Love Lies Bleeding (Final Fantasy II, Leon/Hilda, PG-13)
Title: Love Lies Bleeding
Author/Artist: ceylmallyn
Rating: PG-13 for creepy maybe-brainwashed maybe-not Leon.
Warnings: Hurt/comfort, some dark-ish themes.
Word count: 6671
Prompt: Leon/Hilda: semi-con, beloved captive, hurt/comfort as abuse - 'You need only think of me. Forget everything else.'
Summary: Once he would have felt guilty for it, but in a world where power seemed to be the only enduring truth, it was merely his right.
Notes: Late fic is very late-- ack, I'm so sorry! I blame classes and stupid health problems, meep. ;_;
I've used the name Mateus for the Emperor in here because it's pretty much a covert bit of canon-- he doesn't have a name given in the game, but the Japanese-only novelization gives his name as Mateus. It's sort of been stealthily worked in as canon by naming a summon in FFXII (where many of the summons were nods to older FF games) after him, and by calling his strongest weapon in Dissidia "Mateus' Malice."
"Hopeless, not heartless" is the meaning given by Victorian books for the flower Amaranthus caudatus, one of the colloquial names for which is "love-lies-bleeding." It seemed to fit with how I ended up characterizing Leon. I guess this works as a sort of counterpart piece to my previous FFII fic here.
No matter how many times Leon walked down this corridor every day, it still managed to be disconcertingly alien in its elements, to eye and ear and other senses too subtle to describe. His shadow danced along the pale stone walls as he headed deeper into the dungeon, cast by the pale, eerie light of the torches set at intervals along the walls, which burned perpetually with the infernal light of enchanted flame.
Guilt pressed down inside his heart, somewhere, at the thought of what he was doing-- a guilt distant enough to push aside, along with all his other weak sentiments, but persisting nonetheless. It felt like a stone in his chest, when he permitted himself to dwell on it for too long-- was this his way of showing charity to a daughter of his former motherland? He was using her, abusing his own power-- there would be no pardon, no excuse, for such a thing, where he had come from. (Here was different-- but here was different in ways beyond counting.)
A few guards were lingering about in the corridors outside the prison cells, slouching against walls or chattering among themselves. At the sight of Leon-- recognizable to them at once even without his now-customary dark armour and helmet, still clad all in black, with a sword of dark enspelled mythril at his side-- they straightened, stiffened, growing alert and wary, and conversations faded into silence. Though he'd said nothing to them, not spared even a glance, he clearly carried the weight of authority-- the touch of the Emperor's favour, and, as well, the touch of his power. An order he issued was not to be questioned.
He halted before the iron door guarding the entrance to the prison's cells, and touched his fingertips to the handle. The dull, cold metal grew warm beneath his touch, and somewhere within the mechanisms of the latch, he heard the sound of a lock undoing itself.
In Fynn, Leon supposed, such a door would have been regarded as remarkable, novel-- perhaps even astonishing, to commoners largely ignorant of magic. It was nothing in Palamecia, and nothing to him now-- a mere routine fact of life, the practical uses of which were immediately obvious. All doors of the castle were bound by magic, and would open at the Emperor's command; his most trusted advisors could open a majority, and Leon himself had been granted the ability to open most doors pertaining to military matters.
He would have been more surprised had the rulers of Palamecia settled for ordinary locks and keys. The castle breathed sorcery, from the highest towers to the depths of its unknown basements, down into the unfathomable deeps of the earth from where its roots sprang. There were countless floors and chambers unknown to him, places said to be known only to the emperors of ancient times, secret tunnels and rooms burrowed into unknown places beneath the mountains. As he heard soldiers tell it, there were old mines too, their supplies of ore long since exhausted, sealed off below the storage basements; and strange chambers as deep as the mines whose purposes he ought not to wonder about. It was whispered among servants from time to time that there was one long-forgotten passage which led straight into Hell itself.
All of these stories Leon would have dismissed as foolish fairy tales had he never set foot in the castle, never tasted the magic exuded by its very air.
He had come to understand much of the nature of power, in his short time living here. There was no good, and no evil-- only power, and its uses. Those who lived desired to continue living, and there was no sin in using power, stealing it, shaping it to one's own ends, to further that life and its comforts. If Fynn was helpless against Palamecia, what of it? It meant only that Fynn was weak, its power feeble against an older and greater nation's; if its fate were to be conquered, that was merely the way of the world. The strong overcame the weak; that was the law of things. For what reason would he cling to weakness when given the chance to side with strength? And here he could see vividly the source of that strength, wrought into every stone and line of the walls.
Leon pressed onwards, distantly noticing a difference in the size and colour of the wall stones as he passed from one area of the prison into another. Was this section newer, older? It was impossible to tell. The castle was a monstrosity, made half of magic and half of mad tyrants' dreams-- added to countless times over the centuries, given new towers and new chambers, adorned and re-decorated at the whim of every new ascendant to the throne. Even as they passed away and their changes were undone by their successors, they all left their marks in the form of their own particular magic, dropped at random about the endless halls-- here a room enchanted to some particularly useful purpose, here a room that no one would use, where some ancient summoning had left behind a terrible, lingering feeling of dread.
Whatever lingered here, at least, was indifferent to him-- there was only cool air and a touch of dampness, and the occasional shuffling or moaning of prisoners in other cells. Most of them were prisoners of war, and few in any state of good health-- many bore the marks of the torture chambers, if not of the battles which had made them prisoners to begin with.
He found himself hoping that Hilda saw and heard as little of them as possible. They disgusted him-- not only the ones too broken to utter more than a few words, but the alert ones who moved about in their cells, approaching the bars to glare at him as he walked past, their eyes full of hate and defiance. Once he'd been like them, yes-- had escaped the torture chambers by his own worth, by proving his ability to fight-- but he'd escaped further captivity and indignition by understanding the true nature of his situation. There was nothing meaningful in the world save power. The borders of countries meant nothing, culture meant nothing, titles and crowns meant nothing; foolish pride in the meaningless name of one's country meant nothing. Those who desired to live and live well followed those who were powerful; those who failed to follow could be crushed underfoot at whim. As his city had been. As his parents had been.
Leon had wished to live, and so he followed power, made himself obey its most meaningless commands. He hardly cared that it branded him a traitor in the eyes of Fynn-- what was a country, after all, but the strong herding a mass of the weak? There was, in the end, no Fynn, and no Palamecia either-- only an endless chain of struggles to survive, struggles for supremacy, in which the powerful survived and the powerless perished.
He kept his gaze fixed forward, with an intent look of duty, as he walked down the row leading to the cell in which the princess was being held.
The bars to the cells were made of a magic-imbued iron, cold to the touch, that he'd seen used elsewhere in Palamecia-- to simply brush one's hand against it was unpleasant; to grasp it for too long was agonizing. So no prisoners dared to rattle the bars of their cages, or even approach them too closely, but a few lurked in the shadows just beyond-- some hissed curses at him as he walked past, others merely watched fearfully. Some of the ones too broken to rise from their floors or cots called out to him weakly, raspy cries for release and mercy, or made feeble gestures with their hands. He paid them no mind-- it was their weakness which had put them there, which had condemned them to their fates.
No, they were nothing to him-- particularly next to Hilda. It had less to do with the fact that she was a princess, perhaps even an uncrowned queen now, than with the fact that she was his prisoner. He'd been entrusted to watch over her when she was first captured on the Dreadnought, and insisted on continuing that task, as much as his other duties would permit, once he had arrived back here in the capital. Not only did he tend to her personally, but oversaw the prison staff as well-- he'd expelled guards from the watch when he caught them glancing at her in an untoward manner.
