Chapter 1: Story Time on Magician's Isle
Summary:
After Luc and Sarah get a little too creative in their assignment to bake something, Leknaat decides that a different kind of lesson is in order, and settles in to tell some stories.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Leknaat glides across the floor of the tower on Magician’s Isle, deftly avoiding the mess that Luc and Sarah have left. Baking. She had thought it might teach them a spot of patience, a bit of appreciation for the work that goes into food. She sighs.
She reaches the balcony and feels the cool wind on her face. Eyes closed, she points her face upward all the same, feels the gentle moonlight on her skin.
“I suppose you both decided that baking the traditional way was…boring?” she asks.
“How do you always know—” Luc starts to ask before Sarah cuts him off.
“Magic is a more efficient method of doing work,” Sarah says.
Leknaat smiles, hearing so certain a response. She almost envies Sarah’s sureness in what Luc tells her. Luc himself will doubt and will hesitate, will lie and cheat if he wants to. But Sarah will never see it, believes only in his best intentions. A bubble of the future threatens to intrude on Leknaat’s thoughts and she gently pushes it aside. There will be time for the future and all the heartache it will bring. Here, now, it is time for something else.
“That’s why the kitchen looks like a horde of skeletons rampaged through the cupboards?”
“Really, it’s not our—”
“It wasn’t a horde,” Sarah says, once more shielding Luc from digging himself deeper. “It was five skeletons.”
Leknaat huffs, keeps herself from laughing.
“And what happened to this not-a-horde?” she asks.
“Well…”
“They are contained in the bathroom,” Sarah says, “after their culinary skills proved…inadequate for our assigned task.”
Leknaat waves a hand, in the bathroom she senses the skeletons blink back to their home dimension. Frightening, how easily Sarah can summon them, even through the formidable defenses of the island. But she pushes that thought away, too. They both need to learn about responsibility and the value of work, though it’s not Sarah who needs the lesson more.
“Come inside,” Leknaat says.
She turns and moves back into the tower, gesturing with her hand. The mess blinks away, shunted into the other side of a gate. Someone else’s problem. She chides herself that she’s little better than Luc, then, has no place lecturing on responsibility and patience when she does not hesitate to use her magic, maybe even flaunt it. But she remembers the lessons she’s learned, the years in training, the time when it seemed like her hands would fall off from the bruises and cuts and callouses. When Wendy was her only friend and comfort.
An old hurt tugs at her and Leknaat waves that away as well. She steers herself to the hearth and the gentle fire, drawing Luc and Sarah in her wake.
“Story time,” she says.
Sarah doesn’t clap but Leknaat can feel a spark of excitement in her. She might act old and serious all of the time, but there’s still a part of her that’s young. A child. Eager for a story. Even Luc settles onto a couch without complaint. He might suspect a lecture here, a lesson he’s supposed to learn, but he knows too that Leknaat’s stories are rarely boring, and if there are lessons to be learned, he’s free to ignore them.
“Will you tell us the future?” Sarah asks.
“The future, the past, and the present,” Leknaat says.
“Are they true stories, then?” Luc asks as Sarah settles next to him on the couch.
“All true and all lies,” Leknaat answers.
“Riddles, then?” Luc asks, almost spits.
“Not at all,” she says. “Riddles have answers. Stories are never so definite.”
She turns to the fire and raises her hands. She can sense Luc and Sarah lean forward, expecting perhaps for images to appear in the rolling flames. But it’s only the warmth on her palms that Leknaat is after. She feel it and breathes deep, and then begins to speak, the only magic in her words the magic of all stories.
Notes:
So this is the framing for my Suikovember 2021 works. Each chapter that comes next will either be a story told by Leknaat, or will be checking back in on her and Luc and Sarah as their night moves along. Hopefully this will be fun!
Chapter 2: Sad Little Doomed Boy
Summary:
A glimpse of Ted and Aldo as they travel together until, well...
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The forest was a lonely place. Peaceful, sure. But…lonely. And I can see…I can see that you know loneliness as well.
Ted smiles and he tracks the deer running through the trees. Beside him, Aldo has drawn as well, the two of them mirrors. They wait, heartbeats matching. They release.
Two arrows thud into the same tree, an inch apart, and exactly next to where the deer’s heart would have been in that exact moment. An act of foolishness, perhaps, for now they have to find some other food to eat. But an act of mercy, too.
Do you ever wonder what’s out there? I mean, I’ve been in the same place most of my life. Even out here, on the Dauntless, with you, it’s an entirely different world. There have to others, then. Not endless sea, not the sprawling forest.
The two sit side by side around the campfire, some tubers cooking in the embers. Ted never knew that in silence they could say so much. The little smiles, the brief touch of their hands. He’s finally not flinching every time Aldo reaches for him. After the ship, after everything…
“We should try fishing!” Aldo says suddenly.
Ted shakes his head, leans into the other man as the night settles around them.
“A little late for fishing.”
“I meant tomorrow, silly,” Aldo says, sticking out his tongue.
Ted blushes.
Do you know what I heard about? A desert! Imagine! A place with no water. An endless beach without the water lapping. No trees, no shade. Just sun and rock and heat and dunes. Dunes! I don’t even know what those are! Do you think we can go? To see a real desert?
After an hour of trying, they both decide they make terrible fisherman. Instead they search the river for clams, for crayfish, for anything that will make an adequate meal. They find berries, and wild onions, and greens that are safe to eat. Aldo knows everything about the forest, what’s safe and what isn’t. He points out a mushroom that will give a person the runs for two days and Ted sneaks some into his pack in case they need it when they reach a town, in case things get dangerous quickly.
It feels odd, being so out of time. His tenure on the ship has made him a stranger to what’s been happening in the world. A part of him wonders, or hopes, if maybe those that were pursuing him have stopped. But he tries to keep that thought away. He can’t afford to let his guard down. Not completely.
You remind me such of an elf sometimes! So serious. You need to laugh more. Unless…are you truly an elf? Have you…had some unfortunate ear accident? Are there…come here. Are there scars? What do you mean you’re ticklish? I said come here! Or is that laughter after all?
Ted thinks of Lazlo. Of Kyril. Of how they faced the world around them, the way that destiny swept them into a dance that they made their own. Not like him, always stumbling, always…losing. He looks down at his hand and feels the weight of Soul Eater.
“Look out below!” Aldo shouts, and Ted, pants rolled up, legs playing in the water of the woodland pool, has no time to avoid the splash from the cannonball as Aldo lands.
“Oh no, you’re clothes are all wet!” Aldo says when he surfaces and wipes the long hair from his face. “You’ll just have to take them off!”
The forest doesn’t have to be lonely. Y-you…don’t have to be lonely.
Ted pauses at the edge of the desert. Takes a deep breath. Looks beside him. Swallows. Starts walking as the sun stretches out a single shadow across the dunes.
Notes:
The Aldo/Ted relationship is so tragic...I love it. I mean, it sucks because they deserve their own happy ending, but I do like how it's something that both teaches Ted that he can't live without relationships and teaches him that relationships he has will always be doomed. It's that balancing act that Tir has to face, as well, and it's delivered in that little text at the end of the game, that Aldo dies and Ted disappears. Just ouch.
Chapter 3: The Tenkai Penpal Society
Summary:
Tir might not be aging, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel the passage of time. As those around him age and pass, he takes some comfort from the words of other people who've been through something like what he's been through, through letters passed by a very special, if slightly absent minded, courier.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tir shrugs on his coat, walks out into the brisk Gregminster morning. Back inside, Gremio hasn’t stirred yet. Hasn’t been getting up with the dawn lately, what with his age weighing on him. The house is quieter without Pahn and Cleo, almost still, and Tir finds the silence…difficult. So he walks out into the city that has changed so much from the one he knew as a child.
The streets bustle. He knows in his heart that things have gotten much better. Elf merchants and dwarf entertainers mingle with kobolds and beings from every corner of the continent. The human nobility, once in firm dominance in the Empire, has given way to a more diverse and more aware governing body. No emperor, no king, no true central leader after Lepant retired…and died. Sheena acts as prime minister when he can be bothered, and his marriage with Klaus Windamier keeps relations between the Toran Republic and Dunan Republic mostly amicable.
Still, some part of him yearns for the days of his childhood, the simple pleasure of running down the streets in joyful abandon. He doesn’t look older than he did when he first received Soul Eater, but he feels it. Thin at times. A bit of butter spread over too much bread. And then there’s Gremio and…
Tir stops in front of the great fountain and waits. Not long. A blink, and a young woman stands in front of him. At least some things never change.
“Hi Tir!” Viki says, bright as always. Brighter now than when they first met, even, because at least now she’s figured herself out a bit, and her power.
“Hi Viki,” he says. “news from the others?”
“You have two today! One from Thomas, and one from Atrie.” She holds out the envelopes and smiles broadly.
“Nothing from Natasaka?” Tir asks. It had been a while without a reply to his last letter, and Tir knows Germio is waiting for the new recipe exchange they had promised. He takes the letters and slides them into his pocket.
“He’s got his hands full, I’m afraid. He said he’d be sure to have a response the next time I move through.”
“Ah.” It wasn’t uncommon for some of them to get pulled back into conflicts, as much as they liked to pretend that their own stories were mostly done.
“Anything for me?” Viki asks.
Tir nods. “One for Frey and one for Lazlo.” He hands over the envelopes and Viki takes them, then holds back out her hand.
Tir grins, then pulls out the carefully wrapped box from his pocket. “Gremio says his fingers are getting a little old for the delicate icing.”
Viki quickly unwraps the paper and opens the box, revealing the small assortment of cookies.
“Tell him I don’t care what they look like!” she says, placing one immediately into her mouth and then closing the box back up.
“It’s the taste I care about,” she says around chewing, and Tir shakes his head but doesn’t comment.
Instead, he turns and regards the fountain. That, at least, hasn’t changed that much from when he was young. Like him, it remains relatively untouched as the city around moves and alters. He pats the rim of the fountain like shaking hands with an old friend.
“I think there might be another soon,” Viki says after she’s done sneaking another cookie from the box.
“Past, present or future?” he asks. “This world, or another?”
“You’ll have to ask her when I find out if she’s okay getting mail!” Viki says. “You know I’m terrible at keeping that sort of this straight.”
TIr chuckles. Another. He looks again at the rune on his hand. It’s been quiet for a long time. He doesn’t want to think it’s because it’s sated. Full of all the tragedy and loss that found him. Odessa. Ted. His father. Gremio…
“Well definitely let her know that there’s a lot of us, in case she needs someone to write to about…everything.”
“Don’t worry, I will! I mean, you all write such interesting letters about all sorts of things!”
Tir pauses. Looks at Viki, and the wide grin on her face.
“You, err… You read them?” he asks.
Viki’s eyes go wide. “What? Of course not! Especially not the ones between Seig and Atrie, which are totally not just sexting via letter.”
“… What’s sexting?”
“What? I don’t know!” Red has firmly spread over Viki’s entire face. “I gotta go! Nice seeing you!”
And without waiting for a response, she’s gone. TIr purses his lips, then shrugs. He’s not sure he’d mind, if she did read them all. They’re private, but not…
He takes the letters out of his pocket. So light. And yet to him they hold a weight that others wouldn’t understand. Even if Viki poured over every word, she probably wouldn’t fully grasp why they all did this, why it was important to them all. There’s…
Tir turns away from the fountain, and aims himself back towards home. Where Gremio will be getting the kitchen ready for breakfast, despite his aching body. And Tir will sit at the table and read his letters, some of the passages aloud for Gremio to share in. It won’t change things, really. Won’t bring back the Gregminster he remembers. The people he’s lost. Nor does he want it to. But it will remind him of the connections he’s made, and in his heart some burdens will ease, at least for a little while.
Notes:
Just some fluff, really. I do like the idea that Viki could carry messages to all the various Tenkai's, though. Certainly she's shows that she can flit through space and time, so I figure she's probably one of the few who could pull it off. And all the sweets she can eat, finally at her fingertips!
Chapter 4: The Gambler
Summary:
You gotta know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.
Hugo, on a diplomatic tour with Lilly, gets some advice from a gambler, and decides to make a change.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hugo stretches. The wind off Lake Dunan is colder than he’s used to, but not so cold that he’d consider putting on heavier clothes. The game warden describes the competition to him, the history of it. How the great hero of the war with Highland popularized it, how they’ve kept it going ever since. Hugo eyed the competition. The two others were military, he could tell that straight away, and a part of him bristles at that.
A part of him is a boy again hearing the stories on Luce’s knee while his mother weaves the imagery of war and death. The Highland soldiers who she served with. The rabble that stood against her, including those who orchestrated her father’s murder. Hugo would listen, leaning back against Luce, shoulder touching Lulu’s as the past came to life around them. The sounds of battle. The pale beauty of the mayor of Greenhill, who his mother would often get distracted describing.
The child who somehow bested the best Karayan warriors. Who somehow bested an entire kingdom with just his guts and an army of his friends. Hugo had always felt strange, feeling something stir in him thinking about that hero. Riou. Not that much older than Hugo then, and already leading an army. It seemed so…grand. Nothing like the realities of war he had learned.
“Climbers, into position!” the warden yells.
“You’d better win!” Lilly shouts from the sidelines. “I’ve got all our money riding on it!”
Hugo stifles a groan. Of course she’d but all of their money on a game. More money than he had seen before leaving Karaya Village for the first time. The woman went through funds like they were likely to catch fire if she didn’t get rid of them.
“And climb!” the warden shouts, and Hugo leaps onto the rope.
It’s exhilarating, the climb up the sheer cliff. The wind pushing him ever so slightly as he pulls, muscles straining. The soldiers who started with him are already starting to fall behind as he moves. He sees some of them pause to tie knots into the rope. He knows the warden said it might be a good idea, but Hugo trusted his hands, his ability to grip the line. He’d hardly be on there long enough to worry about falling, at the rate he was ascending.
He hoots as he climbed, body relishing the feeling of cutting loose, being free. Ever since he’d started this diplomatic mission with Lilly, it had been more time spent in stuffy reception halls and meeting rooms than anything. Little enough time to really work out, push himself. He lets himself enjoy it. Around him the wind howls and he keeps climbing, hand over hand, feet pinning the rope as he moves. He’s already over halfway and the others aren’t even close to him. He chuckles, pushes harder. He’ll leave them all behind, he’ll wi—
A flash of color and something hits him in the side of the head. Hard. With a yelp his hands slip, his feet fumble and—shit! He’s falling!
The air whistles around him as he reaches again for the ropes and misses it again. He turns, looking for something to grab, some way of halting his plummeting fall. And lets out a pained grunt as suddenly there’s something beneath them. Someone.
“Thanks, Fubar,” he manages as he looks back up at the cliffs, where he can see now little caped squirrels lining the crags in the upper reaches. “Fucking squirrels.”
Hugo winces at the hot water across his hands, but doesn’t complain as Pete brings back in another load of dirty dishes.
“Thanks again, Hugo,” Pete says as he sets the dish into the sink. “We’re really short staffed right now.”
“No problem,” Hugo responds. Not that it wouldn’t be a lot easier if Lilly hadn’t declared that since he was disqualified, he’d have to work for their room and board. Alone. While she enjoyed a free meal and then probably a shopping trip. But complaining about Lilly was a good way to waste time. So he scrubs, and scrubs, and wonders how long the dinner rush is going to last.
The fire in the common area roars as a troupe of musicians plays on stage. Hugo sits near the back of the hall, basking in the shadows. His hands are raw, but the food when he finally got a meal was delicious, and tomorrow he’s sure he can take another shot at the rope game, now that he knows about those blasted squirrels.
“You look like a man who could do with a spot of luck,” a voice says, and Hugo turns from his thoughts to find another man sitting across the table from him, dice cup rattling in his hand.
“I’m afraid my companion already gambled away all my potch,” Hugo says.
The man squints and leans over the table to get a look at him and, as he does, Hugo studies him as well. Older but with a youthful mischief in his eye. Muscles still toned, a strange piece of straw held between his teeth.
“Ah, you’re that Karayan who fell,” the man says. “In that case, let me spend some of that money your companion lost to me buying you a drink.”
“Lost to…you?”
The man laughs and rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “Yeah, well, I have my fingers in most of the gambling pies here. Name’s Shilo.”
“I’m Hugo.”
“Well, Hugo, seems like you’ve rolled three ones. But advice is free, right?”
Hugo purses his lips, wondering if this Shilo is on the level. Would he be this…helpful if Fubar were here as well. Not that Fubar was interested in staying inside. Apparently there was a small griffon population at the castle, and Fubar was spending an unexpected evening in their company.
“I suppose,” Hugo says at length.
Shilo smiles and takes out a flask, passes it over the table. Hugo sips, manages not to hiss against the strength of the alcohol inside, and passes it back. In the flickering half-light, the men are silent a moment, their eyes drawn away from the fire and into the dark corners of the hall.
“The past chains us all,” Shilo says suddenly. “Binds us tight in ways it can be very difficult to untangle ourselves from. You’re young yet, but I can already feel the chains on you.”
“I mean, Lilly’s not that bad.”
Shilo chuckles. “Not exactly what I meant, though she’s part of it. I saw you out at the ropes yesterday.”
