myaru
in
springkink
Undivided Loyalty [Fire Emblem 9/10, Sephiran/Zelgius, rating: T]
Title: Undivided Loyalty
Author: Myaru
Rating: T
Warnings: n/a
Word count: 1491
Prompt: Fire Emblem 10, Sephiran/Zelgius: devotion - I will lie for you / Beg and steal for you
Summary: Sephiran broaches the topic of Ashnard's war, and what Zelgius must do to encourage it.
A/N: for lack of better information on the canon timeline, I set this four or five years before Path of Radiance. It's related to Child-Like Empress, but reading that isn't necessary.
.........................................................
"Tell me - is the Mad King as unpredictable as his name would indicate?" Sephiran said, his temple resting on a cold window pane so he could look up at the sky and watch the rain fall and fly before the wind. It splattered across his window to blur the mottled gray sky. "I've only met him once, and he appeared sane enough then."
He leaned too close to the glass to see Zelgius's reflection, though his ears picked up every whisper - the fold of his coat when he leaned forward, the whisper of his hair when his hand ran through it. "He was-- his character can't be defined so simply. A decision that comes across as sudden and unpredictable to his soldiers might be a conclusion reached after long contemplation which he simply did not share." A pause. "Sir Gawain respected his tactical ability."
That wasn't quite an answer. "This maneuver of his, past the border up north..." Sephiran stopped, rolling his lips together, sat up straight to look across his dining table, past the bouquet of gardenia his empress sent, to see his general reclining with his arm swung over the hard back of the sofa, only his head and shoulders visible. Zelgius frowned slightly at the rug. Sephiran noted the cording of muscle in his neck and sighed.
Every time Daein was mentioned, or he asked a question about Zelgius's service to the king, it was like this - tension hunched his shoulders, stiffened his neck, sometimes even curled his fingers into fists. That he kept it from showing in his expression was a small accomplishment when his body spoke so eloquently of his discomfort. The memories are unpleasant, he claimed, and yet-- Sephiran suspected the truth was rather different. Evidence lay in the way he turned his eyes north and west to stare when nothing occupied him, in his reluctance to speak of the priestess Elena - in his blessed goddess, this can't be real-- when they came upon the scene of her murder. This-- this is horrible. How--
They must have meant everything to him. Sephiran had met and cared for many Branded children after leaving Goldoa, and Zelgius, for all his strength and beauty, was cut from the same mold. A kind word, a soft caress, consistent offerings of food, and they were yours for the rest of their long and miserable lives. They soaked up affection like linen rags and opened their hearts to pour everyting at one's feet - all of their strengths and faculties, the love they weren't allowed to share, their lives. If Ashera punished Sephiran for anything at the end of this quest, it would be for squeezing them dry.
"His aggression must be directed profitably," Sephiran said, working his bottom lip with his teeth. He watched his companion nod, noted that Zelgius did not look up. "If Ashnard delcares war on Begnion, our conflict will fail to activate the medallion. You know where he must be directed."
Zelgius snorted softly, rested his chin on his arm. "Crimea."
"Gallia." Sephiran watched the skin around his eyes tighten. "Crimea will be the bone he gnashes his teeth on in the meantime." He rose and left the window, crossed the rug, white, green, and pristinely clean, the cold of the evening seeping through the weave; he was barefoot, because he felt guilty walking across the room in sandals once he realized every rug in his quarters was beaten free of dust by the servants at the end of each week. He could have done without the luxury. He would have been satisfied with his old townhouse in the city, for that matter, or just a single room, but that would have been an affront to the dignity of his office - never mind he was prime minister in name only. No, he must be housed in comfort. The guard detail outside, sent by Culbert, was surely meant to see to his safety - there could be no other reason. None at all.
He and Zelgius would have to stop seeing each other after this discussion. Culbert had surely already jumped to conclusions; Sephiran could live with his opinions, whatever they might be, but if word of the relationship were to spread, it might bring others to question the general's capability, and that would also work against their goals regarding the medallion. But this last time, this last night, what did he intend to do, but--
"How?"
