Saving Anissina
Title: Saving Anissina
Fandom: Kyou Kara Maou
Rating|Genre: g | family/friendship, mild slash
Characters|Pairing: Gwendal, Anissina, references to Wolfram, Conrad and Yuuri | Gwendal/Yozak
Summary: Now that Gwendal has saved Anissina from that stupid scheme of her brother’s, what are they going to do next? Well, that’s settled fairly quickly and Gwendal finds himself thinking (when Anissina doesn’t interrupt his thoughts) about Yozak, his brothers and their youth. Actually, he’s thinking quite a lot about Yozak…
Word count: 3 857
Spoilers|Warnings: Mild spoilers for ep89, pretty vague references to ep 47 and events during the end of S2. | No.
Notes: I meant to write a fic about Gwendal’s and Anissina’s friendship. Then it turned out to be about Gwendal’s feelings for a lot of other people, too!
Gwendal looks at Anissina and he can see the tension drifting away, leaving room for relief. They did not drink her ridiculous poison but they managed to escape the castle and that’s the important thing.
He knows that he could never have allowed it to happen. Anissina getting married against her will? No. Unthinkable.
He would do almost anything for her and he knows that she knows it.
She’s all sorts of crazy and annoying and too much, but in a way they have an unbreakable bond and he knows, now, that he can never deny that simple but important fact. Gwendal looks at her and finds her startlingly beautiful and on fire in the sunset. He can see her eyes widening as if to ask him a question and for a moment he wonders if he should kiss her and if this is love?
The strangest thought ever.
The next second, he knows. She speaks and he speaks and everything is back to normal again. Love?! No, it was just the strangeness of the situation and the sunset.
When they have exhausted their arsenal of words - for the time being - they give each other another long look and laughter bubbles up from the depths of both of them. It is as if they have escaped something very, very dangerous.
He gets up on his horse and she follows. Anissina wraps her arms around his waist but now that he knows that she is out of danger (blind date, marriage) and they are safe from that horror (kissing, loving each other) he doesn’t think about her anymore.
He pats his faithful horse who doesn’t mind carrying both of them and his mind snaps back to earlier that afternoon when he acted without thinking, but someone else had already been thinking for him.
Yozak handed him the reins of the horse as if it was no big deal, as if he was only acting on Gwendal’s orders, but how can anyone carry out an order that never was spoken? Sometimes Gwendal suspects that his best spy and his younger brother’s friend knows him better than he knows himself.
I was right to put my foot down, he thinks. Anissina can’t think she can just snap her fingers and get away with anything!
He had to make it perfectly clear that enough is enough, but while Anissina treated him like air and the others gave him puppy-eye stares without saying anything, Yozak was the only one who knew what he was going to do in the end.
And it was not the first time…
“What are you thinking about?” Anissina asks, no doubt thinking he has been quiet for too long.
“Nothing”, he replies. As if he would tell her - she wouldn’t understand anyway.
“Oh”, she says, unaffected by his I-don’t-wanna-talk tone of voice. “Do you really mean it, or is it a ‘nothing’ that would be offended to be referred to as such?”
“Huh?” he says, not so eloquently, but her cheekiness gets to him sometimes.
“Gwendal”, she sighs, “you’re impossible. Really, there are times when I just want to punch you real hard.”
“Likewise”, he snaps back at her.
Anissina ponders this in silence for a moment.
“I guess it’s a good thing we’re not enemies”, she says. “But don’t think I couldn’t draw blood if I wanted to!”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that you’re more than capable of it”, Gwendal replies with a sigh. There’s really no way of avoiding chit-chat with someone who rides the same horse, is there?
But she’s right to think it’s good that they’re friends - if that’s the name for it - because although he doesn’t doubt he could defeat her, things would turn ugly if she did turn against him one day. She’d be worse than Dai Shimaron and Stoffel together. It would be a horrible civil war… it might even end in a draw…
Before he starts making long lists in his head of which persons who would side with her (like the entire Karbelnikov clan, Gisela, Günter if he got caught before he knew what was going on…) and which ones who would side with him (Günter if Gwendal got to him first, Conrad, Yozak…) and which ones who would stand undecided (the previous Maou and the present, though for different reasons) he tries to get the idea to leave him. Of course it won’t ever come to that.
Where was he? Yes, Yozak and his mind-reading… something that would be freaky if it wasn’t so… reassuring. Irritating, too. When did Yozak start acting like that, invading his mind?
There was, for example, that time not long ago when they were still searching for the boxes and Gwendal resolved to fully investigate the matter to the end, no expenses spared. Yozak had implied - no, he had said it flat out - that Gwendal’s main reason for taking it so seriously had been his concern for Conrad’s well-being and peace of mind.
‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t say such unnecessary things!’ Gwendal had tried to cut him off. Any other guy would have apologized. (Any other guy wouldn’t have said something like that.) But not Yozak. He just smiled and walked out of there as if he knew exactly what was going on.
Which he did. And that was the strange part.
“Still thinking about ‘nothing’?”
Once again, Anissina won’t let him think in peace. Gwendal thinks that she’s probably bored. Definitely not cut out to be a soldier, that woman. She always has to do something, make something, experiment… She knits socks and hats and cardigans with intricate patterns and sells them, all over the country! (To be fair, she also gives away a lot of things for free, for example during the restoration of Caloria.)
“None of your business”, he grunts. “Look, we’ll be back at the castle very soon.”
“I know,” she replies. “I know the way just as well as you do.”
“Then would it kill you to just sit there and be quiet for the remainder of the way? Enjoy the scenery or something.”
Anissina sighs very deeply but she knows when a battle is lost.
Yozak. Yozak. Gwendal thinks back to their youth, how Yozak had been an almost constant guest at the castle after the death of Dan Hiri Weller. Gwendal had fulfilled the dead man’s promise to the children and taken the little half-human with him as he returned home. Yozak had looked at him sort of admiringly and supposed that Dan Hiri had taught him how to use his sword. Gwendal hadn’t felt like talking about it or explaining anything, but they had gone to the castle together and that seemed to have been good enough for Yozak.
Gwendal had considered himself as good as an adult at that time, while Conrad, Yozak and Wolfram still had been kids. He remembers how the two older children had been torn between pestering him, following him wherever he went, and playing with Wolfram. Often, the three children had called him ‘Grumpy Gwenny’ because he wouldn’t play with them. He remembers Wolfram’s tantrums whenever the inseparable friends decided that he was too young to hang out with big boys. Wolfram’s big eyes were filled with tears of anger when he watched his Big Brother and his Little Big Brother and their friend gallop away to some place where they didn’t have to babysit.
When Gwendal didn’t run off with Conrad and Yozak (which was most of the time, he has to admit in retrospect), Wolfram had tried to side with him: ‘We’re real Mazoku, we don’t want to play with human kids!’
Gwendal used to roll his eyes and quickly take off on his horse, leaving the younger ones behind to sort out their own childish quarrels.
Later in life, Gwendal wondered how the others could forgive him. He is still ashamed of it. At that time, he had still felt confused and conflicted when he thought about Conrad’s father and about humans in general - that didn’t mean that he hated his brother and his friend, though. They were just too obnoxious sometimes, like all little brothers of that age, like Anissina, like his mother and everybody else who didn’t get him and wouldn’t let him have his own space. He slammed a door behind him occasionally, dropped an insulting comment here and there, took his sword and his horse and left in search of a quiet place to spend some alone time.
Actually, he had been the difficult one but he hadn’t realized it until he had grown out of that age. He hadn’t meant anything by it, but as they grew older he realized that Wolfram - the spoiled little goldilocks everybody doted on - had taken his words and actions to heart and tried to imitate him. Someone had been talking a little too much about Mazoku pride and the inferiority of lowly humans. The boy acted like he didn’t even see Yozak and he refused to call Conrad his Little Big Brother anymore.
Nobody said it was Gwendal’s fault. But he could see that both of his brothers were suffering because of the rift in their relationship. Conrad tried to act as if it was nothing, a childish foolishness Wolfram would surely grow out of with time - but if anything, it got worse.
Time passed. The half-humans who had fully embraced their Mazoku identity showed great potential and were growing into men to be counted upon. Not even Wolfram could deny that. Then the war happened, and there were so many things going on, so much disaster, suffering and political intrigues that Gwendal rarely allowed himself to think about personal relationships.
The relief when Conrad and Yozak returned released a weight from Gwendal’s shoulders that he hadn’t even known he was carrying. The two young men didn’t look like they had aged a lot, but they looked undeniably older beneath the surface; the hardships they had endured had put their marks on them. Gwendal balanced dangerously close to the edge of crying; he knew that he was never going to gallop away from them anymore. If he had been better at putting his emotions into words, he might have tried to say something, but Yozak’s blue eyes that met his were as warm and accepting as if they could hear the silence speak. Now, riding on his horse with Anissina’s arms wrapped around him, he has to admit that this wordless understanding is something he has always taken for granted.
But Wolfram greeted his brother as ‘Sir Weller’ and bowed curtly to him and his companion when he first met them after the war. Conrad offered a tight smile in return and Yozak’s eyes turned sad.
