that this was very different from home. That much was true. One glance at the double headed wyvern sewn on Zephiel's doublet at home would have had even the most powerful merchant quivering in fear, and looking for wyvern knights out of the corners of their eyes.
They ate dinner from food stalls along the river, Brenya profusely apologizing at every bite for taking them to such a cheap meal, despite the fact that the smell of the hot grilled fish had set Guinivere's mouth to watering and had Zephiel request the stop. As they liked oil and sauce from their fingers, Zephiel asked which libraries Brenya would recommend for ancient history.
She led them to the university archive, and amused Guinivere with previous student research papers while Zephiel browsed the collection of old texts, and came back looking thoughtful. As they wandered lazily back over the high bridge connecting the domed university to the bustling commercial hub of Aquelia, Zephiel paused to ask Brenya if she knew what the “great crime of the dragons” was, as term he had found in some older texts that afternoon.
“As I have understood the Scourging, the dragons themselves were fairly blameless. The humans of the time wished to gain the advantages of territory that dragons were using as their personal grounds, obviously, but we both started the war and successfully drove them from land that had been theirs. I see no real crime on their side, unless we are so arrogant as to believe that wishing to keep one's home and life the same as it was for hundreds of years is a crime.”
Brenya shrugged. “I-cannot say. I have seen that reference when I was doing my research on the early Elimineans, and how they dealt with those who used anima and elder magic. But it only comes up in the oldest work. I would assume it is one of those failed methods for convincing people that dragons were the enemy. 'Dragons eat your sheep, dragons depend on dark magic powers, dragons have sinned.' That sort of nonsense.”
“Ah well, a lost mystery, then,” Zephiel shrugged, and looked down at Guinivere. “Perhaps you can find out for me, during your lessons.”
“Father Grenal doesn't like people to ask questions during his lectures,” Guinivere said quietly.
Both Brenya and Zephiel frowned at each other. Zephiel looked back down at Guinivere. “Well, you don't have to upset him, then. He is rather old, and does not show up on time very often, isn't he?”
Guinivere nodded. One of the most constant things in her life was the fact that her history lessons almost never occurred, let alone on time, these days.
“Mm,” Zephiel nodded. “Well, maybe you might be getting a new history teacher when Father Grenal goes into honorable retirement. You can ask all the questions you like, then. Mage Brenya, thank you for your time. My sister and I will have to head back to the palace now, to have time to prepare for the evening.”
Guinivere smiled shyly, as she turned off the bridge with her brother. It was one of the best days of her summer, and she treasured it in her heart.