Anchor [Final Fantasy XII][Vayne x Bergan]
[A/N: I look through the whole springkink set and there are only 4 prompts I can really write for, of which 1 is already taken. So sad! Anyway, thank you to whomever put these two prompts up. D/S = dom/sub I assume. Following ‘Frivolities’: http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/67308.html]
Final Fantasy XII, Vayne/Bergan: d/s - "He knew where his loyalties lay"
“I would not like a king who could obey.”
- Pierre Corneille
Anchor
1
“Father tells me it is a great honor to have a Bergan,” the young Prince says, meditatively, when they are left alone.
Judge Thuron Bergan looks his young charge curtly over: Prince Vayne Solidor is fourteen, one of the youngest Solidors in memory to receive the favor of House Bergan, and for all that the boy is still lanky, wrists pale from out-growing embroidered sleeves, gait yet too gawky for their hereditary leonine grace, his dark hair long and too girlish over his shoulders, the boy is smiling with his eyes, as Solidors did, knife-sharp and merciless.
“Sir,” Bergan settles for a typically Bergan monosyllabic grunt. His father had not quite approved of giving patronage to so young a Solidor, but had, a little grudgingly, instructed him in detail as to the proper ways of attending to often wayward, capricious, hyper-intelligent wards. Bergan stands at attention, his dress armor bulky and a little uncomfortable over his shoulders and wrists, an oven in the Archadian summer, even under the spreading oak boughs of the eastern Palace gardens.
Prince Vayne is sprawled on a bench, one leg crossed over the other, his arms flung back over the iron lace edging the back of his seat; his lips are thin and curved and tightly amused. “So. What can a Bergan do for a Solidor?”
His father had warned him as much. “A guard, an advisor, a general.”
“Hn. We’ve guards and advisors and generals enough, I should think.” Vayne’s tone is too playful to allow umbrage, and Bergan carefully takes a tighter hold on his temper. Lord Bergan had also warned him, dryly and repeatedly, of the strange humors that seemed to affect their historical charges.
“Your House does. Yours personally? I doubt that.”
“Good answer,” Vayne tilts his head patronisingly. Good boy. Bergan lets the implication slide: he chose this, after all. He had seen the boy in the Akademy’s courtyards, in its debate halls and, twice, in the Senacy itself; seen past his coltishness and his halting courtier’s charms to the sharpening blade beneath. Or so he had thought.
Bergans, however, are not servile: he’ll not thank his ward for disrespect. He looks pointedly and reproachfully ahead, still at attention, until Vayne chuckles. “Perhaps a better question would be… what can a Solidor do for a Bergan?
There is a veiled question in that, he is sure of it, and Bergan hesitates, unsure of how to answer (he’d not been coached this far). “Evidently, an alliance with your House…” he trails off: Vayne has arched an eyebrow. Frowning, Bergan lapses into stony silence, and the Prince smiles lazily, wolfishly - he’d seen the Emperor smile like that, once, when his Lord Father had made some gruff comment about differential performances at the Akademy and Thuron himself: he’d seen his father scowl, instantly silenced.
He is not aware that he is doing quite the same, until Vayne begins to chuckle. “All from the same mold. Sit down, Thuron - I can call you Thuron, can’t I?”
Bergan hesitates for only a moment, then seats himself on the bench, feeling awkward and off balance (but this, his father had also stressed dryly, was normal around them). “Yes, sir.”
“You say you are now mine.”
Bergan nods cautiously, and is somewhat disconcerted when Vayne’s eyes gleam. “To what extent?”
Bergan considers this question from the breadth of his experience and his knowledge of a Bergan’s service, and asks, gruffly, “Do you want someone killed, sir?’
And is even more confused, when Vayne stares at him for a long moment, before his Prince begins to laugh.
2
Bergan tells himself he is relieved (damnit) when the next week of skirmishes and strategizing comes without so much of a hint or reminder of what they had done on his birthday.