Things went on like before. It was clear that Wolfram’s attitude was permanent and it was as if everybody got used to it. All of them did what they had to do, and fulfilled their duties further and further removed from their childhood days. Yozak still followed him around but it was different; he did it because Gwendal had work for him to do, missions and tasks to complete; things to investigate, messages to deliver, and Yozak did everything in his own way but always with a satisfying result. Never did the name ‘Grumpy Gwenny’ cross anybody’s lips (except Anissina’s and Chérie’s, sometimes).
Yuuri, Gwendal has to admit, has made things better on all levels. The boy doesn’t leave anyone unaffected and he even reminds Gwendal sometimes of what it had been like when Conrad, Yozak and Wolfram were young, cheerful children. He is impossible and unruly and doesn’t know the first thing about being a king, and for some reason, this makes Gwendal smile inwardly sometimes (when he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating with exasperation from everybody’s lackadaisical way of letting the boy put himself in dangerous situations.)
But not even Yuuri knew how to change Wolfram’s habit of addressing Conrad as ‘Sir Weller’.
Nothing but a great tragedy could snap him out of it.
“Have you noticed something about Wolfram?” Yozak had asked one day during the dark time when Conrad had been infiltrating Dai Shimaron.
Everybody had been ready to point their sword against Conrad and use it against him, and it would have been an expected reaction if Wolfram’s general anger was fuelled by Conrad’s treacherous behaviour.
“Yes”, Gwendal had replied. “Ever since our brother ‘died’, Wolfram has been using his given name. And he still does it, even after everything Conrad has said and done. The circumstances sadden me, but… I am relieved.”
“Me too”, Yozak agreed. “And you know what; I don’t know how, but I am sure that we’re going to fix this… And I think the great era of peace that everybody’s talking about also can bring peace to families.”
Gwendal remembers how he had stared at his best spy, his younger brother’s friend and his… his… well, this person from his youth. They had never talked about it, the rift in the family, not even implicitly (although they often discussed Stoffel, who technically also was family). There had been a time when it had looked like Yozak was becoming one of the brothers, but it had been such a short, passing phase.
“When this happens”, Yozak talked on about the ‘peace’, “and I think it’s going to be soon, then maybe you can stop feeling so damn guilty.”
Gwendal hadn’t known what to say. He looked away, down on his own feet, trying to collect his thoughts. He was the eldest and of course he was responsible, but what did Yozak know about how he felt about it? But maybe Yozak was right. Maybe peace was coming, because Yuuri was forgiving and maybe they were all going to forgive one another if Conrad would just stop what he was doing and explain himself to them.
Gwendal looked up to share the thought with Yozak, but the spy had already disappeared in his usual quick and quiet way.
Now as Gwendal and Anissina are approaching the castle again after their fake elopement he feels grateful, thinking that Yozak had been right.
They are brothers again, all three of them, and Gwendal can let go of the guilt. Perhaps he could have done something differently when he was young, but he knows that there is no point in dwelling on such thoughts. And Yozak, he realizes, has probably never blamed him.
“Hey, you!”
Anissina is poking him and he snaps out of his thoughts. They are already on the courtyard and it’s time to focus on the present.
“Thank you, by the way,” Anissina says as she gets down from the horse. She tries to sound like she’s thanking him for something trivial like fetching a ball of yarn that slipped through her fingers, but he knows what she means.
In the spirit of the friendship and peace he has been thinking about, he says:
“Anissina, you know that I would never let anything bad happen to you.”
“I know”, she replies, “I know that I can count on you.”
Sentimentality can be appropriate sometimes, he thinks, but only as long as it’s not exaggerated! She is sounding a little too serious and ardent and he doesn’t want her to do anything silly like kiss his cheek or something. He might have squeezed her hand or even hugged her very quickly if they had been alone, but definitely not in public.
“Well”, he says quickly, “to be honest, your thanks should go to Yozak. He was the one who had the horse ready for us.”
“Oh, yes”, Anissina agrees. “Very true, very good thinking on his part! Then again, that is to be expected. I don’t think there’s anything that man wouldn’t do for you.”
Gwendal stares at her, completely speechless. For a wild and agonizing moment he wonders if she has invented some evil mind-reading magic device.
But no, that can’t be it - she would have bragged about it already if she had done anything like that. (She would, right?) He blinks dumbly and can’t think of anything to say.
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand”, is the best he can come up with.
“Aw, but brotherly devotion is nothing to be ashamed of”, she retorts, and damn that woman, she looks like she’s having a blast.
He doesn’t know why her words get to him. The only thing he can do is not to engage any further into such a conversation, and he tosses the rains to a stable boy who quite handily has shown up by their side.
“Well, goodnight”, he says, and walks away from the damsel in not-so-much distress.
Brotherly devotion? Is that it? But what else could it be? Isn’t that what he has been thinking about, Yozak’s ties to the family, and so on?