It wasn't that he believed royalty undeserving of such treatment-- nor even, when he thought about it, that he believed Hilda was undeserving of it. No, his deepest instincts whispered that it was because he wanted to be the only one to possess her-- the only one to bring her either pain or joy; the one whose appearance and disappearance from that dismal cell meant everything to her. He thought about her during his other duties, though he went about them with as much devotion as usual, with an intensity that bordered on obsession. Sometimes he wondered at himself for it-- was he becoming a pawn of his own power and not its master, like so many in the empire's army?
He stopped at the gate to her cell, and studied her through the bars.
Hilda was sitting in the same place he'd found her every time he visited: kneeling on the edge of her bed, head lowered, the blue and white fabric of her dress pooling around her. Her hair spilled down around her face, matted and tangled where it was coming loose from its braids. No one had seen fit to consider her deserving of a simple comb-- Mateus, he supposed, had noticed a dim reflection of his own royal vanity in her, and decided it best to humiliate her by making her live the meagre life of any other prisoner.
And there was less in the cell today, he noted, than there had been when last he visited, a few days ago. The adequate if austere cot on which she'd previously slept was gone now-- replaced by a crude pallet of straw, with a dirty sheet thrown over it. He supposed she couldn't possibly be comfortable kneeling on it. But just as always, she was silent, and her face, so far as he could see from behind her tangled curtain of hair, was cold, expressionless.
She was aware of his presence, of course-- knew the sound of his footsteps by now. Though she raised her head a bit, her face remained unchanged. She had something of a soldier's stoicism about her, Leon had to admit-- had she not been sole heir to the throne of Fynn, had she been born a man (or even if she hadn't), she might have been a brilliant general.
"What do you want this time?" The words, softly spoken, calculatedly emotionless, tugged at something in his heart. Not because he cared whether she liked him or despised him-- he had little regard for what she thought of him at the moment. Only because they were touched with the accent of his former homeland, when he spent all his days now surrounded by a foreign one-- meaningless as distinctions of country were to him now, they still played on some sentiment he hated to acknowledge.
"As always, only your well-being." Leon brushed his fingers against the lock of the gate, and it dutifully unlatched itself. He stood in the doorway for a moment, assaying the bleak room and trying to determine what it suggested about her current favour with Mateus or lack thereof, before stepping into the cell, leaving the door half-open behind him.
She would not, of course, try to escape-- she was far too shrewd for that. Though she put up the prideful look of an unconquerable queen, her pride never truly overrode her intelligence-- she knew well when she was outmatched, when struggle would prove futile. Not once had she raised a hand against him, despite her many glares, her curt replies and cold silences.
He stood over her for a moment; she sat in silence, slowly picking out a loose thread from the hem of her skirt. She made him think of some exotic bird captured in a cage, preening weakly at its brilliant feathers; refusing to sing or to speak, to entertain its captors.
"Will you show me your lovely face, and smile for me? I see too few smiles around here." There was truth, at least, in that part. There were worse tyrants than Mateus in this palace, limited in their ability to do harm only by their lack of power. But they'd grown cruel and grandiose on the small amounts of power they had been given, intoxicated by it, and were prone to pettiness and rage, to taking out their anger on subordinates. Few would risk laughter openly when a laugh at the wrong moment could earn them a beating, or some less blatant punishment still calculated to wound and humiliate.
Hilda remained silent for a moment, unraveling another thread from the fine cloth of her skirt, which was slowly becoming dirty and ragged around the hem. "You ask me to smile in a place where I can find nothing to smile at. Even if I wanted to please you, I could hardly find it in me to pretend."
"But you make it worse for yourself than it must be. I see you still refuse to eat." Leon fixed his stare on the full plate of food sitting beside her bed; only a glass of water, half-full, had been touched. "Do you intend to starve yourself to death? What if your countrymen, by some great luck, manage to breach the castle to rescue you, and find you wasted and lying dead in the dungeons?"
"How could I eat?" This time her voice betrayed a touch of emotion, and he felt a small rise of satisfaction. "It makes me ill to look at that man's face, and more ill to think of what might become of my country with each passing day. Who could eat in such a situation as this?"
"Did he come back today?" Leon ground his teeth into his lip. The Emperor, he knew, stopped by her cell in person from time to time: not to do her any direct cruelty, but to offer bribes, peace treaties, terrible bargains for her to buy the freedom of her country with. How much he meant in earnest and how much were the man's deceptions and cruel whims, he didn't know-- though he suspected that few if any of the words were honest. He had come to be too familiar with the man who commanded him to imagine otherwise-- ah, he could revere the Emperor, could follow his orders, because to do so was to follow power, follow life; but all the same, knew well that every word the man uttered fell from his mouth coated in sugar and poison.
"He comes to me every day now-- did you not know?" There was honest surprise in Hilda's words, and her gaze. "Sometimes he threatens, sometimes he makes promises I know he would never intend to keep. I can never escape seeing him."
If he'd still believed there was any meaningful thing besides power in the world, Leon might have felt a touch of chivalry. As it was, he felt only sharp, cold jealousy. Hilda belonged to him, not to Mateus; was his to protect or command as he wished. Even the decision to release her-- though he knew the Emperor's orders always overrode his own-- should rest with him, he felt. The notion of Mateus coveting her was repulsive, not merely because Leon disliked the man personally, but because his word was law-- if he wished to have her for his own, as prisoner or otherwise, there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Trying to put thoughts of such hateful things out of his mind, he knelt in front of her bed on the stone floor, bringing himself to eye level with her. Carefully he unfastened his sword from his belt, and laid it at his side, still in its scabbard, as a gesture of trust. Hilda watched him warily, with obvious unease; she seemed to feel the whisperings of dark power that stirred in it, and in Leon now, even when bereft of his armour. He saw her flinch, faintly-- and was not sure if he should feel triumphant, or regret having caused her unintended distress.
"You are my prisoner," he said firmly, letting his fingers brush her hand gently. "Not his. However often he visits, know that you belong to me, and not him."
"But perhaps not for much longer." Traces of despair began to creep into her voice, and she lowered her head once more, golden hair spilling down her chest.
"What do you mean by that?" Leon asked sharply.
"He wishes me to agree to marry him." There was tightly constrained fear in her voice now.
Was it idle blackmail, or sincerely one of the Emperor's bizarre whims? Even if it was his whim, Leon supposed he would tire of her quickly enough-- find some new twisted fancy to chase after, some new favoured prisoner, some new stretch of the world to conquer; something which had not yet felt the grip of his control. And he would lock her up then, perhaps in some unused tower somewhere, keep her forever a bird in a cage. The notion that his time with Hilda was perhaps fleeting only made her more enticing, and the man himself more despicable.
"I cannot marry him. I shall never." For a moment her voice was on the verge of breaking, but she managed to will herself into restraint.
"Would it be so terrible?" he inquired, testing the role of devil's advocate-- not because he ever hoped to see her as Mateus' bride, but because he might be able to use it to coax a confession of devotion from her, a declaration that she would rather have him. "Perhaps he would end his campaign against your country if you agreed to give your hand in marriage."
"Never! To end it so, to give Fynn to him as a bride-price-- even if he kept his promises to cease hostilities, I would never deliver my own people into the hands of the enemy. Least of all as some wedding gift." Her hand clenched and unclenched around a ruffle of her skirts. "There are traitors and then there are traitors, Leon. To secure peace with such treason would make me worse than what you have become."
She delivered the barb with elegance-- he'd give her that, at least. Something in him wished to wince at it, but he reassured himself that it was meaningless-- nothing but an empty, sentimental attachment to a weak country.
"Is there no good you could find in it? All the power and riches that are his to command would be yours as well-- you could choose to use them to good purpose, to wield that power as your own while pledging loyalty in name." As I have done, he silently added, though not even in front of her would he openly confess his dislike of the Emperor. "Perhaps you reject our home because you have not seen the beauty of it-- only this desolate prison-- but you would find much to your liking in living here, I imagine. Anything you desire could be created, or re-created, here in this palace. For anything you find displeasing, surely some magical remedy can be found for it. And I--" He hesitated a moment. "I would be eternally at your side, in service to you as I serve him."