After all (and in any case) it had been rough, almost frenzied, and certainly brutal, and he’d surprised himself (and perhaps even the Prince). It had been good. That in itself disturbed him far more than the sheer impropriety of the whole situation.
He had fucked his Prince.
His Prince.
He needed a strong drink.
He needed…
“Bergan.” His Prince’s voice snaps him back to reality. Bergan blinks, startled, and settles for his tried and tested reaction to being caught off-balance: he scowls.
“Sir?”
“I said, what do you think of the reports that the Landissan soldiers are using the Estericht pass as a supply route?” Vayne is grinning, slumped in a decidedly undignified way in his fur-draped chair, his skin pale against tawny stripes. The tent is chilly, despite the glossair energy heater coiled next to the mahogany desk strewn with maps, scrolls and quills. It is getting late, and Bergan wishes that his Prince would retire.
“The Estericht pass is treacherous at this time of the year and difficult to survey. It may be a trap,” Bergan says absently, stifling a yawn, reverting to a safe answer. Much of Landis during the winter months were treacherous and difficult to survey. “The enemy is becoming desperate.” He pauses, when Vayne chuckles. “Sir?”
“That is exactly what you said just fifteen minutes prior, regarding the possible ambush in the Ostler Woods,” Vayne says, his expression all too innocent.
Bergan is instantly on guard and awake. “It is winter in Landis.”
“Evidently. ‘Tis snowing.” Vayne’s eyes are hooded, now, his smile languid, a cat with its mouse. Bergan scowls before he can help himself - he’s that tired - and this (as he knows now) adds only to Vayne’s evident amusement.
“Come the morning, mayhap I could come up with a better response,” Bergan’s tone is stiff.
Vayne laughs. “So defensive. And I lie, Thuron. ‘Tis not what I asked at all.”
“Then?”
“No need to snarl.” Vayne leans forward, resting his cheek coyly on his palms. “What I asked, Thuron, was whether you would prefer to continue our conversation somewhere more comfortable.”
“More comfortable?” Bergan’s tone is too gruff, knows it sounds prudish. Vayne seems content to smirk, watching his guardian squirm. Finally, Bergan mutters, “Lord Vayne, during my birthday-”
“Did you not like your present?” Again that gods-damned innocence. It made his fists itch; made something hot and primal well in his belly that he told himself was fury. When Solidors were bored, his father had warned him, they tended to tease the easiest targets at hand, which tended also to be their hereditary guards (though he would have wagered that his father had not quite meant the word ‘tease’ in as many meanings as Vayne had so far shown him).
And, Hell, he had indeed… liked it.
Gods-damn.
Still, he had been guard long enough to Vayne to know when telling the truth was quite inadvisable, and as such, Bergan settled for scowling.
“So you did,” Vayne looks pleased. “I would admit that for a moment I was a little concerned.”
“Lord Vayne…”
“You’ve said you were mine.” And it is that very steel of command, however faint under the velvet, that he has been bred to obey. This boy is his master: however chosen, however young, and he knows as he speaks that it would be ultimately futile.
“This is entirely inadvisable, sir.”
“If it wasn’t, Thuron, it would not be of any entertainment.”
3
Vayne’s wrists are bound behind his back by his scabbard belt, the long, pianist fingers twitching against pale skin, kneeling, the curve of his arse marked this time by that self-same belt. Bergan does not need to look to know that the Prince’s own need is likely heavy between his thighs; he stands before his liege, his cruder fingers curled in silky hair, his spine bowed. Growling. Vayne’s wicked mouth is filled, at least (Gods, so tight) if not silent: the Prince squirms, moans, breathes heavily through his nose as his guardian tries to slake his lust in the wet, exquisite heat. He’s a little too large for the boy - Vayne will be hoarse tomorrow - but Bergan is past caring.