Gwendal would never doubt Yozak’s loyalty (although he’s too quick to side with ‘the kiddo’ in situations where Gwendal advocates caution) and, no, he wouldn’t doubt his friendship either. Strictly speaking, Gwendal is his superior, but it is true that Yozak is different from any other man under his command.
Then why does thinking of him as a brother suddenly disturb him so much? And what exactly was Anissina implying with that tone of voice?
She knows me too well, is his somewhat confused conclusion.
She knows things she shouldn’t know and everybody can bless their lucky star for her inventions that keep her busy brain away from meddling too much in personal matters. She’s smart, his childhood friend, the one people once thought he was going to marry.
But I can never marry her, Gwendal thinks, not in a million years. She is important to me and I love her, but she is like a sister to me! Nobody can marry their own sister or brother.
Sometimes, thoughts can spin a little too fast and reach answers to questions that have never even been asked.
But when you know, you know.
It is not exactly a solution to anything and Gwendal doesn’t know what to do with it, but that’s his answer to the question the recent events seem to have called forth:
Yozak is most definitely not a brother to Gwendal; he never was and he never will be. He has his very own place in Gwendal’s life and in his heart, and it has nothing to do with brotherly affection.
Gwendal gulps and his steps quicken; if he were sure to be unseen he would start running to reach his room as quickly as possible. It feels like everybody can see it written on his face: something is happening inside of him. His heartbeats are quickening and there’s a weird feeling swirling in his guts and a goofy smile threatens to spread over his face, while he at the same times feels that there is nothing to smile about.
Many more questions are now flooding his brain. What does this new revelation mean? Does Yozak know? If he doesn’t, does he want to know? Will there be some kind of consequences?
In the safety of his own room, he wanders restlessly from one wall to another. Everything is clear to him. I love Yozak, he thinks, I love Yozak, I actually love him in a way that I don’t love anybody else, yes, I love Yozak…
Over and over again he thinks the same words and there are no prying eyes to see the goofy smile that feels crazy but must be the result of many, many years’ repressed emotions.
How could I be so stupid? he wonders. How could I not see this before?
Of course, there were always obstacles in the way and he dimly realizes that he’s got Yuuri to thank for the fact that it now feels like these obstacles can be if not removed then at least ignored. It’s okay for a noble to love a common man and to be loved by him - racial and social barriers are breaking down and they are all, in fact, living in the middle of historical, world-changing events!
Gwendal’s quick pacing stops eventually. He begins to calm down. He sits, he tries to think about the details.
It’s all well and good to realize that there has always (or at least during a long, long time) been something more between him and Yozak. But he has not been willing to admit it, and the two of them have developed a very good working relationship. How does one even begin to change something like that? Which words, which gestures are appropriate?
Gwendal’s thoughts return to the words they were repeating over and over earlier. What would it be like to say them out loud?
“I…” he tries, and his voice is too weak and wheezy. “You are important to me”, he tries again. Pathetic, he scolds himself.
“I love you”, he says, and it feels like his face is boiling. “I’m in love with you. I want… I want us to be… I would be honoured if you…”
His heart is beating so hard and he is out of breath. He knows that he is utterly ridiculous and he knows that there’s no way he could ever say such words out loud, not to Yozak’s face. Maybe he should just write him a letter?
But no. That would be wrong; Gwendal knows it. He tries to knit to calm his nerves and clear his mind, but his fingers are trembling too much.
Next time I see him, Gwendal promises. Then I’ll talk to him in private and tell him… I’ll tell him. If he can accept my feelings, if he feels the same way, then there’s nothing to worry about. If he doesn’t…
Yes, what if he doesn’t? Anissina said that Yozak would do anything for him, but does that include accepting his love? It’s true that Yozak never has backed down from anything Gwendal has been up for… He had been the only one to stand on Gwendal’s side when it came to protecting the bearbee from the dragons, for instance, but on the other hand, it didn’t have to mean anything…
Gwendal thinks about how close Conrad and Yozak always have been - is that true brotherly affection, or something more? He thinks about Yozak’s love for women’s clothes and wonders if that’s a sign of a deep love for everything feminine, too deep to leave room for him?
But then he remembers things he didn’t even know that he remembered.
The way Yozak smiles. The way their eyes meet sometimes, and their eyes seem to hold on to each other a little too long. Why has he never questioned that before, wondered about what it means? When he closes his eyes, he can remember every detail of Yozak’s face. Yozak’s way of always knowing what he wants, and the tone of something a little… hopeful? in his voice, and the warmth in his eyes…
Gwendal knows that there is no way he can pretend that nothing has happened. He has to act, even if he had no idea how to. He repeats the promise: Next time I see him.