"I could never live here with him, let alone share his bed." The words were pronounced with the utmost loathing, and Leon found something beguiling in the fervour of them. "I told him I would sooner share a bed with a goat."
"...And?" He felt the traces of a smirk forming on his lips, but quickly repressed it. "I imagine he did not take it well."
"I thought he would sentence me to torture then and there-- but he stopped short of it, and only said that if I wanted to share my bed with goats, I could sleep like one." Hilda's voice was still proud and forceful, even as she bore up against the shame of remembering it.
Yes, he could see the appeal in trying to break her through humiliation-- oh, yes. But there were far better ways, he thought, to subvert her will-- ways that Mateus knew little of, so far had he gone in exchanging his humanity for power.
"You need to keep up your strength," he said softly, gesturing to the food. "Otherwise, how will you continue to defy him?"
She stared down at the plate with her facade of haughty arrogance, eyes half-closed and lips pursed, as though she could fool him with it. Leon could tell by the way her gaze strayed to it, and the way she folded her arms gingerly across her stomach, that she was starving-- but warring with her desire to prove herself stoic and above the charity of her captors, and her sense of self-preservation. As befitted a well-educated princess, she was loath to trust food provided by her enemies, prepared with unknown ingredients.
Her fear, Leon had to admit, was no idle paranoia. There were more varieties and degrees of poison in Palamecia than were known to the greatest healers and assassins alike of Fynn-- poisons to procure any manner of death desired, from the instant to the prolonged and agonizing; substances which could be swallowed, inhaled, touched, delivered on the blades of swords, and likely other ways he had not yet thought to imagine. And of those which did not kill, some were more subtly cruel in their workings-- draughts which could compel unthinking obedience, or cause terror and the illusion of impending death, until an antidote was administered.
Still, if Mateus spoke truth about only wanting to use the princess as bait for the rebellion, the man had enough practicality in him to refrain from drugging her food needlessly. What purpose would it serve? She was far more useful alive than dead, and it was in their best interest to let the rebels imagine they could recover her unharmed.
"I can hardly imagine he would have a motive to poison you, if you are worried," he added. "If you wish, I can taste it myself-- if nothing else would serve to convince you."
"How shall I trust you? For all I know, it would do you no harm only because you knew what poison was meant to be used on me, and took the antidote beforehand." The words were pronounced softly, with all the grace of her royal bearing, but there was hard resentment in them, and in her averted gaze.
Leon bit at his lip. "Your life is far more valuable to me than your death. I know of no such plot, and if I did, I would personally execute the one who orchestrated it." Even if I had to drive my sword through the Emperor's heart, he thought. Digging into the pocket of his shirt, he pulled out a thin silver vial. "But true enough, there are fools and petty rogues in this place who might think to slip some crude drug into your food, if left unattended. This will serve you well enough against them-- an antidote to all common poisons; and their poisons would be of the crudest sort imaginable."
"In that case, how can I know the vial contains what you tell me?" She studied it carefully under the pale light of the prison.
"You cannot-- I admit it." He caught Hilda's gaze and held it forcefully, reaching out and touching her hand when she fell silent. For all the intensity in her voice, her flesh felt cold and languid beneath his fingers. "I can only give you my word that I would sooner die than betray you so."
She regarded him with a mixture of hate and confusion. He could see in her eyes the stirrings of a desire to trust-- striving against her desire to hate him, to harden her heart against him and view him only as one of the enemy.
"Very well." She lowered her eyes. "If you insist-- then do as you please."
Ah, she was maddening-- was that what drove his obsession, and why the Emperor came to her again and again, trying to find some way apart from raw strength to force her to yield to his will? She was vulnerable, frightened-- it was wrought clearly into every movement of her body; he had fought often enough, by now, to know the difference between a terrified opponent and a bold one. Yet still she maintained the pretense of aloofness, of needing nothing and no one-- he wanted to shatter the pretense to bits, lay bare her fear and helplessness. There was no satisfaction in gaining it through force, except for the lowest of brutes. He would have to be patient.
Leon opened the vial of antidote slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on hers as he did so. "But first this-- to prove my good will." He drank a small amount of it, swallowing audibly before pressing the small bottle, half-full, into Hilda's delicate hand. She stared at it trepidantly for a few moments, before tossing her head back and drinking the remainder in a single gulp.
The food, he could tell by the smell alone, was not the common sort of slop fed to most prisoners-- this was of excellent quality, prepared with ingredients almost as fine as those used for the royal family's meals. He found himself annoyed at the thought that she would refuse such hospitality from her captors-- when they, when he, could have given her far worse; and his own food was rarely so good as this. Still, he took the opportunity to savour it. Hilda watched him, still guarded, her graceful fingers worrying at the unraveling threads of her skirt again.
"Will you eat now, my beloved?" He held the plate out after a few bites, offering a spoonful of spiced lentils. "Perhaps you would feel like singing, like the lovely bird you are, if you were well fed."
"You are so cruel." But her voice was flat and wan, as though she could no longer muster the will to hate him. "What would your family think, if they saw you like this?" Still she took the plate from him, took the spoon and forced down a mouthful. She made a brief face of distaste-- perhaps at the unexpected spiciness of it, or the alien flavours; or the fact that the same spoon had been in his mouth moments before-- but went on eating, all the same.
"Family, you say? Another meaningless notion." Leon turned away from her, fighting down the last vestiges of his weak sentimentality. Country was nothing, name was nothing-- bonds of family were nothing, either, in the end. Was not attachment to the weak, in itself, a weakness? Compassion for the weak, family or strangers, would only drag himself down to their level.
He watched her finish the rest of the food-- rice, vegetables stewed with a few pieces of meat-- before putting the plate down, and shoving it forcefully off to one side, seemingly in resentment that he'd coaxed her to break her vow of fasting.
"Are you utterly heartless? Or has the Emperor put you under a spell?" Hilda ran her fingers through one of her tangled braids, despairingly. "I would rather believe he did than imagine a man of Fynn betraying his country so."
"He gave me nothing but power-- the only thing that means anything, in the end." Leon's hand moved to his sheathed sword, running his fingers over the hilt possessively, drawing comfort from the whispers of dark magic it exuded.
"Why-- why are you doing this?"
"We all follow our own will, and do what we must to survive. In the end, there is no right, no wrong-- only will and desire, and strength."
Hilda shook her head frantically. "Perhaps you can believe that. I can't..." Her voice shook for a moment, and her hand moved quickly to her eyes, as if to brush away unwanted tears. "You have a sister in the rebellion-- she thinks of you so often, wonders what has become of you. How can I tell her that..."
"Yes-- I know. I saw her myself, when the rebels came on board to sabotage the Dreadnought." And he'd paused just for a moment, when he heard Maria's voice-- but it was merely surprise, and nothing more. To see a person he'd thought dead, now alive before him-- of course he was startled; no further explanation was necessary. That they had managed to breach the ship's defenses at all was shocking enough; it mattered little who they were.
"You saw her with your own eyes, and yet you were unmoved? What sort of man are you?"
"I am one who wished to live. Can you sit there and tell me, tell me with confidence, that you might not have done the same if given my choices?" A note of bitterness crept into his voice, but he swiftly forced it down.
"Then... then tell me this." Hilda brushed her hair behind one shoulder and stared at him face to face for a moment. "If you care so little for our country now, why do you come to see me?"
"Because..." Because you are precious, precious; I want one beautiful thing in this terrible world to call my own. Because you were given to me, and I will not relinquish you to anyone, not even the Emperor himself. Because if you were granted freedom, you would flee far from here, and there would no longer be anything precious to brighten my days. Because in this world of endless struggle, I should be allowed just one selfishness, one small indulgence for myself. "Does it matter why? Who else in all of this castle, of all your captors, has ever visited this miserable place out of compassion for you? To whom has it mattered that you were comfortable, well-fed, in proper health-- who else has punished rude and unruly guards, sentenced them to work somewhere they could never hope to see you? Who promised to serve you loyally, if the Emperor forced your hand in marriage?" He paused for a second. "I would fain give you kindness, Hilda-- and you will not have it, only because you cannot understand my struggles."