Hugo shifts in his seat, feeling suddenly exposed.
“I’ve seen it before. A boy pulled into something he wanted no part of, hanging on because he wanted to protect his friends, because he wanted to protect everyone. The expectations growing with every impossible victory he managed. With every enemy he turned to an ally.”
Hugo accepts the flask back and takes a bigger swig, barely noticing the burn this time.
“You mean Riou.”
Shilo nods. “I was part of his army. And let me tell you, it was an honor. Kid was something else. But this…” He gestures to the room, to the castle around them. “…this wasn’t what he wanted. Not even with everyone trying to push him to take over after the war. To rule. Instead he…walked away. Disappeared. And I can guarantee that, wherever he went, he’s been happier by far than he would have been…having to go on diplomatic tours and deal with the running of a nation.”
Hugo’s wince has nothing to do with the booze, though he takes another swig and hands the flask back to Shilo. The words strike something in him like a gong that echoes in the dark.
The tour through Toran and Dunan has been…interesting. But the more he sees, the more people seem to be telling him that he’s not a good fit for what he’s doing. And…he’s not sure he wants to be.
He wants his people to be safe. Wants to make sure that Karaya Village can be rebuilt right, and that the peace holds. But does he want that to be his life. Meetings in countless halls and gladhanding nobles and politicians for the rest of his days. The more he sees, the more he feels that what he wants isn’t in the castles or the manor houses. It’s…out there. On the back of Fubar. Pushing into the unknown.
Hugo looks up, opens his mouth to speak…then closes it. Shilo, eyes closed, is asleep in his chair. Hugo smiles, and slides from his seat without a noise.
Outside the stables, Hugo whistles, and doesn’t have to wait long for Fubar’s shadow to pierce the night.
“Still awake, were you?” he asks, and the griffon gives a satisfied screech.
Hugo adjusts his bag on his shoulder. Not much to go on. Some closes. A journal Thomas made him promise to keep, which will soon becoming a lot more interesting. He almost regrets that he won’t see Lilly’s face when she realizes in the morning that he’s gone…and that she’ll have to be the one to work for her breakfast.
And in the night, the words of the gambler sleeping in the hall stay with him, a triple six he can keep.
Notes:
A quasi sequel to the Hugo fic I wrote last year where he meets Sarah in Gregminster.
Chapter 5: Catching Fish is Hard When Your Girlfriend is Lun
Summary:
Subala's come out, but while Lun is cool about everything, her family...is a mixed bag. And while they all participate in a fishing competition, Subala vents a bit about the changes in how some people are treating him.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“I swear, if yer old man gives me another one of his good man back slaps I’m going to stab my trident into his eye.”
Lun sighs and steers them through the clunking boats. They’re pushed to the side but Subala doesn’t lose a beat, casting his line just as a large shadow passes.
“I mean, it’s not as bad as Kisara,” he continues as he line pulls sharply to the side and he stands, one foot on the boat’s railing, straining against the sudden weight. “She keeps…looking at me like…like I betrayed her! All those girl power weekend trips probably seem some lie now, I guess.”
With a final flex he heaves and a sparkling silver fish sails into the air. Lun swings the net, catches it neatly, and pulls it in.
“Can’t they just…I don’t know, ignore it?”
Lun winces and nods. “Sorry they’re being so…weird.”
Subala takes a deep breath, then casts again.
“I get that they’re trying to be, you know, accepting or whatever. It’s…not sweet exactly, but it’s something.”
Logg’s boat comes careening through the water and they’re both jolted as the vessels collide.
“Ha hah! There’s my daughter and her…uh…big burly boyfriend!” His teeth shine as he grins widely.
“I’m five foot one and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds!” Subala shouts as he kicks at Logg's boat, trying to give them a little distance.
Logg tilts his head like a confused dog. “Ah, yeah, that’s right. What I mean is…” He laughs and leaps from his boat to Subala’s, landing with a grunt and a hearty slap to Subala’s back. “What I mean is yer a good man!”
Subala’s face flushes bright red.
“Uh, pop, maybe cut it out with that—”
Subala screams, fishing pole replaced in a flash with his trident, the butt of it striking Logg first in the gut, then across the face, sending him spinning back onto his own boat where he lands in a heap.
“Good seeing you, pop!” Lun calls as their boats diverge again.
“Sorry, sorry,” Subala says, running a hand through his hair and swapping out trident for fishing pole again.
“Eh, he gets worse on a regular basis,” Lun says.
“Just…why can’t they just be happy for me, for us, without making it this whole big thing?”
“They’re parents.”
“Ugh. Makes me glad mine drowned.” Subala casts like he’s chopping wood.
Lun sighs and slides forward in the boat, wraps her arms around Subala from behind in a light hug.
“Sorry,” Lun says.
Subala sniffs. “Fucking sea spray, making my eyes all watery,” he says.
Waves send them off course again, but Lun doesn’t break the hug. They stay there, Lun pressed against Subala’s back. Ahead, the Prince struggles with his own boat, not exactly the natural fisherman but he’s learned a lot since he started. He notices their boat and waves at them. Subala and Lun both lift hands to wave back.
“Not everyone is being weird about it,” Lun says.
Subala snorts, but can’t argue. Frey’s been cool about the whole thing, hasn’t gone out of his way to include Subala in more things, or exclude him. It’s just a little shift, and Subala can tell that Frey gets it. Like Lun. Like some of the others. Just not…
“I swear your mom liked it better when she thought we were lesbians,” Subala says.
Lun laughs. “I’m sure she did.”
A tremor through the water sends a shiver through the boat and up their legs. Their eyes shoot wide.
“Aw shit,” Lun says as Subala shouts over the side of the boat.
“It’s a WHOPPER!” he warns as the huge shadow shoot across the lake.
He and Lun both lose their feet, Subala turning to wrap his arms around her, the two of them holding each other as they are flung onto the deck of the boat, bouncing off the side, thankfully not thrown into the choppy waters.
They both tuck into each other, faces buried in necks, arms protecting each other as the waters toss them. After a long moment the worst of it seems over and they gingerly unfold, look each other in the eye.
“Sorry my folks are trash,” Lun says.
Subala laughs. “Yeah, well, not like I didn’t know it already. They produced you, after all.”
“What is that supposed’ta mean?” Lun asks, eyebrows furrowing. Then she smirks.
“Hey, no fair!” Subala squirms as Lun touches his abs, his sides. “You sea witch!”
“Behold my powers!” Lun shouts, unrelenting.
Subala grabs for her wrists. They wrestle, rolling on the deck of the boat. Subala manages to roll on top of Lun, straddling her waist, pinning her hands above her head. Their faces, inches apart, are marked with sweat.
“Yield, wench!” Subala shouts.
“Never, ya scurvy sea dog!” Lun returns, pressing forward into a kiss.
The fight goes out of them, then, the two collapsing against each other and the deck, laughing.
“Pretty sure times up on the contest,” Lun says.
Subala stretches up and looks over the railing of the boat.
“Well, yer old man looks beached and the Prince is talking with that devil Byakuren in the middle of the lake. So…I’d say it’s over.”
“I’m not sure one fish is enough to win,” Lun says, then as she looks around, “and that one seems to have gotten away anyway.”
Subala smiles, looking down at his girlfriend. Her body soft under him, he lets himself nuzzle against her.
“I don’t know, I think I got a pretty good catch right here,” he says.
Lun snorts. “Hah, you ol’ charmer.”
“Well, I mean, how else am I gonna seduce you into foolin’ around out on the lake in the middle of the day?”
Lun shakes her head but he can see her pupils start to dilate, her face flush.
“And I’ve got a shark for a boyfriend,” she says.
Subala snaps his jaws. “Mind the teeth,” he says, “I bite.”
And he descends as Lun shrieks, but she doesn’t push him away.
Notes:
A sequel to my fic "Coming Out is Hard When Your Girlfriend is Run," which went with the clear signs that Subala is a trans guy. Anyway, hopefully wholesome because I do like these lovable idiots a whole lot. Some of my faves from S5.
Chapter 6: Under an Absent Shadow
Summary:
Kirkis is unsure of what to do following the war, following the need to rebuild. Caught in that uncertainty, he seeks solace from the remains of the great tree that used to house his people. What he finds instead is a contrary voice that still might help him see the best path forward.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Lukiae Ende Towayo is gone, and with it a way of life.
Kirkis stands before the burnt trunk of the great tree and sucks in a deep breath.
“I wish you could tell me that I’m doing the right thing,” he whispers. It’s said that the tree used to speak directly to the chief of the elves, that it used to tell them what to do in times of crisis. If true, though, then the tree was gravely wrong in its final days.
“I wish you could show me how to make this right.”
“Start by breaking off this ridiculous alliance with the humans, then.” The voice is hardly that of an ancient tree.
“I don’t appreciate being followed, Rubi,” Kirkis says, not needing to find where the older elf is hiding to know who it is. Not that he’d be able to spot Rubi if he truly was hiding, so more reason not to try.
“Aren’t I supposed to be in charge of the security of the chief of the elves?” The question drips mockery for all that it’s true. Part of the bargain that kept Rubi helping to rebuild, that he be in a place of prominence, the leader of the warriors and by extension the man in charge of protecting the new chief.
“Guard me from a distance, then,” Kirkis says. “Silently. I hear you’re good at that.”
An arrow thuds into the ground at Kirkis’ feet, but if Rubi was expecting him to flinch or falter, he’ll be disappointed.
“Oh, look at the little chiefling, full of the power of his mantle,” Rubi says, still invisible. “Does it get heavy, Kiki? Do you yearn for the days when you were just an eager thing ready to give it up to any warrior willing to let you watch him shoot.”
Laughter now.
“It wasn’t like that, Rubi, and you know it.”
It was more than that. For a time, Kirkis had thought it was much more than that. He’d have almost called it…love.
“Then you got those ideas into your head,” Rubi spits. “Cooperation with the humans. With the dwarves. Dwarves! And your eye caught on that little waif of a girl. Suddenly felt good to top, did it? Felt like a big man?”
Kirkis closes his eyes, letting the past come back to him. Just old enough to know what to do with himself and desperate to be like the great warriors of the village. To protect it. There were none better than Rubi. None faster, stronger, surer with a bow. And all too eager to take a younger elf into his bed to show him all manner of things.
“That’s your problem, Rubi,” Kirkis says. “Lack of imagination. You’ve always been narrow minded, so sure of your own superiority. You think I wanted to be like you and yeah, for a time I did. You think I wanted to do to Sylvina what you did to me? You really don’t know anything.”
“What, is it so different with a woman? Do you make her wear a collar, like the one I once made for you?”
“I never lost the collar,” Kirkis whispers. Then, louder. “I just found someone who fucks me without hurting me. You think I wanted so badly to top I ended up with Sylvina? Then I have some disappointing news about who’s the top in our relationship.”
And finally, quiet. Kirkis smiles, laughs.
“You just lost to the better top, Rubi! I might be chief, but it’s Syl who still puts the collar on me, makes me service her, takes her pleasure whenever she wants. And what about you? Masturbating in the trees to memories of my ass? And you think I’m the pathetic one!”
Kirkis crosses his arms over his chest and turns back to the remains of the great tree.
“Was it so bad?” comes Rubi’s voice, and Kirkis turns to see the elf standing there in full view. “Did you hate it so? Did you hate…me?”
Kirkis sighs. “I never hated you, Rubi. But I got tired of the way you saw the world. The elves, and you, totally self-sufficient. It’s not an attitude that lets people get close. For the elves, it meant dying cut off from the rest of the world. For you, well…you’re not dead yet. But are you really living?”
“I don’t have to stay and take that from you!” Rubi shouts.
“Then why don’t you go!” Kirkis has held himself back long enough. “If you don’t want to be here, then why are you? If you don’t want me to succeed in securing alliances with the humans, kobolds, and dwarves, then why are you protecting me while I do it?”
Rubi hesitates, then turns away. “You want me to go, then?”
“I don’t want you to go,” Kirkis says. “I want you to want to stay. Not to watch me screw up, not so you can say ‘I told you so’ when it all falls apart. But because you believe in what we’re doing. Because you see that when we trust and when we forge relationships…that makes us all stronger. Safer.”
Kirkis thinks of the great tree. The elves had everything they needed there. Never had to come down. It was a good life, a happy life. But it was also a fragile life, as it turned out. Now they’re trying to build something back that’s different. Not above the clouds, where only the elves are safe. But among the trees on the ground. Among people, neighbors. Friends.
“I…don’t know how,” Rubi says. “I…spent so long hating you for going. For leaving. For leaving me. I couldn’t handle how bad it made me feel. How empty. That’s…that’s why I left. Isn’t that sad? It was you saving me even when I was so mad at you. I couldn’t be there, couldn’t deal with the hurt so I pretended I was too good and I left and…everyone died.”
Kirkis feels the pain like a knife in his heart. The village…gone. The great tree.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Kirkis says, and he stops himself from saying that it’s his. That if he’d just been a little faster. More convincing. Stronger. Then maybe they could have stopped the mirror before it was used. But he doesn’t. Sylvina has been good about getting him out of that space.
“I feel like…if you’re right,” Rubi says. “If you’re right, then means they deserved to die. That it was the old chief’s fault. And I wouldn’t have told him any different. I would have been right there with him, trying to lock you and the others up.”
“It’s not the old chief’s fault, either,” Kirkis says. “It was Wendy’s fault. Her and Barbarossa. They are the ones responsible. The old chief might have been wrong but that doesn’t make what happened to him right. It’s a tragedy. A great loss. It will never be anything else. It wasn’t justice, Rubi. Justice isn’t the fire, isn’t the war. It’s what comes next. And we have a chance to do something better. To make something better.”
“By allying with the humans who destroyed our home? The dwarves who created the weapon?”
“Yes,” Kirkis says, and he feels it swell inside him. Maybe the great tree isn’t here to tell him what to do, but he has something even more powerful. Friends. Rivals. People he loves who will challenge him, and who will help him to see the right path, even if that’s not what they always intend.
“Then I guess I want to be around for that,” Rubi says. “N-not—” He pauses for a moment and wraps himself in his arms. “Not because I want to see you fail. But because I want to be wrong. I want to be wrong so badly it hurts. I’m afraid, Kiki. Afraid that I still…have things to lose.”
Kirkis walks over and holds Rubi in his arms, the larger elf suddenly seeming small.
“I’m afraid, too,” he admits. “But I have people who help me through my fear. Friends. Lovers. I don’t have to carry that fear alone. And neither do you.”
Rubi heaves with a silent sob, and Kirkis holds him, their bodies pressed under the missing shadow of the great tree.
“I don’t want to be alone,” Rubi whispers, and Kirkis runs a hand from his shoulder, up his neck, and to his sharp chin, pressing it enough to plant a kiss on Rubi’s lips. Light but certain.
Then he stands back. “You…you should probably talk to Sylvina…when we get back. She’s always wanted to try some…things.”
Rubi wipes his eyes and Kirkis pretends he doesn’t see the tears there.
“Heh,” Rubi says. “I guess I’ll have to.”
They both turn and look at the charred trunk of the great tree.
“You’re full of surprises, you know that?”
Kirkis chuckles, hoping that will be enough for what’s to come. That he’ll be enough. But then, he won’t be alone.
Together, the two of them start off back toward the new village, and the future they hope to forge.
Notes:
Didn't expect to write an Kirkis/Rubi Kirkis/Sylvina but here we are and let's face it, Kirkis is a bottom. And I do like where this brings the characters and how it reflects on both their guilt and the need for change among the elves. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 7: A Matter of Taste
Summary:
Shams takes a break from the war to contemplate a pilfered cupcake, and gets some needed advice from his loyal partner, Taj.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Shams frowns. Alone in his room, there is no one around to smile at, and despite the sense of energy and victory in facing the Order of the One True Way, he finds that his mood is foul. Because of the loss of his mother and father? The loss of his home, the Magedom? Or maybe the sinking suspicion that, despite all of that, he almost feels…relieved about it?
Whatever the case, he reclines on a sofa and regards the small plate he’s brought up from the kitchen. Stolen, some might say. The plate itself is nothing special. Sturdy, some sort of thin metal, it was merely to hand when Shams had happened by. No, it’s what’s on the plate that is special. Shams lowers his face so that it’s only inches away.
“Is that a cupcake?”
Shams startles, caught unaware that anyone else had entered the room. But of course Taj could move silently, was used to being unseen among people who didn’t acknowledge that servants even existed.
“It is,” Shams says, forcing a smile. Forcing, even for Taj, who normally drew a smile from him so effortlessly.
“So that’s what’s got Wustum in such a mood,” Taj says, joining Shams in closely examining the small cake.
It’s delicately worked. The cake itself looks moist and springy while the frosting is done in a lattice of spun sugars in greens and blues and reds, a whole rainbow of treaded colors.
“Yes, I’m afraid I provide no end of consternation to the esteemed chef. Normally not so openly or intentionally, though.”
“He says he meant that entire tray of cupcakes for the porpos-kin tea ceremony. It’s apparently some sort of big holiday for them.”
“Yes,” Shams confirms. “I know. I have an invitation to the event.”
“Then why steal one beforehand?” Taj asks. “Couldn’t you have just waited until the ceremony and had one then?”