Sephiran paused, two steps from the sofa. Zelgius raised his chin, jolted when he realized Sephiran had moved.
How-- what?
"I'm sure the army would be in favor," Zelgius said, his face coloring slightly as he looked away. "But getting the king to declare war on such a distant target..."
"The medallion is there." Sephiran walked around to the front of the sofa and sank onto the closest cushion with one leg folded under. "He knows what it is, and he wants it. If someone were to tell him of its location, and how the goddess within might be summoned, I think he'll find a way."
Zelgius remained upright, his gaze averted. Without armor he appeared manageable, normal, yet when his sleeves twisted or tightened around his arms Sephiran's fingers twitched, wanting to touch him. To lean on that arm was to feel strength greater than steel. Zelgius's gaze twitched back when Sephiran reached for his shoulder. Firelight jumped behind him, pulsed on the highlights of his dark hair.
Only the length of his arm stretched between them. Sephiran wondered if that gulf would widen after the night's conversation. "Ashnard holds tournaments at midwinter to test the strongest of his men. General Petrine won her place at his left hand by claiming victory in the final match - or so I am told."
Zelgius's hand clenched between his knees. "I would be recognized."
"I have a solution for that problem." Sephiran let his own hand rest on the cushion separating them and watched Zelgius's knuckles turn white. I'll do anything - anything you ask, Zelgius had promised him - years ago. Over a decade. He remembered it like yesterday; if he traded the fire for the moon and stars, and the feather cushions with waist-high drifts of snow and frozen rock, the distance between them and the silence stretching, humming, would be the same. I trusted him. I told him everything, and he--
Sephiran had called it a sad story; his chest tightened, as if something inside was knotting in the middle to choke him. He recalled the strain in his own voice when he said, it was inevitable. Human beings are inconstant. Their lives are too short and their feelings too shallow. The best of their intentions lead to nothing but despair for people like us - the outcasts, the children Ashera had forgotten. Zelgius would bear the scar of Gawain's desertion for the rest of his life, just as Sephiran would remember the goddess's silence when his birthright deserted him until he drew his last breath. And that-- that was the key to smoothing the line from Zelgius's brow. They sought the same release, after all: revenge, oblivion.
Sephiran shifted onto the other cushion, reached out, made Zelgius turn fully to face him with a hand to his cheek. It left his expression in shadow, but Sephiran heard him swallow, felt his mouth work, and leaned in close. "I told you serving me would be difficult. I'm sorry."
Zelgius sighed, a puff of hot breath against his lips. "I gave my oath, did I not?" A pause, an indrawn breath. "I've no right to complain."
Foolish child - he had every right. "This will require you to break every oath you've given to Begnion."
Their eyes met, so close their lashes brushed. "My loyalty is not to Begnion," Zelgius said. "I would reveal my brand to Ashnard himself if you demanded it."
Sephiran closed his eyes tightly. "You fool." The words came out breathless and hoarse. His teeth clenched shut. Zelgius's forehead pressed against his, and Sephiran felt his callused fingers sweep his hair back, over his ears, felt them comb into the length to bunch it at the nape of his neck. "Why won't you say no?"
Zelgius breathed a laugh that heated the air between them, his forehead wrinkling. "Is that what you want?"
He wanted to say yes; what came out was no, of course not and that isn't what I mean, the sound of his own voice alien and far away. Sephiran listened to the alternating beats of Zelgius's heart, his own, and the slow crumble of wood into ash in the hearth. Sometimes it made his skin crawl, that hiss, the pop of the fire, the smell of things burning. Earlier that day he'd swept strands of his empress's hair into her fire, and the sulfurous scent recalled memories, images of hair curling and kinking, turning black, being consumed, feathers charred.
Sephiran clenched his fingers into the short hair at the nape of Zelgius's neck and pulled the general forward, offered his shoulder. He wanted the fire to sink into the ash and die. "I don't know what I was thinking." Sephiran stroked his fingers over the knobs of Zelgius's spine and watched the golden glow of the fire shift, make the shadows of his fingers dance. "Forget I said anything."