He reached out and caressed her hair softly, smoothing down the golden strands with his hand. She made no move to pull away, but accepted his touch in silence.
"Do you think me a monster still?" Leon coaxed his voice into as soft and gentle a tone as he could manage.
"I hardly know what to think of you."
"But not such a monster that you would ask me to leave, to let you be." His hand stroked over her hair, again and again, soft locks and tangled knots. "Perhaps you enjoy hearing the voice of a fellow countryman-- don't you? Even if I am of your country no more. Just as I enjoy hearing yours."
"Perhaps..." Hilda leaned into his touch, eyes drifting shut in what might have been relaxation or quiet despair.
"However cold you act towards me, you wait for me, hope for me-- don't you? The one who cares for you, when no one else does-- when you have been left here so lonely, in so bleak a place. And so you listen for me-- wait for the sound of my footsteps, wait for me to come to you."
"Sometimes," she admitted, in a voice equal parts exhausted and despairing. He combed his fingers through her hair once again, scarcely minding that it was a knotty mess-- enjoyed it all the more for that, for the pretty facade of royalty peeled away to reveal the humanity.
Leon wrapped an arm around her shoulder slowly, drawing her closer, and she brought her head slowly-- half guided, half of her own will-- to rest against his chest, tangled hair and half-undone braids spilling onto his legs.
"There are few honest people here-- I know it as well as you. Power corrupts the small and the petty, and the weak-minded."
"And yet, have you not let yourself be corrupted as well?" she whispered. There was no anger in her voice, only sorrow.
"Corrupted? No. I understand power as they do, but I am not like those ones-- they have no ambitions beyond their own petty tyranny." There was weakness in Palamecia as much as in Fynn-- for all the power and riches it held, all the sorceries, it was a land of decadence and excess, and there was weakness in excess just as in poverty. And Mateus, so resplendant in the robes and jewels of his ancestors, so beautiful in his cruelty, all gilded viciousness and velvet deceit-- in him the worst of it was embodied. "Worry not. My ambitions are my own-- not even the Emperor himself shall dictate those."
The mention of him seemed to unsettle Hilda; she had, it seemed, been striving to put him far from her mind. "But you must not let him know that. He strives to control everything..."
He stroked her cheek softly. "He does not bid me reveal my thoughts."
"Ah, Leon... I'm afraid. I can hardly guess how far he will go, what he might do to force my hand. I don't want to die here, Leon..." He moved to stroke the back of her neck softly. "But to live here would be as bad as death, in so many ways. Even if everyone were kind..." She swallowed heavily, buried her head in his chest. "Surely you remember how beautiful Fynn was-- everything here is dry and burning hot. I saw, when they brought me from the Dreadnought to this place. This is a land of death."
"It has its beauty, for those with eyes to see it. If you had the freedom to travel this land as you pleased, you might like it much more."
"No, never! Even if it looked no different from Fynn, I could never be happy in exile from my people. And never would I have true freedom-- the Emperor would watch me, watch me always."
There was something exquisite in her weakness. Something tantalizing, alluring-- more enticing even than her strength, her stubborn resistance. Leon ran his fingers through her hair again, delicately passing over the tangles, toying with hair that had come loose from a braid.
"Think nothing of him. Put him far from your mind. Much in this world is beyond our control-- we can only strive to flow with its currents." He could hear her breathing now-- rapid, trying to calm fear. "Just for now, you are safe with me-- I'll allow no harm to come to you. So long as he forces you to stay here, I will be here too."
Her hands were clenched tightly, held against her chest. Leon took one gently-- small and fragile-seeming in his larger grip; pale enough for him to see the bones beneath the skin. Hilda's gaze was distant, detached, as she slipped her fingers in between his.
He brough the hand to his mouth, and kissed the soft fingertips.
"Leon..." There was a muted panic in her voice.
"Shh. I don't intend to force anything from you-- only to admire." He let his breath dust over her fingertips. "If you would prefer, close your eyes and imagine me as the man you were to marry."
Whether she was imagining him or someone else, whether she gave up willingly or in despair-- only for now, only between them, after day upon day of having her will ground down and trodden upon-- she allowed it. Leon no longer cared why, only that he had her for this moment-- this delicious moment, however fleeting.
He brushed the fingers of his other hand against her neck-- traced them slowly down to her collarbone, and further down from there. Hilda froze for a moment, but then relaxed again in silence, her will to protest temporarily exhausted. It was her heartbeat that Leon wanted to feel, the proof she was alive-- anything else his hand might brush was incidental. He closed his eyes, and felt it resonating against his fingertips, even though the layer of fabric.
He could draw out a blade if he wanted, he thought; jab it between her ribs and pierce her heart-- feel her blood flowing out, feel her expel her last breath. He could, but he wouldn't-- her vulnerability was too exquisite, too beautiful to do anything but hold and savour. One indulgence, one luxury-- he deserved her, after denying himself so much, after spending so much time in the company of those who took what they did not deserve.
"Rest quietly, Hilda. Be calm for now. You throw away your strength needlessly in worrying-- what can you do to defend yourself here? So little." She pressed her cheek against his hand, making a soft noise of despair. "You know it as well as I. Let me be the one to worry, instead-- entrust your fate to me. Set aside your fears. If you must fear, fear only for me, not yourself."
Hilda remained silent, head burrowed into Leon's shirt; refusing to shed tears, but rocking slowly to calm herself.
"Will you promise me that? Promise me-- promise to put aside all your worries, your fears for the future. Think of me, instead-- the one who will protect you, and take away all your sorrows." He wrapped both of his arms around her, and pulled her close against him.
"I promise." Her voice was a flat whisper.
"Good. Keep to that promise, even in your dreams-- keep to it when the Emperor comes to see you. No matter what happens, remember me."
"I will. I... will, yes."
After a few more minutes, she drifted away into sleep in his arms-- the deep deathlike sleep of one who had passed too many nights without it. Leon allowed himself to hold her, briefly-- admiring her in the pale light, the despair and resignation that were evident on her lovely face even as she slept.
She stirred, briefly, into half-wakefulness as he eased her down into the crude bed, floating out of some disturbing dream and murmuring his name a few times. He stroked her cheek again, and watched her sink back down into slumber, her chest rising and falling with each breath.
Again Leon thought to himself that he could take his sword, cut her throat or pierce her heart-- not because he wished to see her die, but there was something alluring in knowing that he had the power to do so. It was enough just to know.
He deserved it-- deserved to be able to take her life if he pleased, after what he'd endured; deserved so much more than these few moments of selfishness. Too much indulgence was weakness, he knew that well-- but there was weakness, also, in self-denial to the point where one was consumed by desires. Nothing in the world but power, and will and desire-- to permit himself such indulgences was a matter of mere survival. He needed no justification, he told himself firmly.
He took one last glance at Hilda before shutting the cell door behind him, trying to put all thoughts of her far from his mind as he returned to duty. But like the countless ghosts of this fathomless castle, they remained close to him, haunting him restlessly.
a/n: Leon is definitely one of the big unsolved mysteries of FFII-- what exactly convinced him to turn against his country and the rest of his family? Why was he so eager to grab the throne for himself as soon as the Emperor was (at least temporarily) dead? Why did he have a change of heart and decide to rejoin so suddenly? There are so many unanswered questions there-- certainly a lot of fic potential, though, and I tried to figure out what some of his thoughts might have been. (I actually didn't originally plan on writing it from Leon's POV, but for some reason it ended up working out in a way that trying to write it from Hilda's didn't. Maybe because I wanted to experiment with having an unreliable narrator, I'm not sure.)