Shams runs a hand over his smooth chin. He looks at Taj, into his amber eyes. In the past he might have refused to answer, might have said simply that a prince doesn’t have to reveal all his secrets. A feint to cover his shame and guilt. But what was he even prince of now?
“I won’t take one during the ceremony, if it helps,” he says. “I’m not just trying to get double the amount of sweets. Not…exactly. In fact, Wustum had offered to make me a special cupcake to eat while I was attending the ceremony. I turned him down. It’s that, I guess, that led me to stealing this morsel.”
“Because he offered to make you one?”
“Because he had to offer. Because it wouldn’t have been the same as the ones he made for everyone else. He laments my ruined palate and…and I guess I am tired of it as well. I…wanted to know if I ate one that he intended for everyone else…if it would still taste good.”
Taj nods. “I see.”
“It’s just…I know that I’ve lived a charmed life. So different from…Seig and the others. To see them, even with how much they’ve lost, even with what they’ve been through, be so…happy. Hopeful. Determined. I thought perhaps I could understand how they did it by…”
“Eating a cupcake?” Taj asks.
Shams laughs. “When you put it like that, it does sound ridiculous, I know. But…taste is one of the main senses. And it’s the one where I can most obviously tell that what I experience is very different from everyone else. But what if it runs deeper than that? What if being brought up in the palace has ruined more than just my taste? What if it’s made me unable to see and hear and feel things the same as everyone else? What if that’s why I’m so…”
“Sad?” Taj finishes, and sits next to Shams on the sofa, offering his arms in hug.
Shams leans into him, trying not to doubt the warmth from Taj’s arms, the kindness in his gaze.
“Everyone gets sad sometimes, my prince,” Taj says. “Even Seig. You have nothing to prove. You fight, as he does, as we all do. You have never done less than another. Indeed, you are the first to take on difficult tasks, to risk yourself for the good of the fight against the Order. No one thinks any different.”
“Maybe I have something prove…to myself.”
Taj takes one of Shams’ hand in his own.
“My prince…”
Shams pulls away and reaches down to the cupcake. He takes it up, and takes a bite. Eyes closed, he chews, and tastes. He wants to feel the bright joy he sees in others when they eat one of Wustum’s famous cakes. The delight. Instead…
“It’s so…bland.”
Taj chuckles and Shams puts the rest of the cupcake down more forcefully than he meant to, some of the frosting falling onto the plate.
“It’s not funny,” Shams says.
“Of course it is,” Taj says, and this time touches Shams’ cheek, drawing his gaze back to those deep amber eyes. “You have terrible taste…in food.”
Shams tries to turn away but Taj holds him there.
“But you have wonderful taste in people. Your presence here is testament to that.”
Shams frowns but doesn’t respond. He feels something stir in his chest. A warmth.
“You are a wonderful person, my prince. A wonderful man. And what’s happened to you, it could make any person, no matter how noble, feel bad. Alone. But you’re not. You have me. You have your sister. You have Seig and all your friends. And you wouldn’t if you truly had no sense. Flavors might not be the same for you, but right and wrong is. And you understand that a million times better than the Order, than the people who have taken so much from all of us.”
Shams actually feels the smile that spreads over his face. He reaches down and picks up the plate, passes it to Taj.
“I fear I’m still not in a fit place to appreciate this,” he says. “So please, take it. Enjoy it.”
Taj nods, takes the plate, and eats the rest of the cupcake in one oversized bite.”
And joy. Delight. His eyes brighten and his whole body seems to swell. And though Shams didn’t have that reaction, he can feel some of it through Taj.
“I might not be able to enjoy the cake, but something I can appreciate…is you, Taj. Thanks for being here, even when I’m being ridiculous.”
Taj leans in, presses his lips to Shams’, and Shams feels his own body react. Delight. Joy. A swelling that makes him feel lighter than air. Taj pulls back slightly, and Shams licks his lips, tastes the sugar from Taj’s kiss, and it’s the most delicious thing in the world.
Notes:
Shams/Taj is one of the more canon relationships in the series, and yet I never could get into it too much, in part because it's such a formal relationship and Shams seems so unable to lighten up. So here, a small glimpse into their dynamic and my interpretation of it.
Chapter 8: Story Time on Magician's Isle (part 2)
Summary:
The first batch of stories complete, Luc demands something different, and Leknaat reluctantly complies.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The fire cracks, and Leknaat lets the silence of the night wrap around them. The only noise is the fire and the sound of Luc and Sarah breathing.
“What’s that even supposed to mean?” Luc asks. “Stories about Tir and Riou and people I’ve never heard about. That supposed to make me…happy? Sad?”
“Do all stories need to come with instructions on how to feel?” Leknaat asks. “So that you know that you got it right? Try asking what it is you do feel, instead of wondering what you should feel.”
Luc blows a raspberry.
“They feel…lonely,” Sarah says. “All of them. Lonely, like they don’t know quite how to be with other people. Like they don’t always know if they want to or not.”
“People are a lot of work,” Luc says.
“They are,” Leknaat concedes. “People come in all shapes and sizes. All kinds, and navigating that without hurting them, or being hurt in kind, is indeed one of the most difficult things about living. But also one of the most rewarding.”
“Yes yes I suppose now you’ll tell us about the magic of friendship and there’s nothing so powerful.” Luc crosses his arms over his chest.
“Wrong fandom,” Leknaat says, “though I think you’d look cute with an angry magic bolt on your butt.”
She can feel the weight of Luc’s stare and she laughs. Sometimes she wishes he could have had a proper childhood, something carefree and safe. Something that wouldn’t have left him so jaded, so cynical.
“Were they never your friends, Luc? Tir, Riou, all the others?”
“They all left,” Luc says.
Ah, and there it is. The worry beneath the thorns.
“Is story time over, then?” Sarah asks.
Leknaat lets her awareness touch the rest of the tower. The mess is nearly cleaned. But still she doesn’t feel like being done.
“No,” she says. “But, do you have any requests for stories? Stories about animals, or games? More stories about cupcakes?”
“You’ll only make Luc hungry with those,” Sarah says.
“Hey, shut up!” he shouts, and Sarah moves from the couch to Leknaat’s side.
“Maybe tell us some stories that aren’t about all the goody-goodies of the world,” he says. “Stories about power, and about those driven to it.”
“I’m not s—” Sarah begins, but Luc cuts her off.
“What, want to only listen to baby stories?” he asks.
Sarah purses her lips. Serious, but more a child than Luc will ever be, though she’ll never be as childish as he can be when he’s at his most petulant. She doesn’t speak, and so after a moment Leknaat places a hand on her shoulder, and walks her back to the couch.
“All right, then,” Leknaat says. “You want stories of those who aspire to power.”
Around her, the air grows static, sharp. The fire flickers, diminishes as if pushed down by an unseen hand. In the distance, a sound of thunder rolling through the sky, though there is no lightning to precede it.
“Stories of those who would put their will against the world, against order, against everything in heaven and earth?”
The tower itself seems to tremble, the fire growing lower, lower. The thunder, without lightning and without rain, tolling in the night like bells struck by giants, like foghorns from other realities.
“Yes,” Luc says, just a whisper. “Yes.”
“Then so be it.”
And with those words the thunder draws off into the night, and the fire rises back to its previous heights. Leknaat leaves Sarah to settle back in, and moves to the hearth again. She closes her eyes, and the stories crowd in. So many threads across so many different worlds. She can feel her own, and feel Luc and Sarah’s trailing into an uncertain future. Even for a woman who knows what will be like it’s already history.
Power, and those who would wield it. Slowly, she starts to speak.
Notes:
The frame continues! If you hadn't guessed, this is to go with the second week prompt of Suikovember...villains!
Chapter 9: Forged in Fire
Summary:
Albert is out on his first campaign and has won a great victory! Only what he had to do to win it, and who he was fighting against, both linger in ways that defy resolution. And in the night doubt, and fear, and the thrill of exhilaration, all steal into him, among other visitations.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Albert slips away from the celebration, seeking the shadows. He needs distance. From the generals and officers of the war. From the events of the day which still seem branded in his mind.
Absently his hand wanders to his breast pocket and pauses there. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s reaching for the letter inside. Caesar’s letter. A letter full of wonder that his big brother was finally off to put his schooling to use. The grand adventure war seemed to an eleven-year-old.
Not that it had seemed so different to Albert, when they first left to put down the rebellion. But that was before the tide of war had turned against them. Before the night raids and the now-familiar scent of blood. Before…
He reaches his tent and stops, body suddenly tense. There’s something in the air, something…alive that he can’t quite identify. But it’s dangerous. His the roar of a big cat, it sets everything inside him on alert. And still he doesn’t hear the man get behind him.
“So you’re the boy?” a voice asks, and Albert turns, hand moving toward the hilt of his…
A glint in the night, and he feels the point of a blade against his throat. Albert’s eyes go wide as he takes in the black armor. Cracked, maybe. Dented. Bloodied, certainly. But unmistakably that of…
“And you’re the monster fighting for the rebels,” he says. Not a question.
“I go where there’s war. I am Yuber.”
The man smiles, then, and presses forward with his blade, forcing Albert back into the tent. Empty now of the other tacticians, who are all enjoying the celebration. The victory.
“And I am Albert Silverberg,” he says, hoping for defiance even in the face of the odds. Beating the odds is his specialty, after all. His family’s heritage.
“I know who you are,” Yuber says. “I wasn’t sure you were the one I was looking for, though. Now I do.”
“You’re here to kill me?” Albert asks.
“Oh, you’re precious,” Yuber says, and lightning fast his face is inches from Albert’s, the blade still poised against Albert’s neck. “If I wanted to kill you I could have done so at any point. No, I don’t want your death. I want…your artistry.”
Albert swallows, tries to look away but Yuber grabs his chin in a gauntleted hand and holds it there, red eyes flashing.
“I knew your grandfather,” Yuber says. “He was…an interesting man. I fought with him before. Ever since, I haven’t found much that could challenge me. That was worth fighting for.”
“So, what?” Albert asks, mind racing. “You were…you were testing me? This…this whole rebellion? A test? For me?”
“Something like that,” Yuber says.
Despite the blade at his neck Albert leans forward, feels the warmth of blood as the blade bites. “Thousands are dead because of this rebellion. Thousands!”
“And I would have put them all to the sword myself and lost not a wink of sleep, and many more besides. Would have, had you not done what you did.”
What he did. Against Albert feels his hand flinch toward his pocket but he stops it. What he did.
“What I did was condemn an entire battalion of Harmonian soldiers to die.”
“I wasn’t sure you had it in you,” Yuber says. “The instinct. You knew that I’d detect a trap or falsehood. That wouldn’t commit the attack unless I thought that the battle was truly on. I would have won, had you stayed the course of the other strategists. If you had relied on your numbers and skill. You would have lost three times the troops and still you would have lost.”
“Yes,” Albert says. He had run the numbers himself. The field of battle was too narrow. Didn’t allow them to fully take advantage of their numbers. It would have been a killing field unlike anything the empire had seen. Instead…
“So you engaged us with your troops and instead of waiting for us to eat our way through them, you set the entire field ablaze. Burned us all, friend and foe alike. A vicious plan. A good plan.”
Albert says nothing and Yuber releases him, pulls away his sword.
“It takes more than that to kill me, however. Rest assured, though, the rebellion is over. Small loss. And you’ll be a rising star after this. A hero.”
“I’ll resigning my commission,” Albert says. The letter in his pocket seems hot through the fabric. A branding iron.
Yuber shakes his head. “No, I don’t think you will.”
As fast as a viper his lips are locked on Alberts, his arm iron on Albert’s back, holding him there. Albert squirms, fights, but there’s something in him that also kisses back. That pushes forward as against the blade.
Yuber backs away slowly, body uncoiling.
“I think a part of you thrilled watching your plan work,” Yuber says. “Because it did. Perfectly. Lives were spared.”
“Lives you endangered.”
Yuber laughs. “Yes, and I wasn’t going to let them go. Trust me.”
Albert bit his tongue rather than admit that he did. That, somehow, despite everything, trusted this man in front of him, the one with blood in his eyes. His enemy. And yet his body reacted to the kiss, wanted…wanted more.
“What do you want with me?” Albert asks.
“Everything,” Yuber says, and it sends a shiver up Albert’s body, makes his knees weak. “We’re going to make such art together.”
And then he’s gone. It’s just the night again, and the sound of raucous voices. Drinking and singing. Shadowed liaisons. Albert moves slowly, but with growing resolve. He should sleep. In the morning he should write that resignation and go home. Be with his family. Find better causes to fight for.
But instead he leaves and rejoins the revelers. His body feels awake, electric. There’s an energy pulsing through him as if he’s a chord that Yuber played and let echo. He circles the edges of the celebration, pauses at an abandoned fire.
He pulls the letter from his pocket and unfolds it.
Albert! They tell me that you’re at the front and the Holy Army will soon be victorious. I can’t wait to hear all about it, and about how you’ve become a hero! I can’t wait for when it’s finally my turn to—
Albert drops the letter into the flames and watches it burn.
Notes:
Stop one on the villain train and it's Albert and his origin. And what might have been trying to nudge him down his path all along.
Chapter 10: Sons and Fathers
Summary:
Gizel has words with his father on the day before the Prince's forces are due to arrive in Sol Falena.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Gizel paces the room. Everything is coming undone. Stormfist lost. The loyalist army approaching the capitol.
Marscal stands looking out the window. East, toward the mountains. Gizel already knows what the old man is planning. That in the end, despite his words, his ambitions, he will abandon them all for some magic buried in the ice. All for a rune.
“Was it worth it, father?” Gizel asks. He doesn’t expect a satisfying answer, but then, like the war, that wasn’t always the point.
“It will be,” he says, eyes narrowing. “They’ve cracked the Sun Rune. I’ll bear it, at last, and usher in a new age.”
Cliché. Boring.
“Well then,” Gizel says. “Tell me, are you proud of me?”
Marscal flinches, eyes dropping from the window, though he doesn’t turn to regard his son.
“Of course,” he says. “I couldn’t have done this without you. Without your sacrifice.”
Gizel smiles. Ah. Of course. His sacrifice. To Marscal Godwin, everyone is as valuable as what their sacrifice brings. Like Bahram Luger had been valuable. Like Dilber Novum had been valuable. Valuable corpses, they’d all be. While Marscal…
“Dolph!” Gizel says, sudden as lightning. The young man doesn’t move, doesn’t show any response to the sudden use of his name. “Dolph, how are you? I feel I haven’t checked in with you recently. Doing all right? Any complaints?”
“No, Lord Godwin,” Dolph says.
“Anything you want, though? To be made a Queen’s Knight, perhaps? I fear you might feel left out.”
“I wish only to serve,” Dolph says.
Is it sadness in the young man’s expression? Boredom? Bloodlust? It’s still hard to look at him and remember that he’s the one who killed Gizel’s mother. Just a boy, then. A boy no longer, though.
“Excellent answer. Isn’t that a good answer, father?”
Marscal huffs and moves to the sideboard, pours himself a large brandy.
“You should go to bed, Gizel,” Marscal says. “Tomorrow is a busy day for you.”
Gizel looks at the door to his quarters. Of course he should. Should sleep and wake and watch the last of his schemes unravel. The last ploy slip into ruin. And wonder all the while if he wanted to win in the first place. No. Certain that he didn’t. Oh, to have a father like Marscal Godwin.
“Are you proud of the Prince, father?” Gizel asks.
Marscal’s head whips up. Bloodshot eyes radiate heat as they glare across the room as Gizel. “What? Why should—he’s the reason we’re in such trouble. An interfering, effeminate disgrace!”
“And yet he’s winning!” Gizel crows. “He’s completely defied our expectations. Who would have thought? And isn’t that something to be proud of, in a way? Our Prince, strong enough to overcome every obstacle? To kill our generals? To take our home?”
“He’s nothing,” Marscal says, downing the brandy and pouring another. “It’s that bitch Lucretia’s doing. Her webs that have infiltrated everywhere. A foreigner.”
“One you invited here,” Gizel says.
“You would do well to guard your tongue,” Marscal snaps.
Gizel laughs. “He is no pawn. He’s chosen of the Dawn Rune. He’s killed your best killers. Concede to him, father. Admit that you were wrong, that yours is not the only way to be strong.”
“I conceded nothing.” Marscal downs another brandy, pours again.
Gizel holds up his hands. “Okay. Okay. Just…doesn’t it ever get old?”
“What?”
“This quest you have for revenge. This quest everyone has…for revenge.”
“I don’t—”
“Oh come off it! Be honest with yourself—be honest with me. This day at least. This whole thing is just one big circle, waiting to be closed. The war for succession—”
“That was Barrows!”
“No! No, father, stop putting this on anyone else. You blame Barrows because he used the tactics that you perfected? Because he was slightly less subtle? Nether Gate didn’t pop up over night. And it wasn’t just the Barrows who employed them. But what? They killed your cousin, your wife. And you launch a scheme for revenge that spans decades. You feed the rest of your family to it, just as the Barrows, just as the Queen, fed all of their families. All for revenge, all to win.”
“You understand nothing of power, boy,” Marscal says.