It’s not enough (and he speaks this aloud: he feels Vayne chuckle). Bergan pulls away, scowling as his Prince pouts his disappointment (and so prettily, even as a red tongue flicks out at the streak of come against his chin). It’s entirely inappropriate, least of all for a Solidor prince to act so, but his rebuke died in his throat (quite in the way of his mind) when Vayne simply slumped back onto the cushions of his bed, smiled that lazy wolfish smile, and opened his legs.
It’s not quite invitation - it’s command, and ‘tis quite clear to Bergan who ultimately is the master. He finds it suits him, even as he snorts and drags a pillow under Vayne’s hips, leans down to bite his Prince hard on his inner thigh, near the curve of that reddened rump, feels Vayne twitch and gasp.
His Prince is already ready, what with previous play involving the slender hilt of the whip he’d first threatened to use (with those eyes daring him) and Bergan doesn’t bother with further niceties: he pulls Vayne’s thighs up, high and open, hears the boy laugh. As he wets the pink pucker with the dripping head of his own prick Bergan wonders how long he’d take, this time, before he wipes off that fucking smirk.
4
“Do you know what Bergans actually are to Solidor Princes?” Vayne murmurs. Bergan fights a sigh. He’s uncomfortable enough with his Prince in the same bed, let alone curled against him, and he’s not quite so interested in repetitive conversations.
Thankfully, Vayne doesn’t seem to be expecting an answer: he’s still talking. “You are our anchors.”
“Superstition.” Bergan grunts. He knows what Vayne is referring to: family superstition foretells that the fall of a Bergan means that the Solidor it protected would be soon to follow. There’s some truth in it, only because Bergans are damned hard to kill, and if anything could get past a Bergan guard it likely had a fair chance of toppling its ward.
“Perhaps,” Vayne murmurs, his fingers tightening for a moment over a bicep, and Bergan is reminded, not without some irritation, that the Prince he has chosen is mayhap yet too young. Gingerly, he snakes arms around Vayne’s waist, so stiffly that it was evident that the motion was meant only grudgingly to be comforting, but the boy purrs and snuggles closer, tucks his head under an unshaven chin.
Bergan waits for his Prince’s breathing to even into sleep, absently stroking the thigh curled against his hip. It’s then that he will rest.
-fin-
Final Fantasy XII, Vayne/Bergan: d/s - "He knew where his loyalties lay"
“I would not like a king who could obey.”
- Pierre Corneille
Anchor
1
“Father tells me it is a great honor to have a Bergan,” the young Prince says, meditatively, when they are left alone.
Judge Thuron Bergan looks his young charge curtly over: Prince Vayne Solidor is fourteen, one of the youngest Solidors in memory to receive the favor of House Bergan, and for all that the boy is still lanky, wrists pale from out-growing embroidered sleeves, gait yet too gawky for their hereditary leonine grace, his dark hair long and too girlish over his shoulders, the boy is smiling with his eyes, as Solidors did, knife-sharp and merciless.
“Sir,” Bergan settles for a typically Bergan monosyllabic grunt. His father had not quite approved of giving patronage to so young a Solidor, but had, a little grudgingly, instructed him in detail as to the proper ways of attending to often wayward, capricious, hyper-intelligent wards. Bergan stands at attention, his dress armor bulky and a little uncomfortable over his shoulders and wrists, an oven in the Archadian summer, even under the spreading oak boughs of the eastern Palace gardens.
Prince Vayne is sprawled on a bench, one leg crossed over the other, his arms flung back over the iron lace edging the back of his seat; his lips are thin and curved and tightly amused. “So. What can a Bergan do for a Solidor?”
His father had warned him as much. “A guard, an advisor, a general.”
“Hn. We’ve guards and advisors and generals enough, I should think.” Vayne’s tone is too playful to allow umbrage, and Bergan carefully takes a tighter hold on his temper. Lord Bergan had also warned him, dryly and repeatedly, of the strange humors that seemed to affect their historical charges.
“Your House does. Yours personally? I doubt that.”