Author/Artist: ceylmallyn
Rating: PG-13 for creepy maybe-brainwashed maybe-not Leon.
Warnings: Hurt/comfort, some dark-ish themes.
Word count: 6671
Prompt: Leon/Hilda: semi-con, beloved captive, hurt/comfort as abuse - 'You need only think of me. Forget everything else.'
Summary: Once he would have felt guilty for it, but in a world where power seemed to be the only enduring truth, it was merely his right.
Notes: Late fic is very late-- ack, I'm so sorry! I blame classes and stupid health problems, meep. ;_;
I've used the name Mateus for the Emperor in here because it's pretty much a covert bit of canon-- he doesn't have a name given in the game, but the Japanese-only novelization gives his name as Mateus. It's sort of been stealthily worked in as canon by naming a summon in FFXII (where many of the summons were nods to older FF games) after him, and by calling his strongest weapon in Dissidia "Mateus' Malice."
"Hopeless, not heartless" is the meaning given by Victorian books for the flower Amaranthus caudatus, one of the colloquial names for which is "love-lies-bleeding." It seemed to fit with how I ended up characterizing Leon. I guess this works as a sort of counterpart piece to my previous FFII fic here.
No matter how many times Leon walked down this corridor every day, it still managed to be disconcertingly alien in its elements, to eye and ear and other senses too subtle to describe. His shadow danced along the pale stone walls as he headed deeper into the dungeon, cast by the pale, eerie light of the torches set at intervals along the walls, which burned perpetually with the infernal light of enchanted flame.
Guilt pressed down inside his heart, somewhere, at the thought of what he was doing-- a guilt distant enough to push aside, along with all his other weak sentiments, but persisting nonetheless. It felt like a stone in his chest, when he permitted himself to dwell on it for too long-- was this his way of showing charity to a daughter of his former motherland? He was using her, abusing his own power-- there would be no pardon, no excuse, for such a thing, where he had come from. (Here was different-- but here was different in ways beyond counting.)
A few guards were lingering about in the corridors outside the prison cells, slouching against walls or chattering among themselves. At the sight of Leon-- recognizable to them at once even without his now-customary dark armour and helmet, still clad all in black, with a sword of dark enspelled mythril at his side-- they straightened, stiffened, growing alert and wary, and conversations faded into silence. Though he'd said nothing to them, not spared even a glance, he clearly carried the weight of authority-- the touch of the Emperor's favour, and, as well, the touch of his power. An order he issued was not to be questioned.
He halted before the iron door guarding the entrance to the prison's cells, and touched his fingertips to the handle. The dull, cold metal grew warm beneath his touch, and somewhere within the mechanisms of the latch, he heard the sound of a lock undoing itself.
In Fynn, Leon supposed, such a door would have been regarded as remarkable, novel-- perhaps even astonishing, to commoners largely ignorant of magic. It was nothing in Palamecia, and nothing to him now-- a mere routine fact of life, the practical uses of which were immediately obvious. All doors of the castle were bound by magic, and would open at the Emperor's command; his most trusted advisors could open a majority, and Leon himself had been granted the ability to open most doors pertaining to military matters.
He would have been more surprised had the rulers of Palamecia settled for ordinary locks and keys. The castle breathed sorcery, from the highest towers to the depths of its unknown basements, down into the unfathomable deeps of the earth from where its roots sprang. There were countless floors and chambers unknown to him, places said to be known only to the emperors of ancient times, secret tunnels and rooms burrowed into unknown places beneath the mountains. As he heard soldiers tell it, there were old mines too, their supplies of ore long since exhausted, sealed off below the storage basements; and strange chambers as deep as the mines whose purposes he ought not to wonder about. It was whispered among servants from time to time that there was one long-forgotten passage which led straight into Hell itself.
All of these stories Leon would have dismissed as foolish fairy tales had he never set foot in the castle, never tasted the magic exuded by its very air.
He had come to understand much of the nature of power, in his short time living here. There was no good, and no evil-- only power, and its uses. Those who lived desired to continue living, and there was no sin in using power, stealing it, shaping it to one's own ends, to further that life and its comforts. If Fynn was helpless against Palamecia, what of it? It meant only that Fynn was weak, its power feeble against an older and greater nation's; if its fate were to be conquered, that was merely the way of the world. The strong overcame the weak; that was the law of things. For what reason would he cling to weakness when given the chance to side with strength? And here he could see vividly the source of that strength, wrought into every stone and line of the walls.
Leon pressed onwards, distantly noticing a difference in the size and colour of the wall stones as he passed from one area of the prison into another. Was this section newer, older? It was impossible to tell. The castle was a monstrosity, made half of magic and half of mad tyrants' dreams-- added to countless times over the centuries, given new towers and new chambers, adorned and re-decorated at the whim of every new ascendant to the throne. Even as they passed away and their changes were undone by their successors, they all left their marks in the form of their own particular magic, dropped at random about the endless halls-- here a room enchanted to some particularly useful purpose, here a room that no one would use, where some ancient summoning had left behind a terrible, lingering feeling of dread.
Whatever lingered here, at least, was indifferent to him-- there was only cool air and a touch of dampness, and the occasional shuffling or moaning of prisoners in other cells. Most of them were prisoners of war, and few in any state of good health-- many bore the marks of the torture chambers, if not of the battles which had made them prisoners to begin with.
He found himself hoping that Hilda saw and heard as little of them as possible. They disgusted him-- not only the ones too broken to utter more than a few words, but the alert ones who moved about in their cells, approaching the bars to glare at him as he walked past, their eyes full of hate and defiance. Once he'd been like them, yes-- had escaped the torture chambers by his own worth, by proving his ability to fight-- but he'd escaped further captivity and indignition by understanding the true nature of his situation. There was nothing meaningful in the world save power. The borders of countries meant nothing, culture meant nothing, titles and crowns meant nothing; foolish pride in the meaningless name of one's country meant nothing. Those who desired to live and live well followed those who were powerful; those who failed to follow could be crushed underfoot at whim. As his city had been. As his parents had been.
Leon had wished to live, and so he followed power, made himself obey its most meaningless commands. He hardly cared that it branded him a traitor in the eyes of Fynn-- what was a country, after all, but the strong herding a mass of the weak? There was, in the end, no Fynn, and no Palamecia either-- only an endless chain of struggles to survive, struggles for supremacy, in which the powerful survived and the powerless perished.
He kept his gaze fixed forward, with an intent look of duty, as he walked down the row leading to the cell in which the princess was being held.
The bars to the cells were made of a magic-imbued iron, cold to the touch, that he'd seen used elsewhere in Palamecia-- to simply brush one's hand against it was unpleasant; to grasp it for too long was agonizing. So no prisoners dared to rattle the bars of their cages, or even approach them too closely, but a few lurked in the shadows just beyond-- some hissed curses at him as he walked past, others merely watched fearfully. Some of the ones too broken to rise from their floors or cots called out to him weakly, raspy cries for release and mercy, or made feeble gestures with their hands. He paid them no mind-- it was their weakness which had put them there, which had condemned them to their fates.
No, they were nothing to him-- particularly next to Hilda. It had less to do with the fact that she was a princess, perhaps even an uncrowned queen now, than with the fact that she was his prisoner. He'd been entrusted to watch over her when she was first captured on the Dreadnought, and insisted on continuing that task, as much as his other duties would permit, once he had arrived back here in the capital. Not only did he tend to her personally, but oversaw the prison staff as well-- he'd expelled guards from the watch when he caught them glancing at her in an untoward manner.
It wasn't that he believed royalty undeserving of such treatment-- nor even, when he thought about it, that he believed Hilda was undeserving of it. No, his deepest instincts whispered that it was because he wanted to be the only one to possess her-- the only one to bring her either pain or joy; the one whose appearance and disappearance from that dismal cell meant everything to her. He thought about her during his other duties, though he went about them with as much devotion as usual, with an intensity that bordered on obsession. Sometimes he wondered at himself for it-- was he becoming a pawn of his own power and not its master, like so many in the empire's army?