“I know enough to die for it,” Gizel says. He feels drunk but he hasn’t touched a drop. How fun this all seemed when it was love that drove them all. Love for those they had lost. Love for what they could gain. His love of Sialeeds. But no, even that well was poisoned. By Marscal’s plotting, by the long bitterness that had snaked its way into Gizel’s and Sialeeds’ hearts. A need to punish those who had plucked joy from their grasp.
“Which is, ultimately, all you know of it, too, father.”
Gizel turns and leaves the room, doesn’t falter as his father’s glass shatters against the wall near the door. Let him rage. Gizel marches down the hall, not to his quarters, but to the courtyard. The open air. The moon.
He plans to watch the night, free from the weight of his father’s plans and plots. Free of his own hurts and hatred. Free. He reaches the courtyard and stands there, looking up at the sky. The stars in their incalculable orbits. Another life, and maybe he could have traced himself in heroic arcs through the stars, found a home. A family worth having. Instead…
Already the stars are fading, though. To the east the sky is beginning to give hints of its first blush. The dawn is coming. But until it does, Gizel imagines a world where his father had survived the war and…put down his arms. Mourned his wife and honored her not by more war, more betrayal, more assassins in the night. But with peace. Peace for his son, for all the children who had lost, and who stood to lose more. Gizel imagines the man he might have been. The one he’s known in flashes, in the broken moments he knows that he’s not a hero.
Did he fight as hard as he could have? Was he as ruthless as his father wanted? Does it matter? He is the villain of the story, he knows that. But did he try, at least, to restrain the worst of his father's impulses? Did he make things better than they might have been, if he were just another ghost to avenge? He wishes on the stars for an answer, but they are silent.
He'll just have to live with what he's done, he knows. Lucky for him, though, he doubts he'll have to live with it for much longer.
Eventually, the dawn comes, and Gizel is left with the man he is. And all the decisions that led him to this point. He walks back through the halls of the palace, and prepares to meet the day.
Notes:
Suikoden V has some interesting villains, not least of which Gizel, who is a shitbag, but who I never feel really wants to be there. He's dragged along this story by his father and his own anger and frustration, but he also knows it's wrong, and I do suspect he does things to sabotage him and his father. So yeah.
Chapter 11: The View from Jowston Hill
Summary:
Luca Blight is dead and Jowy has invited Riou to Jowston Hill to discuss peace. But there's something else on his mind, and the past spreading out before him like a landscape now empty of the people he loves.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Jowy stands looking out over the city of Muse. From Jowston Hill, it sprawls, a stone labyrinth. Emptied, now, of all by wolves.
“Hahahahahahaha,” Luca cackles. “Die, pigs!”
Night stretches across the land, dark as tar. And from Muse, screaming as the light of a thousand souls lifts up into the sky and is devoured by the great maw of a ravenous wolf. Jowy shakes, swallows down the bile that surges up his throat.
Around him, the rest of the generals look away. Culgan and Seed press in on either side of him as if they might protect him from this. Shield him from the horror. But there is nothing that can protect him from the knowledge that he helped this. That his hands run as red as Luca’s.
He nods, more to himself than to anyone. A reassurance. A promise. That this is the last time. That he will take power, whatever is necessary, and he will bring peace. But first, that he will make sure that Luca Blight will plague the world no longer.
“Preparations are complete,” Seed says. “We wait only for their arrival.”
Jowy sucks in a ragged breath, willing the past to stay in the past.
“We… You don’t have to do this,” Culgan says. “We’d understand, if you didn’t want to—”
“What I want isn’t important. Not anymore. Not after…” He turns away from the city and back to Jowston Hill. Where Genkaku and Han Cunningham had their famous duel. “I need to finish this. I need to release Riou from this fate.”
He’d be fine. He’d be free. Him and Nanami. They’d be able to go, to find a home that deserved them rather than this serpent’s nest. Where everyone was just waiting to betrayal them. Highland or City-States, they were all corrupt. Riou and Nanami, they could have a fresh start. They’d all be fine.
“You want so badly to save your friends,” Jillia says. She runs a hand through his hair. SO strange, that just next door a madman is planning the conquest of the world. Is probably killing hamsters or piglets or fawns to calm down for sleep. And here a beautiful woman is looking at him with sad eyes, like he matters. “But what about you? Who get to save you?”
“Some people don’t deserve to be saved,” he says. “I’ve…killed. I’ve betrayed them. I need to make it up to them. Need to give them that at least. They’ve been manipulated, driven by hearts that can’t see the rotten core of what they’re fighting for. I’m nothing like them, if I ever was.”
All his life he’s wanted to be. Wanted to be in their family, with Genkaku, rather than his own home. He’s always wished he could have that, but he’s also always known that it was impossible. His family…his blood…there was something toxic inside him. Something tainted. He didn’t have Riou’s heart and kindness. No, Riou was chosen for the Shield, to protect. Jowy only had the sword.
“I think you see the world through a lens that doesn’t let you see how special you are,” Jillia says. “How good. But I have witnessed evil my whole life. I know it intimately. You are not beyond saving.”
Jowy turns away, heart racing. How badly he wants that to be true. And yet…
“They’ve been spotted entering the city,” Culgan says. “We’ve made sure to clear out the wolves.”
Jowy frowns. “But it’s Riou who took care of the biggest wolf.”
Not that they hadn’t had their part to play. Not that they all hadn’t wanted Luca Blight dead. But it was Riou who struck the final blow. Another thing Jowy owes him for. Riou was never a killer, and Jowy’s now taken that away from him. Stained him. But not beyond redemption. Killing monsters was hardly something that damned a person’s soul.
“Have the armies ready to muster quickly,” Jowy says. They’ve had to pull back in a sign of non-aggression, but once Riou is forced to surrender, things will move quickly. Resistance will crumble. This war will at last be over.
Jowy looks up at the sky, almost expects to see a massive pair of jaws opening to devour him. He looks down, at the battleground where Genkaku and Han fought. Such a tangled mess. Layers within layers, and always good men paying the price.
He’d considered challenging Riou to a duel here. A battle for everything. To spare all that came next. But Riou would never agree to it. Not with all the people depending on him. And even if he did…
Jowy looks at the rune embedded in his hand. Would he be able to strike his best friend?
Jowy runs. Annabelle’s blood stains his hands, his clothes. Soon the city will be overrun. Everything will change.
There’s still a part of himself that begs him to stop. To return to Riou and Nanami, who even after all of this will take him back. Will accept him. But he can’t. That’s the poison of him. He’ll destroy them, more than he’s destroyed himself.
No, there’s only forward now. Into the night and onto a road lined with bodies. Death. Suffering. But through all of that, to something…better. He runs, tears falling from his eyes. It has to be better. It has to be…
“We should go inside,” Culgan says. “They’re nearly here.”
Jowy straightens and nods, with one last look to the place where two best friends fought and almost killed each other for the sake of their nations.
“Let’s go,” he says, and leaves the past behind him.
Notes:
This is such a turning point in the game, that final nail in the casket that there might be a truly happy ending. Because it shows that for all Luca was evil, he wasn't entirely the Final Boss. That's the legacy that made Luca, and that he's left behind, that Jowy in all his misguided ambition wants to put to rest.
Chapter 12: A Diva in Crimson
Summary:
Holding Tengaar prisoner, Neclord awaits the party that is set to rescue her. And he really hopes there are some good looking men among the bunch.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Neclord plays, the organ lively under his fingers. The castle moans with his music. For a young man is come to scale his tower, to rescue a fair maiden, and all is right with the world.
“You’ll never get away with this,” the young woman shouts from the crackling energy cage he’s placed her in.
He could hypnotize her. Bend her to his will. But oh, where’s the fun in that? The drama? The…elegance?!
“You jerk, are you even paying attention to me?” the young woman shouts, pounding her fist against the energy barrier, which flares in time with her abuses.
“My young bride-to-be, doesn’t that hurt?” he asks. The energy barrier is not stone but something between fire and electricity and wind. It is not pleasant to touch.
“Bride nothing!” the woman says. “I’d rather leap from the tallest tower than be wed to a worm like you.”
Neclord laughs. There are still some joys to these captive, even if they are not at all what he wants. But this one is feisty and he appreciates that, at least.
“That can be arranged,” Neclord says sweetly. “But first we must take stock of the healthy young man on his way to free you. Or…” Neclord allows himself to sense deep into the castle, to where zombies are being hacked apart. “…young men. Oh, you are a popular one I see.”
“What?!” she shouts. “It should only be Hix on his way here to save me.”
“Oh my dear don’t sound so upset. Isn’t a good thing that so many strapping young men are interested in saving you? Let me tell you there have been a time or two when I’ve taken a bride and not a single attractive young man scurries along afterward to save her. Imagine! Now, occasionally there is a young woman who comes along when I’ve taken a bride and mostly that’s just awkward for me but still, you’ve nothing to complain about.”
The young woman stares at him.
“What?” Neclord asks.
“You’re totally gay,” the woman says.
Neclord puts a hand to his chest in feigned surprise. “Honey, what gave it away?” And he laughs, because it’s ridiculous that she should sound so serious about it. Of course he’s gay. Why else would he kidnap so many young women, if not to see their sweaty paramours in action? If not to lure them into his castle and the twists and turns, to feel them writhe in pain as they attempt to rescue their beloved?
“But you’ve been taking brides for…decades!”
“Centuries,” Neclord corrects. “A diva doesn’t like to talk about age, but it’s centuries, trust me.”
“Just so you can get their…men to rescue them?” the woman asks.
“You say that like it’s the stupidest thing you’re heard when you’re the one in a blood magic prison and I’m the one waiting for the fresh meat to come walking through the door. Or…they’ll probably kick the door down! I hope they do.”
He licks his lips. Again he lets his feeling enter the castle. They’re getting closer. Definitely a lot of men. At least three. A woman or two but that’s hardly important. Strangely, there’s something familiar about the way they feel. But no matter.
“Couldn’t you just, I don’t know, go up to guys you like and…ask them out or something?” the young woman asks.
Neclord tsks. “You have no music in your soul,” he says, and plays a bit more on the organ. “Asking men out is a fool’s game. Abducting their women in order to get them to perform for my amusement and titillation…that is art!”
“Whatever you say…freakshow,” the woman says, muttering the last bit under her breath.
“I have excellent hearing you know,” he says, stopping his music and flicking his ears. “The whole bat thing, remember?”
“Then hear this,” she says, “I am going to kick your weird, girl-kidnapping, pale-as-a-fish ass myself! Just come over her and let me out and I’ll show you!”
Neclord rolls his eyes. Feisty was one thing, violent and deranged was another. That was his thing. Rather than responding, he lets his mind fill the castle again. They really were making pretty good time through the place. Almost to the door.
He really does hope they kick it down. Something grand. Something fabulous.
Notes:
Just some ridiculous fluff because I mean Neclord is a dramatic bitch.
Chapter 13: A Storm Over Citro Plains
Summary:
On a patrol by himself, Dirk indulges in a moment of fantasy. All the while, though, a storm is rolling in...
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Citro plain seems to stretch on forever, a blanket of green under the blue blue sky. Dirk walks, only half paying attention to the landscape, to the possible dangers. The beasts here are hardly that big a threat, and he’s not out to collect laggart pelts.
Back in the village, Sieg and the others are probably waiting for him to take them out on a training mission. But today he doesn’t feel like doing training. Today he feels like looking up at the sky as it wraps around him. Moving through the vast feels and knowing the arch of every hill, the dip of every valley. This is his home.
Smiling, he unsheathes his sword. Before him, he imagines the stalks of grass as the ranks of an invading army. And, standing before it, he is the defender of Citro Village. He moves, sword flashing, grass falling with every slash. The enemy flanks reel under his assault, and behind him he can hear the cries of his friends, urging him on.
Another flash, and another. The enemy turns to flee and he chases them down, merciless in his defense of his home. They will never rise to threaten Citro. Never hurt his friends or family.
When the invading army has been vanquished, he’s breathing hard but still smiling. His arms ache, but it’s a pleasant thing, the world almost fuzzy around the edges, like he’s drunk. He looks up, lifting his sword to the blue sky, only to find that clouds have slid in while he was fighting.
He stares at the horizon, where now a storm seems to be moving in, the sky dark, the winds starting to play with the grass on the hills. He watches as laggarts make wakes through the grass as they flee toward hidden dens.
Sheathing his sword, Dirk turns himself back toward Citro Village, and begins to job.
The winds increase, and Dirk looks back, sees the storm bearing down on him. There’s no way that he’ll make it back before it hits… He changes direction. Yadima’s place is nearby. He should be able to reach that, at least, and wait out the storm there.
There are no lights on when he arrives, though the sky has darkened considerably and the rain has started. Dirk knocks on the front door and, when there is no answer, he pushes his way inside.
No sign of Yadima.
“Yadima!” he calls, but only silence answers him. He closes the door behind him and stands still, not wanting to track water all through the house. He takes off his boots and leaves them by the door, then pushes further inside.
The house isn’t large, though Yadima looks to have expanded it over the years. Dirk moves through the entry way into the large kitchen and sitting room.
“Yadima, it’s Dirk! From Citro Village!”
Still no answer, and Dirk starts looking at the home. Nothing is sitting out. No food left waiting for later in the day. The door wasn’t locked, but then, Yadima probably didn’t see a point, so far out in the plains. His boots are missing too, and looking out toward the barn Dirk can see that the cart seems to be gone as well. He’ll have headed off to town, then. Lucky for him that he wasn’t caught out in this.
The rain increases, and Dirk shutters the windows. Yadima probably would have, if there had been any sign of bad weather coming. But it looked clear, and all the farmers and wise ones had been predicting more calm weather. Nothing like—
Light flashes, and Dirk flinches from the noise. A moment later, thunder rumbles the house. Dirk keeps his head down, moves back to the kitchen to look for something to eat that Yadima might have left. He starts a fire in the hearth.
“Isn’t a little presumptuous, starting a fire in another man’s house?” a voice asks, and Dirk whirls, sword in hand.
A woman stands there. Dark brown skin, bald head, a tattoo running up her body. Or what if it he can see what with the billowing robes.
“Who’re you?” Dirk demands.
The woman regard him for a moment, tilting her head to the side.
“I’d say a friend, but the truth is I am no one to you, as you are no one to me,” she says. “I thought at first…but no, the stars do not shine on you.”
“The stars…?” he asks.
She waves her hand. “Forget it. Not important for the hear and now. I thought I sensed…but maybe it’s not quite time for that. Or else I’m not quite in the right spot.”
“Right spot for what?” He asks. His sword is still drawn, though he relaxes as the woman just stands there.
“I said forget it,” she says. She looks out the window, where the storm is raging. More lightning and thunder shake the house.
“I’m…Dirk. The guardian of Citro Village.”
She looks at him again. “If you’re its guardian, then why are you out here, so far from it, Dirk of Citro Village.”
The question is blunt and Dirk rocks back as if struck. He puts away his sword.
“I’m out on patrol,” he says. It’s not a lie, though it’s perhaps a bit of a stretch.
“Uh…huh.” She looks away from him, focusing on the fire.
Dirk bristles, wants to defend himself but doesn’t really understand from what. He clears his throat instead.
“And what brings you out here?” he asks. “Is there something I need to know? A danger to Citro Village?”
She closes her eyes. “The stars are moving. Gathering. Soon now. But you?” She opens her eyes and fixes him with a glare. “There is nothing that you can do. Nothing.”
Again the words are like an attack and Dirk steps back, stumbles against a chair and sits, hard.
“I’ve tarried long enough, though,” the woman says, and gathers herself.
“Wait,” Dirk says. He doesn’t know why, but he…wants something from her. He’s not even sure what. He wants her to see him. To see in him something that she obviously doesn’t. He’s the guardian of Citro Village. He could be a hero.
She does look at him. But he can tell, knows that she doesn’t see him. He opens his mouth, wants to say something, to protest, to promise. But he doesn’t, and after a moment she rolls her eyes, lifts her hands, and is gone.
And as Dirk waits in the dark and rain he feels something inside him. An absence he hadn’t noticed before. He shakes his head. No. He’s still the defender of his village. And in a week he’ll have Sieg and the others fully trained. A company with him at the head. Soon.
But as the storm drags on and the embers of the fire burn low, doubt pulls at him. A bit of the storm seems to steal into him, filling that empty space with some dark.
Notes:
I do like how so much of Dirk was just this refusal to believe that he's not special. An inability to be supportive of his friends. And I do feel like that was part a choice, not being a star of destiny. That it wasn't just chance, but a reflection of who he was. And what he wasn't.
Chapter 14: I'll Go On Ahead
Summary:
Ain Gide waits for his emperor in hell. But shouldn't he have arrived by now? Instead of the man he's waiting for, though, he gets a surprise visitor, who arrives with an offer.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hell is a lonely place for those who wait.
“Do you think he’s forgotten about us?” Ain asks.
The silence brings back only the echo of his words.
Time isn’t straightforward in hell. Why would it be? But it seems like so much time has passed. Too much time to still be waiting for the end of the war. Tir and his army were already at the capitol. Their might had defeated everything that Barbarossa had thrown at them. There was nothing left, and no way that the war would have ended in any other way than their victory.
Where then, was his king. His everything?