“Good answer,” Vayne tilts his head patronisingly. Good boy. Bergan lets the implication slide: he chose this, after all. He had seen the boy in the Akademy’s courtyards, in its debate halls and, twice, in the Senacy itself; seen past his coltishness and his halting courtier’s charms to the sharpening blade beneath. Or so he had thought.
Bergans, however, are not servile: he’ll not thank his ward for disrespect. He looks pointedly and reproachfully ahead, still at attention, until Vayne chuckles. “Perhaps a better question would be… what can a Solidor do for a Bergan?
There is a veiled question in that, he is sure of it, and Bergan hesitates, unsure of how to answer (he’d not been coached this far). “Evidently, an alliance with your House…” he trails off: Vayne has arched an eyebrow. Frowning, Bergan lapses into stony silence, and the Prince smiles lazily, wolfishly - he’d seen the Emperor smile like that, once, when his Lord Father had made some gruff comment about differential performances at the Akademy and Thuron himself: he’d seen his father scowl, instantly silenced.
He is not aware that he is doing quite the same, until Vayne begins to chuckle. “All from the same mold. Sit down, Thuron - I can call you Thuron, can’t I?”
Bergan hesitates for only a moment, then seats himself on the bench, feeling awkward and off balance (but this, his father had also stressed dryly, was normal around them). “Yes, sir.”
“You say you are now mine.”
Bergan nods cautiously, and is somewhat disconcerted when Vayne’s eyes gleam. “To what extent?”
Bergan considers this question from the breadth of his experience and his knowledge of a Bergan’s service, and asks, gruffly, “Do you want someone killed, sir?’
And is even more confused, when Vayne stares at him for a long moment, before his Prince begins to laugh.
2
Bergan tells himself he is relieved (damnit) when the next week of skirmishes and strategizing comes without so much of a hint or reminder of what they had done on his birthday.
After all (and in any case) it had been rough, almost frenzied, and certainly brutal, and he’d surprised himself (and perhaps even the Prince). It had been good. That in itself disturbed him far more than the sheer impropriety of the whole situation.
He had fucked his Prince.
His Prince.
He needed a strong drink.
He needed…
“Bergan.” His Prince’s voice snaps him back to reality. Bergan blinks, startled, and settles for his tried and tested reaction to being caught off-balance: he scowls.
“Sir?”
“I said, what do you think of the reports that the Landissan soldiers are using the Estericht pass as a supply route?” Vayne is grinning, slumped in a decidedly undignified way in his fur-draped chair, his skin pale against tawny stripes. The tent is chilly, despite the glossair energy heater coiled next to the mahogany desk strewn with maps, scrolls and quills. It is getting late, and Bergan wishes that his Prince would retire.
“The Estericht pass is treacherous at this time of the year and difficult to survey. It may be a trap,” Bergan says absently, stifling a yawn, reverting to a safe answer. Much of Landis during the winter months were treacherous and difficult to survey. “The enemy is becoming desperate.” He pauses, when Vayne chuckles. “Sir?”
“That is exactly what you said just fifteen minutes prior, regarding the possible ambush in the Ostler Woods,” Vayne says, his expression all too innocent.
Bergan is instantly on guard and awake. “It is winter in Landis.”
“Evidently. ‘Tis snowing.” Vayne’s eyes are hooded, now, his smile languid, a cat with its mouse. Bergan scowls before he can help himself - he’s that tired - and this (as he knows now) adds only to Vayne’s evident amusement.
“Come the morning, mayhap I could come up with a better response,” Bergan’s tone is stiff.
Vayne laughs. “So defensive. And I lie, Thuron. ‘Tis not what I asked at all.”
“Then?”
“No need to snarl.” Vayne leans forward, resting his cheek coyly on his palms. “What I asked, Thuron, was whether you would prefer to continue our conversation somewhere more comfortable.”