He stopped at the gate to her cell, and studied her through the bars.
Hilda was sitting in the same place he'd found her every time he visited: kneeling on the edge of her bed, head lowered, the blue and white fabric of her dress pooling around her. Her hair spilled down around her face, matted and tangled where it was coming loose from its braids. No one had seen fit to consider her deserving of a simple comb-- Mateus, he supposed, had noticed a dim reflection of his own royal vanity in her, and decided it best to humiliate her by making her live the meagre life of any other prisoner.
And there was less in the cell today, he noted, than there had been when last he visited, a few days ago. The adequate if austere cot on which she'd previously slept was gone now-- replaced by a crude pallet of straw, with a dirty sheet thrown over it. He supposed she couldn't possibly be comfortable kneeling on it. But just as always, she was silent, and her face, so far as he could see from behind her tangled curtain of hair, was cold, expressionless.
She was aware of his presence, of course-- knew the sound of his footsteps by now. Though she raised her head a bit, her face remained unchanged. She had something of a soldier's stoicism about her, Leon had to admit-- had she not been sole heir to the throne of Fynn, had she been born a man (or even if she hadn't), she might have been a brilliant general.
"What do you want this time?" The words, softly spoken, calculatedly emotionless, tugged at something in his heart. Not because he cared whether she liked him or despised him-- he had little regard for what she thought of him at the moment. Only because they were touched with the accent of his former homeland, when he spent all his days now surrounded by a foreign one-- meaningless as distinctions of country were to him now, they still played on some sentiment he hated to acknowledge.
"As always, only your well-being." Leon brushed his fingers against the lock of the gate, and it dutifully unlatched itself. He stood in the doorway for a moment, assaying the bleak room and trying to determine what it suggested about her current favour with Mateus or lack thereof, before stepping into the cell, leaving the door half-open behind him.
She would not, of course, try to escape-- she was far too shrewd for that. Though she put up the prideful look of an unconquerable queen, her pride never truly overrode her intelligence-- she knew well when she was outmatched, when struggle would prove futile. Not once had she raised a hand against him, despite her many glares, her curt replies and cold silences.
He stood over her for a moment; she sat in silence, slowly picking out a loose thread from the hem of her skirt. She made him think of some exotic bird captured in a cage, preening weakly at its brilliant feathers; refusing to sing or to speak, to entertain its captors.
"Will you show me your lovely face, and smile for me? I see too few smiles around here." There was truth, at least, in that part. There were worse tyrants than Mateus in this palace, limited in their ability to do harm only by their lack of power. But they'd grown cruel and grandiose on the small amounts of power they had been given, intoxicated by it, and were prone to pettiness and rage, to taking out their anger on subordinates. Few would risk laughter openly when a laugh at the wrong moment could earn them a beating, or some less blatant punishment still calculated to wound and humiliate.
Hilda remained silent for a moment, unraveling another thread from the fine cloth of her skirt, which was slowly becoming dirty and ragged around the hem. "You ask me to smile in a place where I can find nothing to smile at. Even if I wanted to please you, I could hardly find it in me to pretend."
"But you make it worse for yourself than it must be. I see you still refuse to eat." Leon fixed his stare on the full plate of food sitting beside her bed; only a glass of water, half-full, had been touched. "Do you intend to starve yourself to death? What if your countrymen, by some great luck, manage to breach the castle to rescue you, and find you wasted and lying dead in the dungeons?"
"How could I eat?" This time her voice betrayed a touch of emotion, and he felt a small rise of satisfaction. "It makes me ill to look at that man's face, and more ill to think of what might become of my country with each passing day. Who could eat in such a situation as this?"
"Did he come back today?" Leon ground his teeth into his lip. The Emperor, he knew, stopped by her cell in person from time to time: not to do her any direct cruelty, but to offer bribes, peace treaties, terrible bargains for her to buy the freedom of her country with. How much he meant in earnest and how much were the man's deceptions and cruel whims, he didn't know-- though he suspected that few if any of the words were honest. He had come to be too familiar with the man who commanded him to imagine otherwise-- ah, he could revere the Emperor, could follow his orders, because to do so was to follow power, follow life; but all the same, knew well that every word the man uttered fell from his mouth coated in sugar and poison.
"He comes to me every day now-- did you not know?" There was honest surprise in Hilda's words, and her gaze. "Sometimes he threatens, sometimes he makes promises I know he would never intend to keep. I can never escape seeing him."
If he'd still believed there was any meaningful thing besides power in the world, Leon might have felt a touch of chivalry. As it was, he felt only sharp, cold jealousy. Hilda belonged to him, not to Mateus; was his to protect or command as he wished. Even the decision to release her-- though he knew the Emperor's orders always overrode his own-- should rest with him, he felt. The notion of Mateus coveting her was repulsive, not merely because Leon disliked the man personally, but because his word was law-- if he wished to have her for his own, as prisoner or otherwise, there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Trying to put thoughts of such hateful things out of his mind, he knelt in front of her bed on the stone floor, bringing himself to eye level with her. Carefully he unfastened his sword from his belt, and laid it at his side, still in its scabbard, as a gesture of trust. Hilda watched him warily, with obvious unease; she seemed to feel the whisperings of dark power that stirred in it, and in Leon now, even when bereft of his armour. He saw her flinch, faintly-- and was not sure if he should feel triumphant, or regret having caused her unintended distress.
"You are my prisoner," he said firmly, letting his fingers brush her hand gently. "Not his. However often he visits, know that you belong to me, and not him."
"But perhaps not for much longer." Traces of despair began to creep into her voice, and she lowered her head once more, golden hair spilling down her chest.
"What do you mean by that?" Leon asked sharply.
"He wishes me to agree to marry him." There was tightly constrained fear in her voice now.
Was it idle blackmail, or sincerely one of the Emperor's bizarre whims? Even if it was his whim, Leon supposed he would tire of her quickly enough-- find some new twisted fancy to chase after, some new favoured prisoner, some new stretch of the world to conquer; something which had not yet felt the grip of his control. And he would lock her up then, perhaps in some unused tower somewhere, keep her forever a bird in a cage. The notion that his time with Hilda was perhaps fleeting only made her more enticing, and the man himself more despicable.
"I cannot marry him. I shall never." For a moment her voice was on the verge of breaking, but she managed to will herself into restraint.
"Would it be so terrible?" he inquired, testing the role of devil's advocate-- not because he ever hoped to see her as Mateus' bride, but because he might be able to use it to coax a confession of devotion from her, a declaration that she would rather have him. "Perhaps he would end his campaign against your country if you agreed to give your hand in marriage."
"Never! To end it so, to give Fynn to him as a bride-price-- even if he kept his promises to cease hostilities, I would never deliver my own people into the hands of the enemy. Least of all as some wedding gift." Her hand clenched and unclenched around a ruffle of her skirts. "There are traitors and then there are traitors, Leon. To secure peace with such treason would make me worse than what you have become."
She delivered the barb with elegance-- he'd give her that, at least. Something in him wished to wince at it, but he reassured himself that it was meaningless-- nothing but an empty, sentimental attachment to a weak country.
"Is there no good you could find in it? All the power and riches that are his to command would be yours as well-- you could choose to use them to good purpose, to wield that power as your own while pledging loyalty in name." As I have done, he silently added, though not even in front of her would he openly confess his dislike of the Emperor. "Perhaps you reject our home because you have not seen the beauty of it-- only this desolate prison-- but you would find much to your liking in living here, I imagine. Anything you desire could be created, or re-created, here in this palace. For anything you find displeasing, surely some magical remedy can be found for it. And I--" He hesitated a moment. "I would be eternally at your side, in service to you as I serve him."