***ETA: And what happened the next time Gwendal saw Yozak? Find out here! ***
Fandom: Kyou Kara Maou
Rating|Genre: g | family/friendship, mild slash
Characters|Pairing: Gwendal, Anissina, references to Wolfram, Conrad and Yuuri | Gwendal/Yozak
Summary: Now that Gwendal has saved Anissina from that stupid scheme of her brother’s, what are they going to do next? Well, that’s settled fairly quickly and Gwendal finds himself thinking (when Anissina doesn’t interrupt his thoughts) about Yozak, his brothers and their youth. Actually, he’s thinking quite a lot about Yozak…
Word count: 3 857
Spoilers|Warnings: Mild spoilers for ep89, pretty vague references to ep 47 and events during the end of S2. | No.
Notes: I meant to write a fic about Gwendal’s and Anissina’s friendship. Then it turned out to be about Gwendal’s feelings for a lot of other people, too!
Gwendal looks at Anissina and he can see the tension drifting away, leaving room for relief. They did not drink her ridiculous poison but they managed to escape the castle and that’s the important thing.
He knows that he could never have allowed it to happen. Anissina getting married against her will? No. Unthinkable.
He would do almost anything for her and he knows that she knows it.
She’s all sorts of crazy and annoying and too much, but in a way they have an unbreakable bond and he knows, now, that he can never deny that simple but important fact. Gwendal looks at her and finds her startlingly beautiful and on fire in the sunset. He can see her eyes widening as if to ask him a question and for a moment he wonders if he should kiss her and if this is love?
The strangest thought ever.
The next second, he knows. She speaks and he speaks and everything is back to normal again. Love?! No, it was just the strangeness of the situation and the sunset.
When they have exhausted their arsenal of words - for the time being - they give each other another long look and laughter bubbles up from the depths of both of them. It is as if they have escaped something very, very dangerous.
He gets up on his horse and she follows. Anissina wraps her arms around his waist but now that he knows that she is out of danger (blind date, marriage) and they are safe from that horror (kissing, loving each other) he doesn’t think about her anymore.
He pats his faithful horse who doesn’t mind carrying both of them and his mind snaps back to earlier that afternoon when he acted without thinking, but someone else had already been thinking for him.
Yozak handed him the reins of the horse as if it was no big deal, as if he was only acting on Gwendal’s orders, but how can anyone carry out an order that never was spoken? Sometimes Gwendal suspects that his best spy and his younger brother’s friend knows him better than he knows himself.
I was right to put my foot down, he thinks. Anissina can’t think she can just snap her fingers and get away with anything!
He had to make it perfectly clear that enough is enough, but while Anissina treated him like air and the others gave him puppy-eye stares without saying anything, Yozak was the only one who knew what he was going to do in the end.
And it was not the first time…
“What are you thinking about?” Anissina asks, no doubt thinking he has been quiet for too long.
“Nothing”, he replies. As if he would tell her - she wouldn’t understand anyway.
“Oh”, she says, unaffected by his I-don’t-wanna-talk tone of voice. “Do you really mean it, or is it a ‘nothing’ that would be offended to be referred to as such?”
“Huh?” he says, not so eloquently, but her cheekiness gets to him sometimes.
“Gwendal”, she sighs, “you’re impossible. Really, there are times when I just want to punch you real hard.”
“Likewise”, he snaps back at her.
Anissina ponders this in silence for a moment.
“I guess it’s a good thing we’re not enemies”, she says. “But don’t think I couldn’t draw blood if I wanted to!”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that you’re more than capable of it”, Gwendal replies with a sigh. There’s really no way of avoiding chit-chat with someone who rides the same horse, is there?
But she’s right to think it’s good that they’re friends - if that’s the name for it - because although he doesn’t doubt he could defeat her, things would turn ugly if she did turn against him one day. She’d be worse than Dai Shimaron and Stoffel together. It would be a horrible civil war… it might even end in a draw…
Before he starts making long lists in his head of which persons who would side with her (like the entire Karbelnikov clan, Gisela, Günter if he got caught before he knew what was going on…) and which ones who would side with him (Günter if Gwendal got to him first, Conrad, Yozak…) and which ones who would stand undecided (the previous Maou and the present, though for different reasons) he tries to get the idea to leave him. Of course it won’t ever come to that.
Where was he? Yes, Yozak and his mind-reading… something that would be freaky if it wasn’t so… reassuring. Irritating, too. When did Yozak start acting like that, invading his mind?
There was, for example, that time not long ago when they were still searching for the boxes and Gwendal resolved to fully investigate the matter to the end, no expenses spared. Yozak had implied - no, he had said it flat out - that Gwendal’s main reason for taking it so seriously had been his concern for Conrad’s well-being and peace of mind.
‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t say such unnecessary things!’ Gwendal had tried to cut him off. Any other guy would have apologized. (Any other guy wouldn’t have said something like that.) But not Yozak. He just smiled and walked out of there as if he knew exactly what was going on.
Which he did. And that was the strange part.
“Still thinking about ‘nothing’?”
Once again, Anissina won’t let him think in peace. Gwendal thinks that she’s probably bored. Definitely not cut out to be a soldier, that woman. She always has to do something, make something, experiment… She knits socks and hats and cardigans with intricate patterns and sells them, all over the country! (To be fair, she also gives away a lot of things for free, for example during the restoration of Caloria.)
“None of your business”, he grunts. “Look, we’ll be back at the castle very soon.”
“I know,” she replies. “I know the way just as well as you do.”
“Then would it kill you to just sit there and be quiet for the remainder of the way? Enjoy the scenery or something.”
Anissina sighs very deeply but she knows when a battle is lost.
Yozak. Yozak. Gwendal thinks back to their youth, how Yozak had been an almost constant guest at the castle after the death of Dan Hiri Weller. Gwendal had fulfilled the dead man’s promise to the children and taken the little half-human with him as he returned home. Yozak had looked at him sort of admiringly and supposed that Dan Hiri had taught him how to use his sword. Gwendal hadn’t felt like talking about it or explaining anything, but they had gone to the castle together and that seemed to have been good enough for Yozak.
Gwendal had considered himself as good as an adult at that time, while Conrad, Yozak and Wolfram still had been kids. He remembers how the two older children had been torn between pestering him, following him wherever he went, and playing with Wolfram. Often, the three children had called him ‘Grumpy Gwenny’ because he wouldn’t play with them. He remembers Wolfram’s tantrums whenever the inseparable friends decided that he was too young to hang out with big boys. Wolfram’s big eyes were filled with tears of anger when he watched his Big Brother and his Little Big Brother and their friend gallop away to some place where they didn’t have to babysit.
When Gwendal didn’t run off with Conrad and Yozak (which was most of the time, he has to admit in retrospect), Wolfram had tried to side with him: ‘We’re real Mazoku, we don’t want to play with human kids!’
Gwendal used to roll his eyes and quickly take off on his horse, leaving the younger ones behind to sort out their own childish quarrels.
Later in life, Gwendal wondered how the others could forgive him. He is still ashamed of it. At that time, he had still felt confused and conflicted when he thought about Conrad’s father and about humans in general - that didn’t mean that he hated his brother and his friend, though. They were just too obnoxious sometimes, like all little brothers of that age, like Anissina, like his mother and everybody else who didn’t get him and wouldn’t let him have his own space. He slammed a door behind him occasionally, dropped an insulting comment here and there, took his sword and his horse and left in search of a quiet place to spend some alone time.
Actually, he had been the difficult one but he hadn’t realized it until he had grown out of that age. He hadn’t meant anything by it, but as they grew older he realized that Wolfram - the spoiled little goldilocks everybody doted on - had taken his words and actions to heart and tried to imitate him. Someone had been talking a little too much about Mazoku pride and the inferiority of lowly humans. The boy acted like he didn’t even see Yozak and he refused to call Conrad his Little Big Brother anymore.
Nobody said it was Gwendal’s fault. But he could see that both of his brothers were suffering because of the rift in their relationship. Conrad tried to act as if it was nothing, a childish foolishness Wolfram would surely grow out of with time - but if anything, it got worse.
Time passed. The half-humans who had fully embraced their Mazoku identity showed great potential and were growing into men to be counted upon. Not even Wolfram could deny that. Then the war happened, and there were so many things going on, so much disaster, suffering and political intrigues that Gwendal rarely allowed himself to think about personal relationships.
The relief when Conrad and Yozak returned released a weight from Gwendal’s shoulders that he hadn’t even known he was carrying. The two young men didn’t look like they had aged a lot, but they looked undeniably older beneath the surface; the hardships they had endured had put their marks on them. Gwendal balanced dangerously close to the edge of crying; he knew that he was never going to gallop away from them anymore. If he had been better at putting his emotions into words, he might have tried to say something, but Yozak’s blue eyes that met his were as warm and accepting as if they could hear the silence speak. Now, riding on his horse with Anissina’s arms wrapped around him, he has to admit that this wordless understanding is something he has always taken for granted.
But Wolfram greeted his brother as ‘Sir Weller’ and bowed curtly to him and his companion when he first met them after the war. Conrad offered a tight smile in return and Yozak’s eyes turned sad.
