Nations- Ruby
Title: Ruby
Fandom: FF7
Warning: If you don't know it's an AU by now...
Note: Be prepared for philosophical rambling.
There is duty, honor, love, hate, vengeance, justice, trust, deceit, abuse, discipline, subservience, and dominance. There are more, so many more that the list would be never ending if one tried to spell out every emotion and its compliment. Not the antithesis, because no emotion is honestly opposite of another. No, it's always a compliment, a tableau that it is placed against that the other can be better understood. This does not mean that they are the same, or in the same manner. It does not mean that you cannot know one without the other.
You can. You can know hate without love, abuse without discipline, deceit without trust. You can also know nothing but obedience, never praised, never valued as a person, but for your potential and abilities. You can be not a man but a thing, a thing for war, a thing for peace, but still just a thing. When he'd first gotten here he'd been faced with the son of his enemy. He'd been told he was not to do as he'd been prior trained to.
He had to change his objectives, and he hadn't cared for that. He'd still done as told. The other, however, had never been a thing. He'd been a person, refused to be a pawn, and being a slave seemed to not have phased that self-awareness. They'd only come to blows over these difficulties once, and once alone was more than enough for them to learn never to do it again. Zack had stepped in the way and been struck.
Their lord had taken this news very elegantly considering the circumstances. By all rights he could have called break in treaty, had him executed alongside the enemy he'd never met before here but who loathed him on sight. Instead he'd healed his most prized slave and gestured them to stay in place as he escorted the youth from the room.
He wasn't a cruel man, but the punishment laid out with his return made it clear he was creative. They were locked in a room, bound to opposing walls, though they had enough room to move, lay down crouch or sit. There wasn't the length to stand, because that might have given them room to reach each other, and it was clear they weren't wanted dead, nor to fight further. They were left there for three weeks. In that time, the only ones that they got to speak to were each other and their Lord, as the servants would go about their business in each pass of the day, checking the bindings, grooming, feeding, and taking away things that shouldn't be there. For all purposes, they were no more than objects to the staff, there to be taken care of, but otherwise going unseen.
It was during that time when it came clear why Rufus hated him as he did. He'd killed the only one of his brothers who wasn't mad, the one who was honest. That brother was also the one that king had sent to the battle after battle. It had only been a matter of time.
He had felt no need to apologize for doing his duty, and Rufus hadn't been pleased to hear it at the time. War was war, duty was duty, and loyalty would not be swayed out of compassion. It was something that Rufus had come to appreciate about him since then. That foundation had saved their king more than once. It had also saved them. He could have let their king be killed in his rest, he could have let the other, then two, slaves be murdered in cold blood. He'd turned away those chances for freedom.
He didn't want it. He'd done nothing to deserve having his life under his own hands. He'd killed, destroyed, ruined homes, and he knew there were things he'd done that he shouldn't stop regretting. And yet even that wasn't it.
His musings were broken into, fingers running over the golden dragon armlet that was twined from wrist to elbow over his skin, a ruby centered on the dragon's back. The fingers were those of his king, who was watching him with quiet, unusual green eyes, he replayed the last few moments in his head. He'd been asked a question.
"Vincent?"
Looking over the letter from the Outlands, he murmured a soft reply and returned it to his Lord's hands. That earned him a barely perceptible smile and a nod before he rested his fingers at the emerald clipped belt that rested over the black silk and leather of his clothing and turned to write a returned missive with his other hand.
He wasn't going to betray his liege. Even if he hadn't been coin of a treaty, he simply refused betray family now that it was within his touch. There was no need to inform the king of a bastard sibling when he might already know. Such news would change nothing.
He'd asked.
Fandom: FF7
Warning: If you don't know it's an AU by now...
Note: Be prepared for philosophical rambling.
There is duty, honor, love, hate, vengeance, justice, trust, deceit, abuse, discipline, subservience, and dominance. There are more, so many more that the list would be never ending if one tried to spell out every emotion and its compliment. Not the antithesis, because no emotion is honestly opposite of another. No, it's always a compliment, a tableau that it is placed against that the other can be better understood. This does not mean that they are the same, or in the same manner. It does not mean that you cannot know one without the other.
You can. You can know hate without love, abuse without discipline, deceit without trust. You can also know nothing but obedience, never praised, never valued as a person, but for your potential and abilities. You can be not a man but a thing, a thing for war, a thing for peace, but still just a thing. When he'd first gotten here he'd been faced with the son of his enemy. He'd been told he was not to do as he'd been prior trained to.
He had to change his objectives, and he hadn't cared for that. He'd still done as told. The other, however, had never been a thing. He'd been a person, refused to be a pawn, and being a slave seemed to not have phased that self-awareness. They'd only come to blows over these difficulties once, and once alone was more than enough for them to learn never to do it again. Zack had stepped in the way and been struck.
Their lord had taken this news very elegantly considering the circumstances. By all rights he could have called break in treaty, had him executed alongside the enemy he'd never met before here but who loathed him on sight. Instead he'd healed his most prized slave and gestured them to stay in place as he escorted the youth from the room.
He wasn't a cruel man, but the punishment laid out with his return made it clear he was creative. They were locked in a room, bound to opposing walls, though they had enough room to move, lay down crouch or sit. There wasn't the length to stand, because that might have given them room to reach each other, and it was clear they weren't wanted dead, nor to fight further. They were left there for three weeks. In that time, the only ones that they got to speak to were each other and their Lord, as the servants would go about their business in each pass of the day, checking the bindings, grooming, feeding, and taking away things that shouldn't be there. For all purposes, they were no more than objects to the staff, there to be taken care of, but otherwise going unseen.
It was during that time when it came clear why Rufus hated him as he did. He'd killed the only one of his brothers who wasn't mad, the one who was honest. That brother was also the one that king had sent to the battle after battle. It had only been a matter of time.
He had felt no need to apologize for doing his duty, and Rufus hadn't been pleased to hear it at the time. War was war, duty was duty, and loyalty would not be swayed out of compassion. It was something that Rufus had come to appreciate about him since then. That foundation had saved their king more than once. It had also saved them. He could have let their king be killed in his rest, he could have let the other, then two, slaves be murdered in cold blood. He'd turned away those chances for freedom.
He didn't want it. He'd done nothing to deserve having his life under his own hands. He'd killed, destroyed, ruined homes, and he knew there were things he'd done that he shouldn't stop regretting. And yet even that wasn't it.
His musings were broken into, fingers running over the golden dragon armlet that was twined from wrist to elbow over his skin, a ruby centered on the dragon's back. The fingers were those of his king, who was watching him with quiet, unusual green eyes, he replayed the last few moments in his head. He'd been asked a question.
"Vincent?"
Looking over the letter from the Outlands, he murmured a soft reply and returned it to his Lord's hands. That earned him a barely perceptible smile and a nod before he rested his fingers at the emerald clipped belt that rested over the black silk and leather of his clothing and turned to write a returned missive with his other hand.
He wasn't going to betray his liege. Even if he hadn't been coin of a treaty, he simply refused betray family now that it was within his touch. There was no need to inform the king of a bastard sibling when he might already know. Such news would change nothing.
He'd asked.