.
Author: Myaru
Rating: T
Warnings: n/a
Word count: 1491
Prompt: Fire Emblem 10, Sephiran/Zelgius: devotion - I will lie for you / Beg and steal for you
Summary: Sephiran broaches the topic of Ashnard's war, and what Zelgius must do to encourage it.
A/N: for lack of better information on the canon timeline, I set this four or five years before Path of Radiance. It's related to Child-Like Empress, but reading that isn't necessary.
.........................................................
"Tell me - is the Mad King as unpredictable as his name would indicate?" Sephiran said, his temple resting on a cold window pane so he could look up at the sky and watch the rain fall and fly before the wind. It splattered across his window to blur the mottled gray sky. "I've only met him once, and he appeared sane enough then."
He leaned too close to the glass to see Zelgius's reflection, though his ears picked up every whisper - the fold of his coat when he leaned forward, the whisper of his hair when his hand ran through it. "He was-- his character can't be defined so simply. A decision that comes across as sudden and unpredictable to his soldiers might be a conclusion reached after long contemplation which he simply did not share." A pause. "Sir Gawain respected his tactical ability."
That wasn't quite an answer. "This maneuver of his, past the border up north..." Sephiran stopped, rolling his lips together, sat up straight to look across his dining table, past the bouquet of gardenia his empress sent, to see his general reclining with his arm swung over the hard back of the sofa, only his head and shoulders visible. Zelgius frowned slightly at the rug. Sephiran noted the cording of muscle in his neck and sighed.
Every time Daein was mentioned, or he asked a question about Zelgius's service to the king, it was like this - tension hunched his shoulders, stiffened his neck, sometimes even curled his fingers into fists. That he kept it from showing in his expression was a small accomplishment when his body spoke so eloquently of his discomfort. The memories are unpleasant, he claimed, and yet-- Sephiran suspected the truth was rather different. Evidence lay in the way he turned his eyes north and west to stare when nothing occupied him, in his reluctance to speak of the priestess Elena - in his blessed goddess, this can't be real-- when they came upon the scene of her murder. This-- this is horrible. How--
They must have meant everything to him. Sephiran had met and cared for many Branded children after leaving Goldoa, and Zelgius, for all his strength and beauty, was cut from the same mold. A kind word, a soft caress, consistent offerings of food, and they were yours for the rest of their long and miserable lives. They soaked up affection like linen rags and opened their hearts to pour everyting at one's feet - all of their strengths and faculties, the love they weren't allowed to share, their lives. If Ashera punished Sephiran for anything at the end of this quest, it would be for squeezing them dry.
"His aggression must be directed profitably," Sephiran said, working his bottom lip with his teeth. He watched his companion nod, noted that Zelgius did not look up. "If Ashnard delcares war on Begnion, our conflict will fail to activate the medallion. You know where he must be directed."
Zelgius snorted softly, rested his chin on his arm. "Crimea."
"Gallia." Sephiran watched the skin around his eyes tighten. "Crimea will be the bone he gnashes his teeth on in the meantime." He rose and left the window, crossed the rug, white, green, and pristinely clean, the cold of the evening seeping through the weave; he was barefoot, because he felt guilty walking across the room in sandals once he realized every rug in his quarters was beaten free of dust by the servants at the end of each week. He could have done without the luxury. He would have been satisfied with his old townhouse in the city, for that matter, or just a single room, but that would have been an affront to the dignity of his office - never mind he was prime minister in name only. No, he must be housed in comfort. The guard detail outside, sent by Culbert, was surely meant to see to his safety - there could be no other reason. None at all.
He and Zelgius would have to stop seeing each other after this discussion. Culbert had surely already jumped to conclusions; Sephiran could live with his opinions, whatever they might be, but if word of the relationship were to spread, it might bring others to question the general's capability, and that would also work against their goals regarding the medallion. But this last time, this last night, what did he intend to do, but--
"How?"