Things went on like before. It was clear that Wolfram’s attitude was permanent and it was as if everybody got used to it. All of them did what they had to do, and fulfilled their duties further and further removed from their childhood days. Yozak still followed him around but it was different; he did it because Gwendal had work for him to do, missions and tasks to complete; things to investigate, messages to deliver, and Yozak did everything in his own way but always with a satisfying result. Never did the name ‘Grumpy Gwenny’ cross anybody’s lips (except Anissina’s and Chérie’s, sometimes).
Yuuri, Gwendal has to admit, has made things better on all levels. The boy doesn’t leave anyone unaffected and he even reminds Gwendal sometimes of what it had been like when Conrad, Yozak and Wolfram were young, cheerful children. He is impossible and unruly and doesn’t know the first thing about being a king, and for some reason, this makes Gwendal smile inwardly sometimes (when he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating with exasperation from everybody’s lackadaisical way of letting the boy put himself in dangerous situations.)
But not even Yuuri knew how to change Wolfram’s habit of addressing Conrad as ‘Sir Weller’.
Nothing but a great tragedy could snap him out of it.
“Have you noticed something about Wolfram?” Yozak had asked one day during the dark time when Conrad had been infiltrating Dai Shimaron.
Everybody had been ready to point their sword against Conrad and use it against him, and it would have been an expected reaction if Wolfram’s general anger was fuelled by Conrad’s treacherous behaviour.
“Yes”, Gwendal had replied. “Ever since our brother ‘died’, Wolfram has been using his given name. And he still does it, even after everything Conrad has said and done. The circumstances sadden me, but… I am relieved.”
“Me too”, Yozak agreed. “And you know what; I don’t know how, but I am sure that we’re going to fix this… And I think the great era of peace that everybody’s talking about also can bring peace to families.”
Gwendal remembers how he had stared at his best spy, his younger brother’s friend and his… his… well, this person from his youth. They had never talked about it, the rift in the family, not even implicitly (although they often discussed Stoffel, who technically also was family). There had been a time when it had looked like Yozak was becoming one of the brothers, but it had been such a short, passing phase.
“When this happens”, Yozak talked on about the ‘peace’, “and I think it’s going to be soon, then maybe you can stop feeling so damn guilty.”
Gwendal hadn’t known what to say. He looked away, down on his own feet, trying to collect his thoughts. He was the eldest and of course he was responsible, but what did Yozak know about how he felt about it? But maybe Yozak was right. Maybe peace was coming, because Yuuri was forgiving and maybe they were all going to forgive one another if Conrad would just stop what he was doing and explain himself to them.
Gwendal looked up to share the thought with Yozak, but the spy had already disappeared in his usual quick and quiet way.
Now as Gwendal and Anissina are approaching the castle again after their fake elopement he feels grateful, thinking that Yozak had been right.
They are brothers again, all three of them, and Gwendal can let go of the guilt. Perhaps he could have done something differently when he was young, but he knows that there is no point in dwelling on such thoughts. And Yozak, he realizes, has probably never blamed him.
“Hey, you!”
Anissina is poking him and he snaps out of his thoughts. They are already on the courtyard and it’s time to focus on the present.
“Thank you, by the way,” Anissina says as she gets down from the horse. She tries to sound like she’s thanking him for something trivial like fetching a ball of yarn that slipped through her fingers, but he knows what she means.
In the spirit of the friendship and peace he has been thinking about, he says:
“Anissina, you know that I would never let anything bad happen to you.”
“I know”, she replies, “I know that I can count on you.”
Sentimentality can be appropriate sometimes, he thinks, but only as long as it’s not exaggerated! She is sounding a little too serious and ardent and he doesn’t want her to do anything silly like kiss his cheek or something. He might have squeezed her hand or even hugged her very quickly if they had been alone, but definitely not in public.
“Well”, he says quickly, “to be honest, your thanks should go to Yozak. He was the one who had the horse ready for us.”
“Oh, yes”, Anissina agrees. “Very true, very good thinking on his part! Then again, that is to be expected. I don’t think there’s anything that man wouldn’t do for you.”
Gwendal stares at her, completely speechless. For a wild and agonizing moment he wonders if she has invented some evil mind-reading magic device.
But no, that can’t be it - she would have bragged about it already if she had done anything like that. (She would, right?) He blinks dumbly and can’t think of anything to say.
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand”, is the best he can come up with.
“Aw, but brotherly devotion is nothing to be ashamed of”, she retorts, and damn that woman, she looks like she’s having a blast.
He doesn’t know why her words get to him. The only thing he can do is not to engage any further into such a conversation, and he tosses the rains to a stable boy who quite handily has shown up by their side.
“Well, goodnight”, he says, and walks away from the damsel in not-so-much distress.
Brotherly devotion? Is that it? But what else could it be? Isn’t that what he has been thinking about, Yozak’s ties to the family, and so on?