"I could never live here with him, let alone share his bed." The words were pronounced with the utmost loathing, and Leon found something beguiling in the fervour of them. "I told him I would sooner share a bed with a goat."
"...And?" He felt the traces of a smirk forming on his lips, but quickly repressed it. "I imagine he did not take it well."
"I thought he would sentence me to torture then and there-- but he stopped short of it, and only said that if I wanted to share my bed with goats, I could sleep like one." Hilda's voice was still proud and forceful, even as she bore up against the shame of remembering it.
Yes, he could see the appeal in trying to break her through humiliation-- oh, yes. But there were far better ways, he thought, to subvert her will-- ways that Mateus knew little of, so far had he gone in exchanging his humanity for power.
"You need to keep up your strength," he said softly, gesturing to the food. "Otherwise, how will you continue to defy him?"
She stared down at the plate with her facade of haughty arrogance, eyes half-closed and lips pursed, as though she could fool him with it. Leon could tell by the way her gaze strayed to it, and the way she folded her arms gingerly across her stomach, that she was starving-- but warring with her desire to prove herself stoic and above the charity of her captors, and her sense of self-preservation. As befitted a well-educated princess, she was loath to trust food provided by her enemies, prepared with unknown ingredients.
Her fear, Leon had to admit, was no idle paranoia. There were more varieties and degrees of poison in Palamecia than were known to the greatest healers and assassins alike of Fynn-- poisons to procure any manner of death desired, from the instant to the prolonged and agonizing; substances which could be swallowed, inhaled, touched, delivered on the blades of swords, and likely other ways he had not yet thought to imagine. And of those which did not kill, some were more subtly cruel in their workings-- draughts which could compel unthinking obedience, or cause terror and the illusion of impending death, until an antidote was administered.
Still, if Mateus spoke truth about only wanting to use the princess as bait for the rebellion, the man had enough practicality in him to refrain from drugging her food needlessly. What purpose would it serve? She was far more useful alive than dead, and it was in their best interest to let the rebels imagine they could recover her unharmed.
"I can hardly imagine he would have a motive to poison you, if you are worried," he added. "If you wish, I can taste it myself-- if nothing else would serve to convince you."
"How shall I trust you? For all I know, it would do you no harm only because you knew what poison was meant to be used on me, and took the antidote beforehand." The words were pronounced softly, with all the grace of her royal bearing, but there was hard resentment in them, and in her averted gaze.
Leon bit at his lip. "Your life is far more valuable to me than your death. I know of no such plot, and if I did, I would personally execute the one who orchestrated it." Even if I had to drive my sword through the Emperor's heart, he thought. Digging into the pocket of his shirt, he pulled out a thin silver vial. "But true enough, there are fools and petty rogues in this place who might think to slip some crude drug into your food, if left unattended. This will serve you well enough against them-- an antidote to all common poisons; and their poisons would be of the crudest sort imaginable."
"In that case, how can I know the vial contains what you tell me?" She studied it carefully under the pale light of the prison.
"You cannot-- I admit it." He caught Hilda's gaze and held it forcefully, reaching out and touching her hand when she fell silent. For all the intensity in her voice, her flesh felt cold and languid beneath his fingers. "I can only give you my word that I would sooner die than betray you so."
She regarded him with a mixture of hate and confusion. He could see in her eyes the stirrings of a desire to trust-- striving against her desire to hate him, to harden her heart against him and view him only as one of the enemy.
"Very well." She lowered her eyes. "If you insist-- then do as you please."
Ah, she was maddening-- was that what drove his obsession, and why the Emperor came to her again and again, trying to find some way apart from raw strength to force her to yield to his will? She was vulnerable, frightened-- it was wrought clearly into every movement of her body; he had fought often enough, by now, to know the difference between a terrified opponent and a bold one. Yet still she maintained the pretense of aloofness, of needing nothing and no one-- he wanted to shatter the pretense to bits, lay bare her fear and helplessness. There was no satisfaction in gaining it through force, except for the lowest of brutes. He would have to be patient.
Leon opened the vial of antidote slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on hers as he did so. "But first this-- to prove my good will." He drank a small amount of it, swallowing audibly before pressing the small bottle, half-full, into Hilda's delicate hand. She stared at it trepidantly for a few moments, before tossing her head back and drinking the remainder in a single gulp.
The food, he could tell by the smell alone, was not the common sort of slop fed to most prisoners-- this was of excellent quality, prepared with ingredients almost as fine as those used for the royal family's meals. He found himself annoyed at the thought that she would refuse such hospitality from her captors-- when they, when he, could have given her far worse; and his own food was rarely so good as this. Still, he took the opportunity to savour it. Hilda watched him, still guarded, her graceful fingers worrying at the unraveling threads of her skirt again.
"Will you eat now, my beloved?" He held the plate out after a few bites, offering a spoonful of spiced lentils. "Perhaps you would feel like singing, like the lovely bird you are, if you were well fed."
"You are so cruel." But her voice was flat and wan, as though she could no longer muster the will to hate him. "What would your family think, if they saw you like this?" Still she took the plate from him, took the spoon and forced down a mouthful. She made a brief face of distaste-- perhaps at the unexpected spiciness of it, or the alien flavours; or the fact that the same spoon had been in his mouth moments before-- but went on eating, all the same.
"Family, you say? Another meaningless notion." Leon turned away from her, fighting down the last vestiges of his weak sentimentality. Country was nothing, name was nothing-- bonds of family were nothing, either, in the end. Was not attachment to the weak, in itself, a weakness? Compassion for the weak, family or strangers, would only drag himself down to their level.
He watched her finish the rest of the food-- rice, vegetables stewed with a few pieces of meat-- before putting the plate down, and shoving it forcefully off to one side, seemingly in resentment that he'd coaxed her to break her vow of fasting.
"Are you utterly heartless? Or has the Emperor put you under a spell?" Hilda ran her fingers through one of her tangled braids, despairingly. "I would rather believe he did than imagine a man of Fynn betraying his country so."
"He gave me nothing but power-- the only thing that means anything, in the end." Leon's hand moved to his sheathed sword, running his fingers over the hilt possessively, drawing comfort from the whispers of dark magic it exuded.
"Why-- why are you doing this?"
"We all follow our own will, and do what we must to survive. In the end, there is no right, no wrong-- only will and desire, and strength."
Hilda shook her head frantically. "Perhaps you can believe that. I can't..." Her voice shook for a moment, and her hand moved quickly to her eyes, as if to brush away unwanted tears. "You have a sister in the rebellion-- she thinks of you so often, wonders what has become of you. How can I tell her that..."
"Yes-- I know. I saw her myself, when the rebels came on board to sabotage the Dreadnought." And he'd paused just for a moment, when he heard Maria's voice-- but it was merely surprise, and nothing more. To see a person he'd thought dead, now alive before him-- of course he was startled; no further explanation was necessary. That they had managed to breach the ship's defenses at all was shocking enough; it mattered little who they were.
"You saw her with your own eyes, and yet you were unmoved? What sort of man are you?"
"I am one who wished to live. Can you sit there and tell me, tell me with confidence, that you might not have done the same if given my choices?" A note of bitterness crept into his voice, but he swiftly forced it down.
"Then... then tell me this." Hilda brushed her hair behind one shoulder and stared at him face to face for a moment. "If you care so little for our country now, why do you come to see me?"
"Because..." Because you are precious, precious; I want one beautiful thing in this terrible world to call my own. Because you were given to me, and I will not relinquish you to anyone, not even the Emperor himself. Because if you were granted freedom, you would flee far from here, and there would no longer be anything precious to brighten my days. Because in this world of endless struggle, I should be allowed just one selfishness, one small indulgence for myself. "Does it matter why? Who else in all of this castle, of all your captors, has ever visited this miserable place out of compassion for you? To whom has it mattered that you were comfortable, well-fed, in proper health-- who else has punished rude and unruly guards, sentenced them to work somewhere they could never hope to see you? Who promised to serve you loyally, if the Emperor forced your hand in marriage?" He paused for a second. "I would fain give you kindness, Hilda-- and you will not have it, only because you cannot understand my struggles."