Sephiran paused, two steps from the sofa. Zelgius raised his chin, jolted when he realized Sephiran had moved.
How-- what?
"I'm sure the army would be in favor," Zelgius said, his face coloring slightly as he looked away. "But getting the king to declare war on such a distant target..."
"The medallion is there." Sephiran walked around to the front of the sofa and sank onto the closest cushion with one leg folded under. "He knows what it is, and he wants it. If someone were to tell him of its location, and how the goddess within might be summoned, I think he'll find a way."
Zelgius remained upright, his gaze averted. Without armor he appeared manageable, normal, yet when his sleeves twisted or tightened around his arms Sephiran's fingers twitched, wanting to touch him. To lean on that arm was to feel strength greater than steel. Zelgius's gaze twitched back when Sephiran reached for his shoulder. Firelight jumped behind him, pulsed on the highlights of his dark hair.
Only the length of his arm stretched between them. Sephiran wondered if that gulf would widen after the night's conversation. "Ashnard holds tournaments at midwinter to test the strongest of his men. General Petrine won her place at his left hand by claiming victory in the final match - or so I am told."
Zelgius's hand clenched between his knees. "I would be recognized."
"I have a solution for that problem." Sephiran let his own hand rest on the cushion separating them and watched Zelgius's knuckles turn white. I'll do anything - anything you ask, Zelgius had promised him - years ago. Over a decade. He remembered it like yesterday; if he traded the fire for the moon and stars, and the feather cushions with waist-high drifts of snow and frozen rock, the distance between them and the silence stretching, humming, would be the same. I trusted him. I told him everything, and he--
Sephiran had called it a sad story; his chest tightened, as if something inside was knotting in the middle to choke him. He recalled the strain in his own voice when he said, it was inevitable. Human beings are inconstant. Their lives are too short and their feelings too shallow. The best of their intentions lead to nothing but despair for people like us - the outcasts, the children Ashera had forgotten. Zelgius would bear the scar of Gawain's desertion for the rest of his life, just as Sephiran would remember the goddess's silence when his birthright deserted him until he drew his last breath. And that-- that was the key to smoothing the line from Zelgius's brow. They sought the same release, after all: revenge, oblivion.
Sephiran shifted onto the other cushion, reached out, made Zelgius turn fully to face him with a hand to his cheek. It left his expression in shadow, but Sephiran heard him swallow, felt his mouth work, and leaned in close. "I told you serving me would be difficult. I'm sorry."
Zelgius sighed, a puff of hot breath against his lips. "I gave my oath, did I not?" A pause, an indrawn breath. "I've no right to complain."
Foolish child - he had every right. "This will require you to break every oath you've given to Begnion."
Their eyes met, so close their lashes brushed. "My loyalty is not to Begnion," Zelgius said. "I would reveal my brand to Ashnard himself if you demanded it."
Sephiran closed his eyes tightly. "You fool." The words came out breathless and hoarse. His teeth clenched shut. Zelgius's forehead pressed against his, and Sephiran felt his callused fingers sweep his hair back, over his ears, felt them comb into the length to bunch it at the nape of his neck. "Why won't you say no?"
Zelgius breathed a laugh that heated the air between them, his forehead wrinkling. "Is that what you want?"
He wanted to say yes; what came out was no, of course not and that isn't what I mean, the sound of his own voice alien and far away. Sephiran listened to the alternating beats of Zelgius's heart, his own, and the slow crumble of wood into ash in the hearth. Sometimes it made his skin crawl, that hiss, the pop of the fire, the smell of things burning. Earlier that day he'd swept strands of his empress's hair into her fire, and the sulfurous scent recalled memories, images of hair curling and kinking, turning black, being consumed, feathers charred.
Sephiran clenched his fingers into the short hair at the nape of Zelgius's neck and pulled the general forward, offered his shoulder. He wanted the fire to sink into the ash and die. "I don't know what I was thinking." Sephiran stroked his fingers over the knobs of Zelgius's spine and watched the golden glow of the fire shift, make the shadows of his fingers dance. "Forget I said anything."
.