Absently he pours himself a glass of tea and takes a sip, grimacing slightly at the lack of real taste, real kick. Hell was full of weak tea.
He had expected others. After all, each of the five great generals had been defeated. Kasim, Milich, Kwanda, and Sonya all taken captive. Teo dead. And yet Teo was not here, either. There had been rumors…something about the rune that Tir held. But the others would be here if they had fallen, surely. And Barbarossa. And Windy. They wouldn’t have surrendered. For all the others thought they could convince the Emperor to change. To see the error of his ways. Ain knew better than that.
But then where was he? Where was the man he had died for?
“He was a True Rune bearer,” a voice says, and Ain recoils as Mathiu Silverberg appears in front of him. “You might be waiting a long time.”
“Mathiu,” the word is more curse than greeting. “What do you know about it?”
“I know that the Emperor was defeated,” Mathiu says, solidifying more as he speaks. “I know that Tir was victorious. That the other generals stayed on to try and rebuild. Well, most of them. Milich decided to become a writer and historian.”
Ain shakes his head. “That I’d have to see to believe,” he says.
“You can,” Mathiu replies. “I’ve been sent to offer you the opportunity.”
Ain narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”
Mathiu gestures, and between them a deep emerald teapot appears. Ain’s mouth waters as he smells the rich bouquet of the brew inside.
“I mean you died a noble death, of sorts. And while you died for all the wrong reasons, for stubborn pride, there is still a path for you up into the stars of heaven. There, at least, you can watch the progress of the earth, can see old friends, and be there when they pass over as well. Unlike the others, you never had your chance at redemption.”
Ain snorts. “Redemption, right. And what about my emperor? What about Barbarossa? When he dies, will you reach down for your lofty post and offer him a hand up as well?”
“There are some things that cannot be full forgiven,” Mathiu says. “He did what he did because of grief, perhaps, but he did them knowing the suffering he caused. Not caring about the lives he sacrificed on the altar of his sorrow. You did what you could to do right while he ruled, even if you aided his madness. His evil. You cared, and through your actions you did allow for justice to be done.”
“If there is justice then where is Barbarossa? Why isn’t he here?”
Mathiu sighs. “He has passed beyond even my ability to perceive him. He is not dead, though he might wish he were. And it might be a long time until he dies, with a True Rune to anchor him.”
“Then I will wait for him, as I said I would,” Ain says. “I owe him that. And…and he owes me that.”
“Barbarossa is not a man who ever cared what he owed others,” Mathiu says. “If you stay this course… There won’t be another offer, after this one. After me. You’ll be able to be with those who loved Barbarossa at least. Your fellows.”
“I was never truly one of them,” Ain spits. “They were the Great Generals. And yet each of them betrayed him, in the end. You say that I allowed for justice. When I let Tir slip passed me, right? But I would have killed him then if I knew what would have happened. If it meant Barbarossa would live. I am not the hero you paint me as, even by mistake.”
“Your loyalty is commendable, though misplaced.” Mathiu materializes a cup and fills it with tea. The aroma fills the space. “If you come with me, you can be among friends, drink fine tea, experience simple pleasure and profound insights.”
“And all I have to do is turn my back on the most important person in my life?”
“Ain, you are dead.”
“No thank you, spirit. Haunt me no longer! Leave me to this vigil, to this wait. He will not leave me here forever. You’ll see! I’ve just gone on ahead, and he’ll be catching up any moment.”
Mathiu looks down at his cup, then nods. He turns over the cup and lets the tea spill into nothing, then drops the cup. It disappears as it falls, the teapot with it.
“Very well. I wish you… Good bye, Ain Gide.”
And with that he is gone, and Ain is alone again. But not for much longer, he tells himself. Barbarossa will be along shortly. Any moment now.
Notes:
Just a quick look at Ain Gide and his sad ending. Also implying that Barbarossa isn't exactly dead...so there's that.
Chapter 15: Story Time on Magician's Isle (part 3)
Summary:
Checking back in with Leknaat, Luc, and Sarah, the storytelling enters a new phase, and Leknaat offers a challenge.
Chapter Text
“Hmph.” Luc crosses his arms and settles deeper into the sofa. “Those were hardly admirable choices.”
Leknaat shakes her head. “You need to be more careful with how you word your requests, then. You never said they had to be…admirable.”
“I think they all were rather sad,” Sarah says.
“Such is the case with those who quest for power,” Leknaat says. “Because it’s not a quest with an ending. There’s always more power, and more.”
“Being satisfied isn’t better than wanting something,” Luc says. “Without want…we’d all just sit around. We wouldn’t even be. It would be stillness, emptiness. Always.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting,” Leknaat says. “The key is what. The key is how much.”
“And there’s a magical ‘right’ amount of want?” Luc asks.
Leknaat sighs and puts another log on the fire.
“It’s human to want,” Luc says. “To want and to want more. To not be satisfied.”
“Human?” Leknaat says. “Are humans all that inhabit the world? Am I human? Are you?”
A silence descends on them. Leknaat knows he means well, in his own way. That he’s haunted by what he is, what he was meant to be. She can see the threads of his life pulling him in so many different directions. Can see his possible future, and his likely one. And she can feel the wind rise in the room, whip her robes as it’s like all the warmth has been blown away.
But Leknaat senses when Sarah reaches out and takes Luc’s hand in her own.
“Being human is overrated,” she whispers, and Leknaat smiles.
“Can we hear stories about people who aren’t human?” Sarah asks.
“What’s the point of this?” Luc demands. “Shouldn’t we be learning about magic? New spells? How to cross the boundaries between worlds?”
The wind flares again and Leknaat stands amidst a swirl of dust and papers. She can feel the storm spilling out from Luc. The want and the rage. Perhaps she shouldn’t have brought up his own nature. But what’s past is past.
“The point of stories depends on the person experiencing them,” Leknaat says, not raising her voice over the wind, which dies back in response. “They mean different things to different people. Like desire. Like power. Stories can be teachers, or entertainers, they can be cages, or they can be keys. It depends on what you bring to them, and how you end up using them.”
“These stories seem nothing more than sad tales of pathetic people going about their little lives.”
“Then that is what they are…to you,” Leknaat says. “That doesn’t mean that’s all of what they are. That is something you can’t touch. You can’t control how another person experiences the story. It’s what makes them magical. Wonderful. And dangerous.”
“Will you tell us more?” Sarah asks.
“Yes,” Leknaat says, “I will. But…”
And this time she stills the room, draws the wind through a gate and gone. Luc might have his tantrums, but she this is her house, and if respects nothing but power, then let him respect hers.
“But after these, I expect stories…from both of you,” she says. “I want you to think about a story that you will tell, after I am done.”
“But that’s hardly any time at all,” Luc protests.
“The story doesn’t have to be long,” Leknaat says.
“Does it have to be a true story?” Sarah asks.
Leknaat smiles. “Child, all stories are true.”
Sarah purses her lips.
“Should the story be about humans? Heroes? Villains? Power?” Luc asks.
“It can be whatever kind of story you feel like telling,” Leknaat says. “About whoever, or whatever, you wish. It can be funny, or sad, or strange. Just…tell me something.”
Luc and Sarah are silent as they consider.
“Until then, I think I had a request for stories that feature non-humans.” Leknaat clears her throat, and begins.
Chapter 16: A Sea Silent of Song
Summary:
Lilin and Liloon search for more mermaids after the end of Suikoden IV, and might just have a lead on one...though not one without complications.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The waters are quiet. Empty. In all the ways that matter, at least.
Lilin swims, catching currents that make the effort a dream, like flying through the clear water. At her side, Liloon circles her, playful but watchful. They are twin streaks as they move, calling…calling…
There was a time when the waters hummed with mermaid song. When they could pass the music from voice to voice across the blue, changing it, shaping it, letting it take on the personality of the whole of the ocean. Before the humans. Before Cray.
Liloon croons as she swims, a mournful, yearning noise. Lilin listens for a response. But, when it comes, it’s only the deep, solitary call of a whale. After a while longer, they surface. In every direction, the rolling waters of the ocean.
“Sister,” Lilin says, “do you think we’re going in the right direction?”
Liloon narrows her eyes and turns, looking from one horizon to the other. “The waters taste fresher this way. If I were a mermaid…and I am…this is the way I’d go.”
Lilin nods, but they both hesitate before diving back into the water.
“Sister,” Lilin says, “do you hate humans?”
“Humans are…scary,” Liloon says. “But…some are good. Lazlo was good. Some of the others. Not all humans are bad.”
“But the bad ones are bad enough for all of them,” Lilin says, watching the waves, feeling the silence of the ocean. The good ones were good, but they didn’t make the waters resound with mermaid song. They didn’t bring back the dead. They didn’t even stop their skins from being traded in markets around the island, or packed to far off cities.
“Are there…more of us out there?” Liloon asks.
They’ve already been searching for…a long time. Mermaids don’t keep time as much as humans do. Has it been years? Or only months? Since leaving The Dauntless, since returning to the deserted island, since leaving again in search of other mermaids.
“There must be,” Lilin says. They can’t all have been killed. There must be some, like them, who survived. Families still unbroken, as much as possible. In hiding, probably. Afraid, probably, to answer a song, any song.
“Do you…think that we are some sort of…trap?” Lilin asks. Having been among humans for so long, she thinks she understands them a bit. She remembers Elenor and her schemes. Plots within plots. Lilin and her sisters even helped with some of them.
“A trap?” Liloon asks, face scrunching in confusion.
“What if…humans had captured some of us?” Lilin asks. “What if they held them, in the water? Caged. Or chained. Injured. Lonely. What if a mermaid like that had…cried out? Sang. And when others heard, and came to join in the song, came to help…”
Liloon looks away. “Sometimes I do hate humans,” she says.
“Me too,” Lilin says. Despite liking some of them.
Sighing, Lilin dives back under the water. There is still the fear that this is all futile. That the song has been twisted, broken, perverted from what it was. That no matter how much they look, or even how many others they find, it can’t go back to the way it was. Will never be as open, as free, as unguarded.
They swim, and as they swim they call. They sing. They fill at least a small stretch of the endless waters with something other than silence. When they are hungry they catch fish. When they are tired they take turns, watching the other as they sleep. They search islands, circle ships, but nowhere do they find a reply to their call, a new voice for their song.
They sit on the rocky shore of an island. It’s a treacherous bit of sea, they can tell. Ships litter the seabed here, caught on the rocky shoals. Lilin whistles into the air, lets it die almost immediately. Singing in the air is such a different thing. So strange. Alien, almost, for all that mermaids are beings of both land and sea.
Despite only having let a single note into the air, though, almost immediately there is a reply. Lilin and Liloon both whip about, immediately zeroing in on the source of the music. A cave, not even a mile distant. They run, awkward on their feet but determined.
At the mouth of the cave they see the silhouette of a person. One whose shape fills them both with hope.
“Hello!” Lilin says. “Hello! I’m Lilin and this is my sister, Liloon. We’re so happy to find you!”
“And I am happy to be found,” the other mermaid says, and steps into the light outside the cave. Lilin manages not to gasp, but it’s still a shock to see the scars that crisscross the body of the other mermaid.
“I am Dexsa,” the mermaid says. She looks no older than Lilin except for her eyes, which seem sunken, which seem as old as the sea. “Welcome to my island.”
Lilin runs forward, wraps her in a hug. “We’ve been looking for so long. We hadn’t thought that there would be mermaids singing outside the waters.”
“The seas aren’t safe,” Dexsa says, and they all nod. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard the song. The real song. I’ve taken to singing out into the air every night. Perhaps you’ll join me. I’m sure with three of us it will be even more powerful. Maybe we’ll reach some mermaids that all of us have missed.”
Lilin nods, and she and Liloon make themselves comfortable. Dexsa’s island is stark. The cave is deep and has so many little ponds. Perfect for mermaids. And there are signs that once there were many who shared the space, though now only Dexsa seems to remain.
Night falls, and they follow Dexsa to the cliffs. They sing. Lilin keeps her eyes closed, listening against the song for any sign of a response. But nothing. Nothing until a sound of splintered wood, and she opens her eyes to see a ship caught on the rocks. Coming apart. Sinking.
“Sister, the ship!” she says.
“Dexsa, the ship!” Liloon says.
Dexsa smiles. “Yes, I know, isn’t it wonderful? One less ship to prey on our kind.”
“But shouldn’t we help them?” Lilin asks.
“Why, when our song is what drew them here?” Dexsa counters.
“Drew them…?” Liloon asks.
“Like moths to a flame,” Dexsa says. “Our song. In the water, it is only for us, but in the air it is an intoxicating call for humans. They follow, drawn to it. Even against the rocks.”
“But then, we shouldn’t sing it,” Lilin says.
“And let the humans travel through our waters as if nothing is strained, as if all is forgiven? Is that the kind of life you’ve lived, that you care about the deaths of humans while our sisters are harvested, murdered?”
“I…” Lilin begins, but finds that she doesn’t have a response. Only a feeling that this…is wrong. Still, she doesn’t tell Dexsa to stop. It’s her decision. Should be her choice. Though maybe she can make a different one.
“You should come with us,” Lilin says. “On our search for more mermaids. Maybe this time we can all band together, stop anyone who would think to attack us.”
Dexsa huffs. “And that’s better than revenge?”
“Are you happy with what you have now?”
“I have memories, and I have revenge.”
“You could have more.”
“Like what?”
“Like hope.”
They don’t speak to each other for a moment as it all sinks in. And then Dexsa nods. “That…doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Then quit your song now. Leave with us. And even if we don’t find anyone else, you’ll make this trip a success, and you can come be with us.”
Dexsa purses her lips, then slowly nods. “It’s been perhaps too long since I’ve heard the song in its clearest, sung beneath the waves.
And so the next day they leave, and three bodies whip through the water, their song changed but still persistent. Calling out in hope of answers. But already a song that resonates louder, and through more people, than it started.
Notes:
A little bit about mermaids, with some siren implications. Cheers!
Chapter 17: A Wolf in Human Clothing
Summary:
After the war, Bob relaxes as he can in Kobold Village, only to be faced with the prospect of there being another Lycanthrope Village.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Bob waits, body tense. The air is hot, humid, full of the smell of wet fur. Birds call in the trees around the square, flit from branch to branch. Bob feels the shift inside of him before it happens, like flicking a switch. The birds still and silence. A chill seems to pass through the square.
Gengen lunges, practice sword arcing. But Bob is already changing, transforming, hair sprouting from his arms, his chest…everywhere. He ducks beneath the attack. Gabocha looses a stone from his slingshot. Bob swats it out of the air. He pounces, a tackle that brings Gengen crashing to the ground. Another twang of the slingshot and Bob grabs Gengen’s tunic and heaves him up, using the kobold as a shield just in time for the stone to strike him in the head.
“Ahhh!” Gengen cries.
“Oh! S-s-sorry Captain Gengen!!!” Gabocha says, lowering his weapon.
Bob drops Gengen and leaps. Gabocha, forgetting offense, drops and curls into a ball.
“Don’t hurt Gabocha!”
Bob lands just short of the smaller kobold and sniffs. If this had been actual combat, Gabocha would be dead. Bob growls, but Gabocha just curls tighter, tail tucked between his legs.
“I…think that’s enough training for today,” he says.
“Hahahaha, I’ll say,” a voice calls, and Bob chases the noise with his eyes up into the trees. A familiar grinning face beams down at him.
“You’re getting better at sneaking,” Bob says.
“You means how I made sure to approach so that the wind wouldn’t carry my scent to you? Not that you’d smell much of anything with so much sweating kobold around. Phew!” Chaco drops from the tree he had perched in, wings allowing him to land softly on the ground.
“Gabocha, what was that?” Gengen is back up and apparently ready to take out his own wounded pride on the younger kobold.
“Thanks for the workout, Captain,” Bob says, concentrating enough to shift back into his human appearance.
He follows Chaco away from the square. It’s not entirely unusual to find the winger visiting from Two Rivers, but neither is it common enough to be nothing. They’re friends, and Bob knows Chaco’s carried a bit of a torch for years, but even though it’s been years since the war, it’s hard for him to think of Chaco as anything but a kid. A cute kid, he has to admit, but still.
“So why the trip?” Bob asks. “Don’t tell me you found another ‘lost’ shipment of shiny things and decided to cash in.”
“Nah, still too soon since the last time,” Chaco says. “Gotta wait for prices to rise again.”
Bob chuckles.
“No, it’s…something I thought you should know.”
The sudden seriousness makes Bob pause. Chaco seems…almost worried.
“I mean, it’s probably nothing, but…” Chaco launches himself into the air, wings flapping. “It’s something I heard from Sid.”
Bob shakes his head. “You still letting that guy get under your skin?”
“No!” Chaco says, though the blush on his face gives some truth to the lie. “Or, well, maybe… But this isn’t about that. Not really. It’s something he said. While he w-was trying to scare me. He was going into some really nasty stuff about biting eyeballs and centipedes and stuff like that, and he mentions werewo—I mean lycanthropes. Starts getting into how they’re watching me from the forest. How there’s a whole village of them out there.”
Bob feels his heart beat hard against his chest and forces himself to relax.
“Probably just something he heard from Richmond or something during the war,” he says. That asshole was always putting his nose where it wasn’t wanted.