Gwendal would never doubt Yozak’s loyalty (although he’s too quick to side with ‘the kiddo’ in situations where Gwendal advocates caution) and, no, he wouldn’t doubt his friendship either. Strictly speaking, Gwendal is his superior, but it is true that Yozak is different from any other man under his command.
Then why does thinking of him as a brother suddenly disturb him so much? And what exactly was Anissina implying with that tone of voice?
She knows me too well, is his somewhat confused conclusion.
She knows things she shouldn’t know and everybody can bless their lucky star for her inventions that keep her busy brain away from meddling too much in personal matters. She’s smart, his childhood friend, the one people once thought he was going to marry.
But I can never marry her, Gwendal thinks, not in a million years. She is important to me and I love her, but she is like a sister to me! Nobody can marry their own sister or brother.
Sometimes, thoughts can spin a little too fast and reach answers to questions that have never even been asked.
But when you know, you know.
It is not exactly a solution to anything and Gwendal doesn’t know what to do with it, but that’s his answer to the question the recent events seem to have called forth:
Yozak is most definitely not a brother to Gwendal; he never was and he never will be. He has his very own place in Gwendal’s life and in his heart, and it has nothing to do with brotherly affection.
Gwendal gulps and his steps quicken; if he were sure to be unseen he would start running to reach his room as quickly as possible. It feels like everybody can see it written on his face: something is happening inside of him. His heartbeats are quickening and there’s a weird feeling swirling in his guts and a goofy smile threatens to spread over his face, while he at the same times feels that there is nothing to smile about.
Many more questions are now flooding his brain. What does this new revelation mean? Does Yozak know? If he doesn’t, does he want to know? Will there be some kind of consequences?
In the safety of his own room, he wanders restlessly from one wall to another. Everything is clear to him. I love Yozak, he thinks, I love Yozak, I actually love him in a way that I don’t love anybody else, yes, I love Yozak…
Over and over again he thinks the same words and there are no prying eyes to see the goofy smile that feels crazy but must be the result of many, many years’ repressed emotions.
How could I be so stupid? he wonders. How could I not see this before?
Of course, there were always obstacles in the way and he dimly realizes that he’s got Yuuri to thank for the fact that it now feels like these obstacles can be if not removed then at least ignored. It’s okay for a noble to love a common man and to be loved by him - racial and social barriers are breaking down and they are all, in fact, living in the middle of historical, world-changing events!
Gwendal’s quick pacing stops eventually. He begins to calm down. He sits, he tries to think about the details.
It’s all well and good to realize that there has always (or at least during a long, long time) been something more between him and Yozak. But he has not been willing to admit it, and the two of them have developed a very good working relationship. How does one even begin to change something like that? Which words, which gestures are appropriate?
Gwendal’s thoughts return to the words they were repeating over and over earlier. What would it be like to say them out loud?
“I…” he tries, and his voice is too weak and wheezy. “You are important to me”, he tries again. Pathetic, he scolds himself.
“I love you”, he says, and it feels like his face is boiling. “I’m in love with you. I want… I want us to be… I would be honoured if you…”
His heart is beating so hard and he is out of breath. He knows that he is utterly ridiculous and he knows that there’s no way he could ever say such words out loud, not to Yozak’s face. Maybe he should just write him a letter?
But no. That would be wrong; Gwendal knows it. He tries to knit to calm his nerves and clear his mind, but his fingers are trembling too much.
Next time I see him, Gwendal promises. Then I’ll talk to him in private and tell him… I’ll tell him. If he can accept my feelings, if he feels the same way, then there’s nothing to worry about. If he doesn’t…
Yes, what if he doesn’t? Anissina said that Yozak would do anything for him, but does that include accepting his love? It’s true that Yozak never has backed down from anything Gwendal has been up for… He had been the only one to stand on Gwendal’s side when it came to protecting the bearbee from the dragons, for instance, but on the other hand, it didn’t have to mean anything…
Gwendal thinks about how close Conrad and Yozak always have been - is that true brotherly affection, or something more? He thinks about Yozak’s love for women’s clothes and wonders if that’s a sign of a deep love for everything feminine, too deep to leave room for him?
But then he remembers things he didn’t even know that he remembered.
The way Yozak smiles. The way their eyes meet sometimes, and their eyes seem to hold on to each other a little too long. Why has he never questioned that before, wondered about what it means? When he closes his eyes, he can remember every detail of Yozak’s face. Yozak’s way of always knowing what he wants, and the tone of something a little… hopeful? in his voice, and the warmth in his eyes…
Gwendal knows that there is no way he can pretend that nothing has happened. He has to act, even if he had no idea how to. He repeats the promise: Next time I see him.
***ETA: And what happened the next time Gwendal saw Yozak? Find out here! ***