“More comfortable?” Bergan’s tone is too gruff, knows it sounds prudish. Vayne seems content to smirk, watching his guardian squirm. Finally, Bergan mutters, “Lord Vayne, during my birthday-”
“Did you not like your present?” Again that gods-damned innocence. It made his fists itch; made something hot and primal well in his belly that he told himself was fury. When Solidors were bored, his father had warned him, they tended to tease the easiest targets at hand, which tended also to be their hereditary guards (though he would have wagered that his father had not quite meant the word ‘tease’ in as many meanings as Vayne had so far shown him).
And, Hell, he had indeed… liked it.
Gods-damn.
Still, he had been guard long enough to Vayne to know when telling the truth was quite inadvisable, and as such, Bergan settled for scowling.
“So you did,” Vayne looks pleased. “I would admit that for a moment I was a little concerned.”
“Lord Vayne…”
“You’ve said you were mine.” And it is that very steel of command, however faint under the velvet, that he has been bred to obey. This boy is his master: however chosen, however young, and he knows as he speaks that it would be ultimately futile.
“This is entirely inadvisable, sir.”
“If it wasn’t, Thuron, it would not be of any entertainment.”
3
Vayne’s wrists are bound behind his back by his scabbard belt, the long, pianist fingers twitching against pale skin, kneeling, the curve of his arse marked this time by that self-same belt. Bergan does not need to look to know that the Prince’s own need is likely heavy between his thighs; he stands before his liege, his cruder fingers curled in silky hair, his spine bowed. Growling. Vayne’s wicked mouth is filled, at least (Gods, so tight) if not silent: the Prince squirms, moans, breathes heavily through his nose as his guardian tries to slake his lust in the wet, exquisite heat. He’s a little too large for the boy - Vayne will be hoarse tomorrow - but Bergan is past caring.
It’s not enough (and he speaks this aloud: he feels Vayne chuckle). Bergan pulls away, scowling as his Prince pouts his disappointment (and so prettily, even as a red tongue flicks out at the streak of come against his chin). It’s entirely inappropriate, least of all for a Solidor prince to act so, but his rebuke died in his throat (quite in the way of his mind) when Vayne simply slumped back onto the cushions of his bed, smiled that lazy wolfish smile, and opened his legs.
It’s not quite invitation - it’s command, and ‘tis quite clear to Bergan who ultimately is the master. He finds it suits him, even as he snorts and drags a pillow under Vayne’s hips, leans down to bite his Prince hard on his inner thigh, near the curve of that reddened rump, feels Vayne twitch and gasp.
His Prince is already ready, what with previous play involving the slender hilt of the whip he’d first threatened to use (with those eyes daring him) and Bergan doesn’t bother with further niceties: he pulls Vayne’s thighs up, high and open, hears the boy laugh. As he wets the pink pucker with the dripping head of his own prick Bergan wonders how long he’d take, this time, before he wipes off that fucking smirk.
4
“Do you know what Bergans actually are to Solidor Princes?” Vayne murmurs. Bergan fights a sigh. He’s uncomfortable enough with his Prince in the same bed, let alone curled against him, and he’s not quite so interested in repetitive conversations.
Thankfully, Vayne doesn’t seem to be expecting an answer: he’s still talking. “You are our anchors.”
“Superstition.” Bergan grunts. He knows what Vayne is referring to: family superstition foretells that the fall of a Bergan means that the Solidor it protected would be soon to follow. There’s some truth in it, only because Bergans are damned hard to kill, and if anything could get past a Bergan guard it likely had a fair chance of toppling its ward.
“Perhaps,” Vayne murmurs, his fingers tightening for a moment over a bicep, and Bergan is reminded, not without some irritation, that the Prince he has chosen is mayhap yet too young. Gingerly, he snakes arms around Vayne’s waist, so stiffly that it was evident that the motion was meant only grudgingly to be comforting, but the boy purrs and snuggles closer, tucks his head under an unshaven chin.
Bergan waits for his Prince’s breathing to even into sleep, absently stroking the thigh curled against his hip. It’s then that he will rest.
-fin-