“That’s what I thought! Err…at first anyway. As he described it, though, I got the feeling it was more than just something he was making up to scare me. It sounded more like he was describing something he had actually seen.”
Bob rubs his chin. “I don’t think we ever had an wingers in the village,” he says. He’d have known something like that, even as young as he had been when…well. And Sid wasn’t any older. “Plus, what would Sid have been doing all the way in the Grasslands?”
“That’s just it,” Chaco says. “I don’t think he was talking about your village. From what you’ve described…well, your village wasn’t in a forest. But this one that Sid was trying to scare me with, was surrounded by trees. And tucked into the shadow of a mountain. There was a river, too. I…I managed to question him a little about it, and he admitted that he’d been there on one of his ‘adventures.’ Before the war. It took some doing, but I got him to describe a bit of how he got there.”
Chaco reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bit of parchment.
“I went to Templeton and got some help and I think I know where it is!”
Bob swallows. He knows he should be feeling something but…he swallows again, mouth suddenly dry. It’s a map. He takes it. Describing a route away from the city states. Weeks of travel. But what if…?
“Anyway, I thought I should bring it to you in case…in case you wanted to check it out.”
Bob nods. “Thanks,” he says.
It’s probably just some prank. Sid never told the truth when a lie would scare better. But it was such an odd thing to lie about. A village…like his village. If anyone else had survived from his village, might they have ended up there?
“Anyway, I thought maybe we could go see if it’s legit. Err…together.”
Bob takes a deep breath. “Uh…I’ll think about it, okay?”
Chaco’s eye seem to shimmer. This probably wasn’t how he expected this to go, but Bob can’t…he just…
“I mean, we could even—”
“I said I’ll think about it!” Bob snaps, and immediately regrets it. Chaco flinches, eyes finding the ground quickly. Dammit. Bob wants…he needs… He runs. Before he can do something else wrong, he runs away, only realizing after he’s left Chaco far behind that he still has that damned map.
Night comes to Kobold Village. The moon is like a great shiny thing in the sky, which means it’s a popular time for kobolds to be out and about, so Bob stays close to his hut on the outskirts of the village. Looking through the window at the sky. The moon.
People think he’s human, often enough. That he transforms into a wolf-man. Chaco probably thinks that. Not that he…not that he’s a wolf-man who can transform to look human. But only look. In his heart… Looking human keeps him safe. It’s why the rune he bears is so useful. But it doesn’t change who he is. Who he’d be if he was still…in his village. Among his people. Here…he pretends to be human to make it easier for everyone else. Would they treat him the same if they knew that the form he takes in battle…the one that everyone flinches away from in terror…was his true form?
He looks at the moon hanging full in the sky. Could there really be another village? He wants…
The map is clear. It wouldn’t be difficult to follow it, to check. He keeps his eyes on the moon, knowing that he won’t be getting much sleep.
In the morning Bob makes his way to the village exit only to find a small group gathered to meet him. Chaco, looking guilty as hell. And Gengen and Gabocha, looking clueless.
“What’s this?” he asks as he arrives. “Thought to give me a proper sendoff?”
“Hardly,” Chaco says. “The map leads through some rather dangerous territory. Consider us your…your bodyguards!”
“Bodyguards!” Gengen and Gabocha echo at the same time.
Bob purses his lips, remembering how easily he trounced them yesterday. And yet…he sees the enthusiasm in their eyes. The way that Chaco looks at him as if there’s no way he’ll let Bob go off alone. It would be too tiresome to fight them all about it.
“I see,” he says. “Well, in that case, I feel safer already.”
They all share a smile, and then point themselves away from the village.
“Will it r-really be dangerous?” Gabocha asks.
Bob chuckles, and puts an arm around Chaco’s shoulder. He owes the kid a lot. More than he wants to admit. Maybe…just maybe…he’s not such a kid after all. Not that Bob’s about to say so out loud any time soon. But…he gives Chaco’s shoulder a squeeze.
“Nah,” Bob says. “With all of us together, danger won’t dare mess with us.”
Chaco laughs, and even Gengen chuckles, though Gabocha only nods solemnly and says, “Good.”
Notes:
For whatever reason I see Chaco as being into older guys, and here where he's aged up, I could see Bob starting to take an interest, especially with how Chaco seems to be a bit of a softy at heart.
Chapter 18: Koroku in the Spotlight; or, A Little Help from a Friend
Summary:
Left in charge of Budehuc Castle, Koroku deals with a disturbance...with a little help from his friends.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The theater at Budehuc Castle is quiet. Dark. Koroku prowls the stage, looking around at the props and decorations. No food, and Nadir has no doubt hidden any old bones that he might have used for some of the plays.
Koroku sits in the middle of the stage, closing his eyes a moment, remembering as he can the times he’s spent in the spotlight. Rarely in too juicy a roll, though he always liked playing the wolf in the one about the sheep. He sighs. Nadir is on tour, taking a trope through the Zexen lands and all the way to Tinto. The castle feels almost quiet without him, though there’s still the café and the baths to draw people in from the surrounding villages.
Not that he really minds that things have been a little slower. Less suspicious people to chase off. And Cecile had left with Thomas for a diplomatic meeting in the Great Hollow, so it meant that Koroku was technically in charge of watching the place.
As if on cue a scream pierces the night, and Koroku’s ears stand at attention. It sounded like it came from the infirmary! He sprints in that direction, glad that everyone in the castle leaves the door open just a crack so that he can paw them open. He arrives in the corridor to find Nurse Mio standing there, looking confused.
“Oh, hello Koroku,” she says when she spots him. “I’m glad someone responded. Did you see who it was that screamed?”
Koroku tilts his head to the side. He has assumed it was her, given that she’s the only one around.
“I heard it so clearly,” Mio says, “and yet when I came out here…nothing. But it…sounded like a child’s scream.”
Koroku has to take her word for it. A child…that didn’t bode well. If there’s a child in danger, then it’s his job to make sure they’re found, and safe!
“Aroooo,” he says. Where did they go?
“If you didn’t pass anyone from the tavern, then whoever it was must have gone…” She looks off toward the War Room and, beyond that, to the main stairs of the castle.
“Aroooo,” Koroku says, sprinting off in that direction. I’m on it!
Nose down, he sniffs for scents, finds a mess of them. But only two recently. Is one of them the child? Is the other one…why they screamed? He makes it to the main stairs, but the scents become even more confused. Chaotic.
“Wuffy-wuff-wuff!” a voice says from the upper landing. What are you up to?
Koroku looks up to see Connie curled beneath the glass window above the door.
There was a scream! he barks. I’m looking for what the trouble was.
Probably that little girl that weirdo was running after, Connie returns.
She doesn’t need to clarify who the “weirdo” is.
Guillaume, Koroku growls. With Cecile gone he must have thought he was free to harass whoever he liked. I’m going to bite that guy in the balls.
Ew, Connie says. I’ll stick with strawberries. But they headed downstairs.
You want to help me chase him? he asks, already heading for the stairs down.
I’m far too comfortable here, she says, and Koroku knows better than to argue.
Down the stairs he picks back up snippets of the scent trail, but he pauses, looking between the paths to the store room, the graveyard, and deeper into the castle.
Dammit, he growls.
“Ruff! Ruff!” a new voice calls. You need to relax more, man.
Koroku rolls his eyes. I’m on a mission, Koichi! he says. Guillaume must have just came through here, chasing a child.
Oh yeah… Koichi leans against a shadowed stretch of stone. He stands on two legs, of course, showing off like an idiot. I thought that was a little strange. But you know, I was busy leaning against this wall…on two legs.
I get it, you like standing, Koroku says. Can you just tell me which way he went?
I mean…I could.
Then please do! Of all the fellow vagabonds in the castle, Koichi could probably use getting a boot thrown at his face the most.
Toward the cells, man, Koichi says, and points with one of his forepaws. See, that way. Where I’m pointing toward. With a paw I’m not standi—
Thanks, gotta go! Koroku says, speeding away. He doesn’t bother inviting the other dog…it would be more aggravation than it’s worth.
He bounds around the corner and toward the cells. Of course that’s where that creep would have been trying to get her. Alone in the dark. Before he gets there, though, he hears something in the storage room. He pauses, then barges through.
Stop right there, criminal! he shouts!
“O-Oooo!” a voice says. What the fuck!
“A-e-i-o-u!” another says. It’s a raid! Cheese it!
Err… Koroku trails off as he sees in the dim light Kogoro and Kosanji hastily break apart from…
A little fucking privacy maybe? Kosanji snarls.
Kogoro runs in tight circles, barking his head off.
It’s the fuzz! The po-po! Head for the hills! Every dog for himself! You’ll never get me, coppers!!!
Still he runs in circles. Koroku shakes his head.
Uh…sorry. I thought you were Guillaume.
Gross, Kosanji says. And also fuck you. It’s going to take hours for him to calm down enough to fool around again.
Koroku finds himself blushing…though luckily the fur hides most of it.
Yeah, my bad, Koroku says.
Kogoro continues to run in circles.
I’ll just… Koroku starts to say, inching back toward the door.
Wait, Kosanji says. Why did you think that we were Guillaume?
Oh, he ran this way after a little girl. I’ve been chasing him.
A little girl? That fucking pervert! They both look to where Kogoro is still circling.
“A-e-i-o-u! A-e-i-o-u!”
That even mean anything at this point? Koroku asks.
Kosanji shakes his head. He might be as smart as a bag of rocks, he says, but have you seen that tail? I mean, fucking ni—
I really need to get going, Koroku says, and turns to go.
Not without me, Kosanji replies, joining Koroku out in the hall. That son of a bitch owes me for the lost sex. Plus I’ve always wanted to bite the shit out of that guy.
Koroku doesn’t argue, and the two of them race to the cells, where a large silhouette towers over a small one.
“Please, no!” the small figure says, and Koroku runs forward.
“Aroooo!” he cries. Everyone stop! Poli—I mean, the guard is here!
The larger shadow turns.
“Oh ho ho ho, what’s this?” Guillaume asks. “A small pooch. Well scram. This is one ‘bone’ I have no intention of shaaaaaAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”
His taunt turns into a scream as Kosanji leaps, jaws clamping directly on Guillaume’s crotch. The larger man immediately tries to get away, twisting, turning, but Kosanji is locked on.
Hey, Koroku complains, I was going to do that!
Guillaume moves over to the wall and swings Kosanji into it. After two hits the dog disengages, retreating. The large man pants, leaning hard against the wall.
“Lousy mongrel!” he hisses, all his attention on where Kosanji is growling. Not paying any attention to Koroku, racing up behind him, under his legs. Jumping.
More screaming. Lots more screaming.
Finally it seems to have gotten the attention of the rest of the castle, and Emily arrives, dragging Juan behind her.
“Get these dogs away from me!” Guillaume pleads.
“What’s going on here?” Emily demands.
Juan, behind her, yawns.
The girl who had to now been cowering, points at Koroky and Kosanji.
“The doggies saved me from the bad man!” she says.
“O-Ooo!” Kosanji barks. Damn right we did!
Emily’s eyes narrow, and she looks at Guillaume, bent over, sweat pouring down his face.
“Now…let’s not be hasty,” he says, but it doesn’t have him from the fist to his face. Or the others. Or the kicks to the rest of his body. Nurse Mio, drawn in the wake of everything, eventually has to suggest she stop.
After that, though, attention turns back to Koroku and Kosanji, everyone crowding in to pet their heads, and scratch their ears, and promise them some extra treat. And Koroku feels back in the spot light after all, in all the ways that matter.
Notes:
Guillaume is the worst and nothing will ever convince me otherwise.
Chapter 19: Pranking the Prankster
Summary:
Numnu completely fails to learn a lesson Xebec tries to teach him about pranking.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Numnu rubs his handfins together. This was going to be great.
The view of the lower dining area is perfect. Members of the resistance move through or sit and talk for a bit over a drink or a bowl of something. The scents in the air are probably enough to make anyone’s stomach rumble. Anyone but a porpos-kin. Not that they had no sense of smell, but that they had developed primarily to scent through water. Smelling things in the air was…interesting at times, but rather as salivating as scenting your favorite fish flitting through the shallow.
Well, for more porpos-kin. Some…seemed to enjoy the cuisine of the land peoples. The humans. Numnu’s eyes narrow as he takes in Nomno’s…rotund physique. It’s what happens when porpos-kin overindulged with human food. Numnu patted his own tummy. A much more respectable size. Enough to stay warm in deep waters, but not to be unable to move quickly when the need arises. And to think, some people thought that Nomno was cute. Cute! Maybe even cuter than Numnu. No...this would not stand.
“Ah, Nomno!” Wustum says, visiting his most stalwart patron. “What will it be today?”
“Heh heh heh,” Numnu chuckles.
“So what’s the scam?” asks a voice right next to him, and Numnu jolts, smacking into the underside of the table he’s hiding under.
He looks over, and the deep blue eyes of Xebec stare at him from beside him under the table.
“Ouch,” Xebec says. “That’s probably going to leave a lump.”
“What are you—” Numnu starts, but stops himself, makes himself lower his voice. He peeks back out through the slit in the tablecloth. No one seems to have noticed. Wustum takes Nomno’s order.
“Just noticed you under here and figured there’d be a show coming,” Xebec says. He peers out in the direction Numnu is watching. “Something planned for your pal Nomno?”
Numnu growls. “He’s not my pal. He’s an oaf!”
“Uh…huh,” Xebec says. “So he’s definitely the target then. But what’s the caper?”
“There is no caper,” Numnu says. “It’s a prank.”
“Ah, sorry,” Xebec says, raising his hands as in surrender. “So, what’s the prank.”
Numnu rubs his chin, considering. A part of him just wants to let Xebec watch it unfold, retaining something of his deniability. But most of him wanted, now that the young man was already here, to have someone to let in on the joke. To show how brilliant it was.
“Fine,” he says, and scoots over so they can both watch the scene below through the slit in the tablecloth. “So, Nomno is pretty much a creature of habit. Every day, he’s at that table, either sleeping or eating. Wustum just sort of comes out every few hours to take his order, because he’s too much of a sea cow to waddle up to the counter. Anyway, Wustum does this mostly out of decorum, as Nomno always orders the same things every day. And lunchtime, like now, is for steamed clams.”
“Sounds tasty,” Xebec says.
“Doesn’t it.” Numnu smiles, a wicked glint in his eyes. “Only today it’s hilarity on the menu, and it will be delicious indeed!”
“You’ve done something to the clams?” Xebec asks.
Numnu grins. “But of course. As I said, Wustum takes his order mostly out of decorum. He’s already steamed the clams, and they’ve been ready for about ten minutes. Just enough time for me to have swapped them out when Wustum wasn’t looking.”
“Swapped them out for…?”
“Empty shells!” Numnu cackles, catching himself again and lowering the volume of his mirth. “Wustum will bring out the huge bowl of clams, and Nomno will put the first one in his mouth. He’s quite the glutton, you see, and has a special technique for eating clams. He can open the shell and empty them all inside his mouth, spitting the empty into a bowl for discards. Disgusting really, though moderately impressive all the same. But it means he’ll sit there, putting shell after shell into his mouth, and…”
“Nothing,” Xebec finishes.
“Nothing!” Numno agrees. “Isn’t it wonderful? Ah, here comes Wustum now.”
Carrying the steaming bowl of clamshells. He sets them down in front of Nomno, who only nods. Wustum retreats, and Numnu leans closer to the slit in the tablecloth. Nomno reaches into the bowl, selects a shell…and puts it…into his mouth.
Numnu waits, eyes glued to the large porpos-kin. Any second now. Ah! There!
Nomno’s eyes bulge. The surprise! The shock! He reaches a hand up, in front of him, as if grasping for something. The morsel that isn’t there? Hah! Prankish victory is Numnu’s!
Then Nomno seems to vibrate. The hand remains raised a moment more, and then…he tumbles to the floor. What?
“What’s going on?” Numnu asks.
“It looks like…oh no!” Xebec says. “It looks like he’s choking!”
Numnu jolts up again, strikes the underside of the table again. He crawls forward, out from under the table. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen! He gest ready to shout, but there’s already a commotion below. Wustum has returned to Nomno’s side.
“Oh no! He’s choking! Please, is there a doctor in the house?”
Numnu takes a step toward the scene, but stops as Zahra races to Nomno’s side. Where had he come from? But Numnu had been so focused on Nomno that anyone else might have been in the dining hall.
“Not to worry,” Zahra says, “I’m here now. I’ll just…” He reaches down and seems to examine Nomno. “Oh no! I think I’m too late! He’s…dead!”
“What?!” Numnu shouts, and rushes down the steps to the lower dining area. “D-dead? But he can’t be! I…I just. He can’t be dead!”
Zahra turns to him, face as stone. “And yet he is. Quite dead.”
“But…”
“Oh the tragedy!” Wustum shouts. “Felled by my cooking! I’ll never be able to live with myself. I…I’ll throw myself from the tallest tower of the castle!”
“No, wait!” Numnu says, blocking his path. “It…it wasn’t your cooking. I…I just wanted to play a prank on him. I just…oh, how could this have happened?”
“It’s almost as if playing pranks can have much more serious consequences than you’d anticipate,” Xebec says.