He reached out and caressed her hair softly, smoothing down the golden strands with his hand. She made no move to pull away, but accepted his touch in silence.
"Do you think me a monster still?" Leon coaxed his voice into as soft and gentle a tone as he could manage.
"I hardly know what to think of you."
"But not such a monster that you would ask me to leave, to let you be." His hand stroked over her hair, again and again, soft locks and tangled knots. "Perhaps you enjoy hearing the voice of a fellow countryman-- don't you? Even if I am of your country no more. Just as I enjoy hearing yours."
"Perhaps..." Hilda leaned into his touch, eyes drifting shut in what might have been relaxation or quiet despair.
"However cold you act towards me, you wait for me, hope for me-- don't you? The one who cares for you, when no one else does-- when you have been left here so lonely, in so bleak a place. And so you listen for me-- wait for the sound of my footsteps, wait for me to come to you."
"Sometimes," she admitted, in a voice equal parts exhausted and despairing. He combed his fingers through her hair once again, scarcely minding that it was a knotty mess-- enjoyed it all the more for that, for the pretty facade of royalty peeled away to reveal the humanity.
Leon wrapped an arm around her shoulder slowly, drawing her closer, and she brought her head slowly-- half guided, half of her own will-- to rest against his chest, tangled hair and half-undone braids spilling onto his legs.
"There are few honest people here-- I know it as well as you. Power corrupts the small and the petty, and the weak-minded."
"And yet, have you not let yourself be corrupted as well?" she whispered. There was no anger in her voice, only sorrow.
"Corrupted? No. I understand power as they do, but I am not like those ones-- they have no ambitions beyond their own petty tyranny." There was weakness in Palamecia as much as in Fynn-- for all the power and riches it held, all the sorceries, it was a land of decadence and excess, and there was weakness in excess just as in poverty. And Mateus, so resplendant in the robes and jewels of his ancestors, so beautiful in his cruelty, all gilded viciousness and velvet deceit-- in him the worst of it was embodied. "Worry not. My ambitions are my own-- not even the Emperor himself shall dictate those."
The mention of him seemed to unsettle Hilda; she had, it seemed, been striving to put him far from her mind. "But you must not let him know that. He strives to control everything..."
He stroked her cheek softly. "He does not bid me reveal my thoughts."
"Ah, Leon... I'm afraid. I can hardly guess how far he will go, what he might do to force my hand. I don't want to die here, Leon..." He moved to stroke the back of her neck softly. "But to live here would be as bad as death, in so many ways. Even if everyone were kind..." She swallowed heavily, buried her head in his chest. "Surely you remember how beautiful Fynn was-- everything here is dry and burning hot. I saw, when they brought me from the Dreadnought to this place. This is a land of death."
"It has its beauty, for those with eyes to see it. If you had the freedom to travel this land as you pleased, you might like it much more."
"No, never! Even if it looked no different from Fynn, I could never be happy in exile from my people. And never would I have true freedom-- the Emperor would watch me, watch me always."
There was something exquisite in her weakness. Something tantalizing, alluring-- more enticing even than her strength, her stubborn resistance. Leon ran his fingers through her hair again, delicately passing over the tangles, toying with hair that had come loose from a braid.
"Think nothing of him. Put him far from your mind. Much in this world is beyond our control-- we can only strive to flow with its currents." He could hear her breathing now-- rapid, trying to calm fear. "Just for now, you are safe with me-- I'll allow no harm to come to you. So long as he forces you to stay here, I will be here too."
Her hands were clenched tightly, held against her chest. Leon took one gently-- small and fragile-seeming in his larger grip; pale enough for him to see the bones beneath the skin. Hilda's gaze was distant, detached, as she slipped her fingers in between his.
He brough the hand to his mouth, and kissed the soft fingertips.
"Leon..." There was a muted panic in her voice.
"Shh. I don't intend to force anything from you-- only to admire." He let his breath dust over her fingertips. "If you would prefer, close your eyes and imagine me as the man you were to marry."
Whether she was imagining him or someone else, whether she gave up willingly or in despair-- only for now, only between them, after day upon day of having her will ground down and trodden upon-- she allowed it. Leon no longer cared why, only that he had her for this moment-- this delicious moment, however fleeting.
He brushed the fingers of his other hand against her neck-- traced them slowly down to her collarbone, and further down from there. Hilda froze for a moment, but then relaxed again in silence, her will to protest temporarily exhausted. It was her heartbeat that Leon wanted to feel, the proof she was alive-- anything else his hand might brush was incidental. He closed his eyes, and felt it resonating against his fingertips, even though the layer of fabric.
He could draw out a blade if he wanted, he thought; jab it between her ribs and pierce her heart-- feel her blood flowing out, feel her expel her last breath. He could, but he wouldn't-- her vulnerability was too exquisite, too beautiful to do anything but hold and savour. One indulgence, one luxury-- he deserved her, after denying himself so much, after spending so much time in the company of those who took what they did not deserve.
"Rest quietly, Hilda. Be calm for now. You throw away your strength needlessly in worrying-- what can you do to defend yourself here? So little." She pressed her cheek against his hand, making a soft noise of despair. "You know it as well as I. Let me be the one to worry, instead-- entrust your fate to me. Set aside your fears. If you must fear, fear only for me, not yourself."
Hilda remained silent, head burrowed into Leon's shirt; refusing to shed tears, but rocking slowly to calm herself.
"Will you promise me that? Promise me-- promise to put aside all your worries, your fears for the future. Think of me, instead-- the one who will protect you, and take away all your sorrows." He wrapped both of his arms around her, and pulled her close against him.
"I promise." Her voice was a flat whisper.
"Good. Keep to that promise, even in your dreams-- keep to it when the Emperor comes to see you. No matter what happens, remember me."
"I will. I... will, yes."
After a few more minutes, she drifted away into sleep in his arms-- the deep deathlike sleep of one who had passed too many nights without it. Leon allowed himself to hold her, briefly-- admiring her in the pale light, the despair and resignation that were evident on her lovely face even as she slept.
She stirred, briefly, into half-wakefulness as he eased her down into the crude bed, floating out of some disturbing dream and murmuring his name a few times. He stroked her cheek again, and watched her sink back down into slumber, her chest rising and falling with each breath.
Again Leon thought to himself that he could take his sword, cut her throat or pierce her heart-- not because he wished to see her die, but there was something alluring in knowing that he had the power to do so. It was enough just to know.
He deserved it-- deserved to be able to take her life if he pleased, after what he'd endured; deserved so much more than these few moments of selfishness. Too much indulgence was weakness, he knew that well-- but there was weakness, also, in self-denial to the point where one was consumed by desires. Nothing in the world but power, and will and desire-- to permit himself such indulgences was a matter of mere survival. He needed no justification, he told himself firmly.
He took one last glance at Hilda before shutting the cell door behind him, trying to put all thoughts of her far from his mind as he returned to duty. But like the countless ghosts of this fathomless castle, they remained close to him, haunting him restlessly.
a/n: Leon is definitely one of the big unsolved mysteries of FFII-- what exactly convinced him to turn against his country and the rest of his family? Why was he so eager to grab the throne for himself as soon as the Emperor was (at least temporarily) dead? Why did he have a change of heart and decide to rejoin so suddenly? There are so many unanswered questions there-- certainly a lot of fic potential, though, and I tried to figure out what some of his thoughts might have been. (I actually didn't originally plan on writing it from Leon's POV, but for some reason it ended up working out in a way that trying to write it from Hilda's didn't. Maybe because I wanted to experiment with having an unreliable narrator, I'm not sure.)