“I mean, you could say that, but…” Numnu narrows his eyes. He turns back to Nomno on the floor, and kicks him squarely in the gut.
“Oof!” Nomno says, the clam shell jettisoning from his mouth.
Numnu glares at Nomno, then Zahra, then Wustum, and finally Xebec.
“This was you, wasn’t it?” he asks.
Xebec smiles. “I thought maybe it would do you good to see how it feels to be on the receiving end of a prank. Not too fun, huh?”
Numnu smirks. “No, no indeed,” he admits. “Not fun at all…to be on the receiving end of a prank. But I bet you’re feeling pretty amazing right now, having pulled one over on me, even if only for a short amount of time.”
Xebec frowns. “Well, I mean, that’s not the point.”
“Of course not,” Numnu says. “But still, must have felt really good, teaching me a lesson like that. Just like it’ll feel real good to teach you one back. And soon! Watch yourself, human!”
Numnu cackles, and with a flourish runs from the hall. That Xebec did indeed get him good. But not as good as Numnu would get them all. This was far from over…
Notes:
Numnu is a little shit, but also like a delightful and queer little shit. So of course I forgive him.
Chapter 20: Dwarven Diplomacy
Summary:
Zunda is off to the Dwarf Village in Toran to open a cultural and economic relationship between their peoples...if some idiot men don't get in her way.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Zunda grunts and hauls herself up the last bit of treacherous path. Of all the bloody minding, stubborn things. She stands a moment, catching her breath, and then approaches the great doors to…
“What’s this place called again?” she asks.
“Dwarf Village!” Bergen exclaims, practically vibrating with energy despite the long and difficult trek.
“Of course,” she says. “A hundred potch says a man named it.”
“I am not taking that bet!” Bergen says.
At least he’s learning. Getting away from that creep Levi was a good move, as was coming to live with the rest of the dwarves and learning to make things under Wabon. But in the end Wabon’s also just a man, and Zunda’s rather proud of her decision to steal him away for this diplomatic mission.
“Well, let’s get this disaster over with,” she says, walking up to the gates. “Oy! Open up in there!”
A series of clangs and gears turning answer her, as a clockwork face appears in the gate’s intricate façade.
“And who are you to demand admittance to Dwarf Village?” the face asks.
“I’m Zunda,” she says, then points a thumb at the kid. “That’s Bergen. We’re dwarves.”
A mechanical eye extends from the gate and moves up and down in appraisal.
“You are ground dwarves,” the face says. “You must have permission to enter.”
“Of all the bloody useless and arrogant nonsense,” Zunda says. “I bet you were built by a man.”
“Err…” the face says. “Please state the purpose of your visit or the nature of your invitation.”
“I can’t believe they call us ground dwarves,” she says to Bergen. “Ridiculous. Do we go around calling them land dwarves?”
“I think Master Wabon might,” Bergen says, scratching his chin.
“Because Master Wabon is a man,” she says. “And an idiot to boot. No doubt like whichever genius decided we were ground dwarves. I swear, the lot of them likely need to be tossed out their above ground windows.”
“Err…” the face says. “Please state the purpose of y—”
“I’m here to bloody well see your leader,” Zunda says. “I’m Zunda, leader of the dwarves in Falena. I want to discuss opening more of a relationship between our two peoples.”
The face seems to process that information, then the eye retracts and the gates open, revealing a pair of armed dwarves.
“Please state your purpose!” one of the guards shouts.
“I just did that to your bloody gate!” she shouts back, then turns to Bergen. “I swear, this is what happens when you leave men in charge. This is the sort of nonsense that caused the troubles back home. All that suspicion and pointless complexities.”
“Well you can tell it again to me,” the guard says, stepping forward, imposing in his armor and weaponry.
Zunda blows a raspberry. “Fine. I am Zunda, leader of the dwarves in Falena and a member of the new assembly. I was speaking to an envoy from Toran who mentioned that the dwarves in her country were a lot different than those in Falena, and I figured it was beyond time to close the distance that has opened up between our peoples. Good enough?”
The guard squints in thought, then shrugs. “You’re lucky the chief is a lot more forgiving these days. Before the war, there’s no way he’d have let you in.”
“Congrats to him on going up a cup size, then,” she says. “I don’t suppose we’re to be taken directly to see him?”
The guard growls. “You’ll be escorted to where you can be more thoroughly questioned, to verify you don’t have any other motives for being here.”
Zunda cannot roll her eyes hard enough.
“But what about me?” Bergen asks. “I’m a man!”
“You’re a boy,” Zunda says. “Which is slightly different.”
“But I’ll become a man soon.”
“Not if you’re smart you won’t,” she says. “But then, that’s often how it falls out. Tough break, really. I’m sorry for you.”
“Wha—”
He’s cut off as the door to the room opens. It’s not quite a cell, though it feels a bit like one. No doubt there’s ridiculous traps and contraptions all in the wall and floor that would do something to them if they started making a scene. The guard from before enters, then motions for her and Bergen to follow.
“Finally,” she says, and is led through a series of hallways to a much nicer part of the building. One with a lot more guards.
“I present, the Lady Zunda and young Bergen,” the guard says.”
The chief, apparently, needs no introduction.
“Nice to meet you,” Zunda says to the graying dwarf sitting on a fancy chair. A throne, maybe, though she’s hoping he’s not that ostentatious.
“My guards inform me that you are ground dwarves,” the chief says.
“The same person name your village as came up with that?” she asks. “Ground dwarves. Dwarf Village. I wonder if they were a comedian or something?”
“And your home in Falena, that has a much better name?” the chief asks.
Zunda grinds her teeth.
“We’re from Dwarf Camp!” Bergen says.
The chief raises an eyebrow.
“We’re from a place that used to be called Dwarf Camp,” she says through gritted teeth. “It was named by men, though. There’s currently a debate amongst the new governing body of the camp as to what it should be formally named. Perhaps The Caves of Windows. Or…Zundopolis.”
“Uh…huh,” the chief says. “I’m afraid if all you’re going to do is insult me, I’ll have to end this meeting.”
“No, I plan to do a lot more than insult you,” Zunda says. “I’m hoping that we can come to some sort of an agreement about a kind of…cultural exchange. It’s said that your people have techniques for building that come from the Sindar themselves.”
“Things that can go boom!” Bergen exclaims.
The chief looks from Zunda to Bergen and back again. “And you think that we’ll share this with you out of a sense of…racial unity?”
“I think you’ll share because it’s in your best interest. You might be very good at designing and making weapons, but you seem to have a rather important lack here that I have in droves.”
“And that is?” the chief asks.
“Common fucking sense,” she says. “And a woman’s touch. You have a wife? A daughter?”
“I…err…” he looks like he wants to turn and go but also that he’s actually afraid of what might happen if he does. So he goes along. “I have a daughter, yes. A little younger than you, I think.”
“Wonderful,” Zunda says. “I’ll have to meet her as soon as possible. Find out the real story about what’s going on in the city. Meanwhile, you. Come here.”
She motions and waits as he fidgets, looking around the room as if expecting someone to stop here, to harass her. But the guards have apparently learned not do, and so the chief rises and walks to her.
From her pack she pulls out the proposal that she drew up before leaving the dwarf camp. “This outlines what I’ll need and how we should move forward. Please keep that with you in case other people have questions about it. Meanwhile I’ll just arrange with your daughter the fine point. I know that kind of thing really isn’t playing to your strengths as a man.”
“Well see h—”
“Fantastic,” she says, then turns to the guards. “You two, kindly show me to where I’ll staying so I can unpack and then point me in the direction of this daughter.”
The two guards look to the chief, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t seem to object.
“Good talking to you chief. I’ll be in touch.”
She turns and motions for the guards to lead the way. After another pause, they do, and Zunda smiles as she leaves the room There’s a lot that could have been better, but it was definitely a start. And once she could talk to a woman about all this…
“Bergen, I think this might all work out well after all,” she says.
Bergen, meanwhile, begins to jump around making little explosion noises.
Notes:
I love Zunda. Just no time for men. Big lesbian energy, and rather delightful.
Chapter 21: A Normal Day for the Zexen Archeology Association
Summary:
Rhett is on assignment with Ernie, looking into a small Sindar ruins that's been discovered. Things get weird, though, as the site gets some nighttime visitors.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The ruins are quiet. Another ceremonial site, this one in the north, near the Nameless Lands. Definitely Sindar, though more than that it’s impossible to say. Yet, at least.
“We’ll make camp for the time being,” Ernie says. “Tomorrow we should be able to make a formal survey of the first area of the ruin.”
Rhett nods. “You…think there are more levels, then?” he asks.
Ernie shrugs. “Probably. From what I’ve been able to put together about the site, it should be as extensive as those connected to the Ancient Highway. At least, we’ve never come across a true Sindar site this…small.”
“So that it would continue underground makes sense,” Rhett concludes. After five years in the Zexen Archeology Association, he’s picked up a lot about the Sindar. Some of how they lived, how they built, how they moved. Though his particular specialty was something still very much shrouded in mystery—how they ate.
“We’ll just have to see,” Ernie says. As project lead she’s the one who decided to follow up on the reports of a small ruin in the area while Rhett is enjoying his first time being primary assistant. It’s a prestigious posting, especially if they find something worth publishing about. Maybe even his ticket to further studies in Greenhill. Or the Crystal Valley itself.
He shudders, thinking of being excited to travel into Harmonia, after everything they’ve done. But they had the most information on the Sindar anywhere in the continent, maybe anywhere in the world. If he wanted to further his studies, he’d have to—
His stomach’s growl cuts off his train of thought, and he gives Ernie a bow before retiring to the wagon and the rest of the team.
“I don’t suppose we’re going to be returning to an actual village to sleep?” Borus asks when Rhett approaches.
“Perhaps the frail human would also like a glass of sheep’s milk and a slice of sweet bread before being tucked in for the night?” Bazba mocks, eliciting a growl from Borus.
Though the Association is Zexen, the Council had been reluctant with funding. Which meant that Ernie, ever the organizer, had relied on good old fashioned competitive pride to get the job done, soliciting the Council and the Great Hollow to support this mission. It made for an…interesting traveling atmosphere, but Rhett couldn’t deny they were well supplied and, if there was trouble, well guarded.
“Just show me where you want me to dig,” Twaikin, the final member of the team, says.
“Nothing today,” Rhett assures, though the dwarf seems disappointed. Strange man. “We’re to make camp, and tomorrow we’ll start by surveying what we can see of the ruins.”
“Doesn’t seem like much,” Borus says. “Not like the other Sindar ruins we’ve seen.”
“We’ll just have to see,” Rhett says, not wanting to get into his own theories.
Borus just grunts and begins unpacking the wagon.
Despite the conversation over dinner, mostly squabbling between Borus and Bazba, the night is deeply quiet as they turn in. Well, except for Rhett’s stomach. He ate as much as the others, but then, his stomach is bigger than the others, so it makes sense that it would need more to be satisfied. Which is why he bought a fairly large back of salted beetle trail mix in the Great Hollow. Carefully he grabs it and lets himself out of his tent.
He could eat in his sleeping roll, but the last time he did the others complained about the loud crunching of the crispy shells in his bill. So instead he steals away from the camp and the glow of the fire.
The makes for the ruins. At least he can wander through, get a feel for them, while the others are sleeping. He crunches the delicious trail mix as he walks.
“Do you hear that?” comes a voice from the dark ahead, and Rhett freezes. Waits.
In the ruins, a light is moving. But a gentle, blue light. Dark, almost. And two figures are silhouetted against the night.
“Sounded like crunching bugs,” the voice says.
“Attention on the task at hand, please,” another voice says.
“And your attention on the promise, and your obligation…to me!” a third voice says.
A third…voice? Rhett squints against the dark again but can see only two figures. Slowly, quietly, not even taking another bite of his trail mix, he moves forward.
“You’re sure that it’s here?” the first voices asks. It’s strange, familiar even. But Rhett can’t place it. A young man, he’d guess.
“I’m sure of nothing,” the second says. Annoyed, cold. A woman, if he had to guess. “But I am drawn to this place, and it is certain Sindar built. Small, though. It feels…incomplete.”
“Why would that be?” the first voice asks.
“Again, if I had to guess,” the second voice says, “I’d say it’s because… You know the Sindar had to constantly move, yes? Because of the nature of the Rune of Change. I’d guess that, in this particular site, they were…interrupted. Prevented from finishing their plans to build.”
“What could have prevented the Sindar from anything?” the first voice asks.
Rhett, close enough now that the figures are almost coming clear, braves clearing his throat.
“Who g-goes there?” he asks, trying to sound imposing, only to remember he left his halberd back in his tent.
A flash of blue light and Rhett has to cover his eyes, his bag of trail mix falling to the ground. He cries out, shielding himself, expecting an attack. Instead…
“Rhett?” the first voice asks, and Rhett peeks out enough to recognize the first speaker, and why there were three voices but only two figures.
“Edge?” And it is, the young man holding up the Star Dragon Sword in front of him, ready to strike. “Please, I’m no threat. I’m just here with a team to study the ruins.”
“Hah,” the second figure says, and Rhett sees a woman he doesn’t recognize. Pale skin under stark black robes. “Studying. Right. Well, sorry to interrupt your slumber party.”
“Ease off, Zerase,” Edge says. “This is an old friend. One of the Fire Bringer, like me.”
“Great,” she says. “But we have no time for this. Our mission.”
Edge nods. “Sorry, Rhett. Wish we could catch up properly. But things down south are…well, not great.”
“Oh,” Rhett says. He hasn’t heard anything from the regions to the south. Not from Tinto, or Toran, or even the Island Nations. Could he mean somewhere farther south than that?
“I found it,” Zerase says, and with a wave of her hand a bit of stone rumbles to the side, exposing a tunnel going down. “Duck, return to your camp. What awaits is not for the likes of you.”
Rhett opens his mouth, then closes it. He really doesn’t have anything to say to that.
“Sorry again,” Edge says. “But we are crunched for time. Just…good seeing you. And if you want to tell the others, especially the True Rune bearers in these parts, that there might be some serious trouble if we can’t…well…”
“We shall prevail yet!” the Star Dragon Sword says. “Doubt not! We go to glory, and history itself shall tremble.”
“Heh,” Edge manages. “Well, bye.”
And then he and the woman, Zerase, move into the tunnel and whatever is beyond it. Rhett just stands there a moment, looking after them as the blue glow diminishes. Then he leans down, retrieves his trail mix, and resumes eating it. Being that scared and confused really worked up an appetite.
Notes:
Not really a complete thing, and mostly just some random stuff post Suikoden III. I do think that Edge and Zerase would end up teaming up, though, as the Star Rune and Night Rune seem like they have some unfinished business. And I like the idea of Rhett wanted to be the expert on Sindar food. Yeah!
Chapter 22: Story Time on Magician's Isle (part 4)
Summary:
Leknaat's turn at telling stories is done. Who's next?
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The fire crackles, and Leknaat puts a hand against the wall. Her throat is sore from all the talking, and her body weak from all the stories she has channeled. It’s not without cost, what she does, though she’s not sure that Luc or Sarah understand that yet. It takes something, to put a story into the world.
“Those were…more acceptable?” she asks.
Sarah nods, bobbing in her seat. “Yes, I liked those much better. Especially the one with the dog!”
Leknaat smiles. It was worth it, then.
“Stories for babies,” Luc scoffs. “For children.”
Leknaat winces, can sense Sarah deflate at his words.
“Are you so very old?” Leknaat asks.
It’s not a fair question, touching as it does his…creation. Not birth, but the way he was brought into the world, copied from another man through artificial means and implanted with a True Rune against his will.
“Age isn’t the only mark of childishness,” Luc says.
“No,” Leknaat agrees. “Some people are belligerent, foolish, and arrogant regardless of how old they are.”
Luc glares.
“But there, my part of the bargain is complete,” she says. “I hope that you’ve been preparing your own stories?”
“This is a farce,” Luc says, standing from the sofa. “Telling stories around the fire? The stuff of yokels who believe the gods sneezed the universe into existence.”
“Stories are how people make sense of the world,” Leknaat says. “Even petulant boys angry at the universe. What stories do you hold that help you make sense of things? Surely there are those you tell yourself. That you whisper when you imagine no one is listening.”
He stops. Leknaat can sense a chill run through him. The air in the room once more moves, whipping her robes. Then stills. When he speaks, it is strained, as if each word is an effort.
“I am allowed some privacies, am I not?” he asks. “Some illusion at least that there are things that are mine, and no one else’s?”
“I will not force a story out of you, merely remind you that you seemed to agree to tell one. If you are not good for you word, then we can move on. Sarah, do you have a story?”
“I do,” she says, some of her earlier enthusiasm gone. Leknaat hides how much that cuts, how keenly she can feel Sarah trying to shape herself into what Luc needs. What he wants.
“No,” Luc says, and for a moment Leknaat fears he will stop her telling her story, that he will silence her as he silences himself. Instead, though, he sits back down. “No, I will go first. As first apprentice, that is my right, is it not?”
“As you wish,” Leknaat says, knowing that Sarah would never choose to go before him now. “You have a story?”
“As befits all of us around the fire, the night pressing in. A ghost story.”
Leknaat senses Sarah shiver. Ah, so here is how he exercises control. Here is how he feels in command. By trying to inspire fear in others. But he’s telling a story. And that is something. Leknaat takes a breath, and as she does she lets some of her power into the room, Feeds it through the air swirling around her into Luc, infusing his story in a truth that he might not have intended.
The words, when they come, are slow at first. But rising in power. Luc tells his story.
Notes:
Because of course Luc would want to tell a ghost story.
Chapter 23: Ghost in the Graveyard
Summary:
Luc's Story. A ghost from North Window lives in the graveyard of the castle.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Once there was a castle. And in the castle, there was a graveyard. And in the graveyard, there was a ghost. “Lived” a ghost, the ghost like to think, on the lonely days and lonelier nights that he hovered around his grave, and the grave of his sister, and the graves of his parents. Because what else would you call it. He might have died, but there was no rest for him, no release. He hovered, and he waited, as years must have ticked away.
Why? He wanted to know that, more than anything. Why, when everyone else around him seemed to have gone away, did he linger? Were they all around him, in their own private hells, each of them invisible to each other? But no, for on a rare occasion someone would steal into the graveyard. Someone looking for treasure, for something to steal. And the ghost, the boy, would appear to them. They could see him. And in their screams he knew that he lived. That he lived, and no one else in the graveyard seemed to, because otherwise wouldn’t these people have seen them, too?
And then one day a strange man appeared in the graveyard. One who did not look like he was there to take anything. Wearing a brown coat and a large brown beret. And moving from grave to grave as if he saw the dead there. Until he came to the ghost’s grave, and really did. The man stopped.
“Hello,” said the ghost.
“Hello,” said the man.
“I’m Daniel,” the ghost said.
“I’m Kahn,” the man said.
“You can see me?” Daniel asked.
“I can,” Kahn replied.
And for a while that was all they said. They stood, regarding each other.
“Do you know why I’m still here?” the ghost asked.
“Ghosts are spirits with unfinished business,” Kahn said. “Was there anything that you had left undone in life, that would be keeping you from the afterlife?”
Daniel was silent for a time. And when he answered, it was a whisper.
“I was just a boy. I never really lived.”
Kahn pursed his lips. “Well that…isn’t really something you can do, now. You’re dead.”
“But I’m also alive,” Daniel said.
Kahn pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, I’m sorry for that. I’m on the trail of the being who killed you. A vampire named Neclord. Perhaps your unfinished business is that you have to see him defeated at last?”
“No,” Daniel said. He didn’t care about that. He hadn’t known Neclord enough to have much of an opinion about him. He was just the thing that had killed him. Like a storm that tore through the village. Daniel hadn’t even really been aware Neclord had been there until…well, what happened. When he was aware again, his body was already buried.
“Then I’m not sure,” Kahn said. “Can you leave this place?”
Daniel thought on that for a while. In truth, he’d never really tried. As a child, this place, North Window, had been his whole world. He had heard there were other villages out there, but they weren’t real to him like here was. Not really.
“I don’t think I want to leave,” Daniel said.
“Then you are free to stay,” Kahn said. “But I’m on the trail of Neclord. I have to go.”
And so he did. And Daniel stayed. And waited. Eventually more people came. The castle came alive again. Daniel drifted among them, and with practice learned to be visible only when he wanted to be. He watched, and sometimes he scared people, and he lived.
And Kahn returned. And came back to the graveyard.
“We’re close to tracking down the beast who killed you,” he said.
“That’s nice,” Daniel replied, though he supposed it wasn’t. Just more conflict, more death. He’d tried to find out how to live, in the years at the castle. If that was his unfinished business, he must not have figured it out yet.
Kahn grew quiet after that, then left. Later, and it’s hard for Daniel to know how long, he came back.
“Neclord is finally dead,” he said.
“That’s nice,” Daniel replied, though again, it didn’t really seem nice.
Kahn waited, and Daniel got the feeling he was waiting to watch him dissipate. This, Kahn must think, was his unfinished business, finally fulfilled. But he didn’t. And eventually Kahn just sort of shuffled his feet.
“Well, okay,” Kahn said.
“Good-bye,” Daniel said. He watched as Kahn left.
Not long after that, a new person came to the graveyard. A pale woman, with striking eyes.
“So you’re the ghost that Kahn was talking about,” she said, not really a question.
“Yeah,” Daniel responded.
“I’m Sierra. Bearer of the Night Rune. I suspect…that it might have created you, though to be honest I’m not sure how.”
She held up her hand, and a blue light gleamed on it. Daniel flinched back, feeling it as a kind of threat.
“Does that mean you can…kill me?” he asked.
Sierra laughed. “That’s a funny question,” she said. “But…probably not. You’re a mystery. Just wanted to meet you, before this whole war is over.”
“There’s a war going on?” he asked. Not that he really knows what war is. Something big. Something far away.
“Yeah,” she said. “But it’s almost over I think.”
“Does that mean all the people will leave?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “Though probably not all of them. Do you want them to go?”
Daniel thought about the time before the people, and the time with them.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
She nods. “Well, nice meeting you, anyway.”
He wanted to ask her so many things. What he’s supposed to do. What being alive means. What his unfinished business might be. Be he suspected that she, like Kahn, would have no real answers. So he didn’t ask.
She was right about the war. It ended. And some people left the castle, but it was never empty. It changed. And other people died. And even eventually the graveyard is redone, and a nefarious person dumps all the old corpses into the lake to make room for the freshly dead. But Daniel remains. Not quite sure what being alive means. Not quite sure what his unfinished business might be. But he lived all the same. He lived. And lived. And lived. The end.
Notes:
Oh noes, an OC. But trying my best to think of a story that Luc might tell, and this one resonated with me.
Chapter 24: Story Time on Magician's Isle (part 5)
Summary:
Luc's story is over and he's a bit grumpy about it. Now it's Sarah's turn. But, at the last moment, she takes a bit of convincing to begin.
Chapter Text
The room is still in the aftermath of the story. Leknaat tries not to smile despite the content of what Luc said. It’s just…him.
“Thank you,” she says, voice even. Whatever else, he did tell a story, and she can feel the lingering power of it. Can understand a bit more the forces at work inside him.
“I…” Luc begins but falters, face darkening. Is it embarrassment?
He stands, looks toward the door.
“But if you leave,” Leknaat says, “you’ll miss Sarah’s story.”
And that stops him. He looks from the door to Sarah, whose eyes are wide, who seems almost on the verge of tears. From the story? From the glimpse it gave into Luc, who is normally much more careful than that?
Luc glances at Leknaat and she can feel that gaze, the accusation in it. That she somehow forced him to reveal more than he intended. That he told a true story, rather than whatever lie he wanted to, that would have made this all seem foolish. Still she doesn’t smile, because this isn’t funny. It’s not a joke she’s playing on him. She can feel his future running alongside him, a shadow that grows every day. That might consume him. That might consume a lot more than him.
Slowly, he lowers himself back onto the sofa. Leknaat allows herself a small sigh of relief. She knows the risks of this, of bringing him outside the tight confines that he’s built for himself in his mind. The way he’s constructed the world around him, the story he tells to himself. And any slip in that threatens to bring everything in that careful illusion crashing to the ground. He is aloof and cold, that is what he wants to be, to seem. While inside he is a summer storm. Intense, and caring far more about others than he wants to admit.
Leknaat nods. “Sarah, you have a story to share?”
Sarah’s eyes are still large. She opens her mouth, then closes it sharply, her teeth making a clack as strike together. She shakes her head.
“You had one before, didn’t you?” Leknaat asks.
“I…don’t know that I should,” she says, stealing a glance at Luc and then looking down at her feet.
Leknaat purses her lips. Like Luc, Sarah’s futures wind around her. Most entwine with Luc, and lead down some dark roads. Not all, though. And it’s not just Luc who needs to hear the stories. Not just Luc that needs to learn that there is more to the world than this island and the people on it. All of them have been hurt and hurt badly. All of them have lost and been betrayed. And Sarah is so young. So wanting to save the person she thinks saved her. Not realizing yet that the only person who can save him is himself.
Leknaat waits, turns toward Luc. Despite everything, he knows that Sarah had wanted to tell a story, and now is refusing to. And knows that it’s because of him. He grimaces, perhaps realizing that in trying to protest this story time, in trying to annoy Leknaat, he’s done other harm he didn’t think about. A lesson, if nothing else about this night sinks in, Leknaat hopes he remembers.
“I-it’s okay,” Luc says. “I want to hear it. Your story. Please.”
The words for once aren’t sarcastic. Not sharp.
Leknaat finally smiles, and Sarah clears her throat, and then begins to speak.
Chapter 25: The Curse of the Beast Rune
Summary:
Sarah's story, about Norma and Ernst and what might be the end of their quest to lift the curse of the Beast Rune.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
There are hardly traces of the village left. Bits of stone, the remains of what must have been a well. Rows of mounds that must be graves. Memories, lingering like ghosts.
Norma pokes through the grasses that have overgrown the hint of what might have been a building once. A home? A town center? She can’t be sure.
Ernst pads nearby, nose occasionally rising to scent the air. Otherwise he is silent, almost a ghost himself. But this has to be the place where they can get answers. It has to be. After so long…
“Well, this must be it,” she says, liking to talk despite knowing that Ernst can’t reply. “The Village of Lycanthropes. Or the former village, I guess. There must be something here that we can salvage. From what we learned in Toran, these people would have been experts in changing between beast and human forms. They would have known what to do about your rune.”
Ernst looks at her and yawns.
“Yeah, well, I supposed it’s little comfort, given that they’re all dead. Or almost all. Too bad that one from the war was no where to be found.”
Ernst pounces on something in the grass. Or maybe he’s just trying to avoid the sad truth of the situation, the one that Norma is talking around—that this is just another dead end.
“Still, maybe we can find something that others have missed. Maybe—”
She stops as she notices Ernst go still, his head shooting up, ears wide, then back, then wide again. Hearing something? Norma takes a breath and holds it, closes her eyes, and concentrates on listening. But whatever it is that got his attention, it’s not something obvious to her human sense.
“You hear s—”
Before she can finish Ernst is running, and after a curse Norma is running after him. The Grasslands mostly lives up to its name, featuring long scrub prairies and fields. But it’s still broken by the occasional wooded area or rocky region or swamp. Ernst runs off toward a set of rocky hills, and Norma struggles to keep sight of him as she follows his path.
She wants to call out, to tell him to wait, but she also doesn’t know what he’s doing. If he senses danger, if there’s people who might hear her call out, she doesn’t want to screw up whatever it is that Ernst is doing. If he’s doing anything at all and not just out for a run.
The years…sometimes Norma thinks that the longer Ernst is cursed by that stupid rune, the more a leopard he becomes. And after so long… She doesn’t want to think about what will happen if there comes a day when Ernst just stops caring about it. Where he resigns himself to being in his beast form forever. Some of the full moons, when they can at least talk together, and reassure each other…
Ernst moves through a small ravine and Norma loses sight of him. She pushes herself harder, trying to keep the doubts and fears away. Ernst needs her here. Needs her… And yet is that even true? If she can’t free him of the curse he got because of her, does he need her? Or is she just a painful reminder of all the things he’s lost?
She bites her lip. She’s lost, too, she knows. In all the time she’s spent trying to make this right. In all the people she might have become if not for this. A great performer, perhaps. A great magician. A politician maybe. A teacher. Something other than a strange girl leading a strange leopard-boy around the world and back chasing shadows and smoke. For nothing. If Ernst ever did just run off across the plains, embrace the leopard he’s become, where would that leave Norma? Which of them was truly anchored to this quest more? Did it matter?
She rounds a bend and slips down into the ravine, eyes scanning for Ernst. Instead, what she sees are…familiar looking ruins.
“Are these…Sindar ruins?” she asks aloud. Certainly they look like them. The stonework, the way they seem so preserved. “We’d heard that the Grasslands were dotted with Sindar ruins, but that one of them would be here? That has to mean…something.”
She pushes forward, still looking for signs of Ernst. She finds resting in front of a large stone door. There are markings on it in the language of Sindar.
“What Killey, Zweig, and Lorelai wouldn’t give to be here with us, I bet,” Norma says. “They’d be salivating. Though probably not all that much help.”
No one they met in Falena had been, after all. Not even that scam of a sorcerer, Levi. Even after they showed him the ruins where Ernst had been cursed. No, as always, the only people left in this quest were the two of them. Always.
Norma reaches out and puts a hand on Ernst’s head. He says he hates being treated like a cat but sometimes touch is all she can think to give. She doesn’t pet him. Just…lets him know she’s there.
Inside, her heart drums, and she swallows to keep a scream from erupting out of her mouth. How much easier it would be if she was in love with him. If they loved each other in the way everyone seemed to expect. If they were waiting to become husband and wife. As if Ernst was even interested in women. Sometimes, on the long nights when the moon was small, Norma hated him for it. For keeping her alone, because she could never expect anyone else to take on this quest with them. To give so much for something that seems doomed. She’s had lovers, but always there’s the guilt of it. That she can, while the best Ernst can hope for it a quick dalliance on a night of the full moon.
Eventually the feeling passes, and she moves forward. The door… There’s something about it. A resonance. She looks back and sees that Ernst’s ears are still twitching. This close, she can feel it, too. Almost hear it. A vibration. She holds her wand in front of her and wills magic through it. Like she did in those ruins, so long ago. Before it all went wrong.
And, like then, the door creaks open. Inside, a corridor still lit by strange, blue lights. Ernst walks by her, and she follows. Down a corridor that is long and winding. And into a chamber, circular—no, spherical. They stand on a platform suspended in the center of the room. And all around them…
“Lights,” she says. But it’s more than that. The lights move like fireflies. In the center of the platform there is a dais with an indentation about the size of the lights, and as they move toward it one of the lights descends and lands in that indentation. A figure, hazy and translucent, appears.
“Greetings, bearer of a rune of transformation,” the figure says.
Whatever they are, they aren’t human. Instead, they are huge with dark fur all over their body.
“A lycanthrope?” Norma asks.
The figure tilts their head and regards her, then. “And greetings to you, as well,” they say. “And yes.”
“Then this…these lights…they’re…”
“Souls,” the figure says. “The souls of the dead lycanthropes stretching back to when the village was first formed by members of the Sindar.”
“Wait, you’re descended from Sindar?” she asks.
The lycanthrope laughs, which is a rather unnerving thing. “Many are,” they say. “The Sindar were ever-moving. They settled many times across the continents of this world, before moving on. Not all left, though. Some found ways to stay. But all were touched by the Rune of Change. Our ability to change shape comes directly from that.”
“Then…the Beast Rune!” Norma says.
Another laugh. “We…don’t call it that,” they say. “The Beast Rune is something else entirely, and has nothing to do with the Rune of Change. The rune your companion holds, though, was birthed by the Rune of Change.”
“Then you know it?” Norma asks. “You can remove it?”
Raw hope surges in her. Finally. Finally they can make an end of this quest. Finally Ernst can be human again and…and so can she. Able to live fully without the guilt that has hounded her these long years.
“We know it,” the lycanthrope says, “and yes, we can help to remove it.”
Norma slumps to her knees. She wraps her arms around Ernst’s shoulders, and sobs make her whole body shake and shudder.
“But…” the Lycanthrope says.
Norma stops, feeling a chill trace her spine. Of course it couldn’t be that simple. Of course. She sniffs, runs a hand over her face.
“What do we have to do?” she asks, just a whisper.
“The rune is powerful. And…has been misused. It was meant to give a person perspective. To allow them to live as a great animal, and show their true spirit. But only in controlled ways. For ceremonies and personal rites. It was never meant to be a prison. The makers of it knew that being an animal could be…traumatic for a human mind. Part of removing it involves drawing out the energy of the merging of human and beast. The bearer reverts back to the state they were before taking on the rune, retaining some of the memories but mostly a sense of discovery and self-knowledge. To have been connected to the rune for so long…”
“Will i-it… Will he be all right?”
She looks down into Ernst’s eyes and sees tears there. And she realizes that he figured it out before she did. As usual.
“Physically and mentally, he will be fine. But it will be for him as if no time passed. In separating him from the rune, he will only retain a sense from when he bore it. Not fully a memory. A dream almost. Because it was so long, that means…”
“But that can’t be,” she says. “Such a rune…people could almost be immortal!”
The lycanthrope smiles. Also unnerving. “Trust me when I say, the benefits are balanced with the cost. Such it is with things touched by the Rune of Change. There is always balance. Trying abuse it, trying to cheat it…that wouldn’t be wise.”
She looks down at Ernst again and he nods. He knows what it means. That he’ll lose the last twenty years. All the things he’s done. The life he’s lived. All their time together. Norma feels like someone has cut out her heart. He’ll go back, mentally and physically. He’ll forget everything she’s done for him since then. And she knows this magic won’t work for her. She won’t get back those twenty years. She feels something fracture inside her, feels the dark urge to just leave, to wreck everything, to stop this. There had to be another way. But…
She looks into Ernst’s eyes, and she sees the deep conflict there as well. The love and the strength of their friendship.
“Shit,” she says, and hugs him again. “Well, this is what we’ve been waiting for.”
“When you’re ready, please step forward,” the lycanthrope says.
Norma, after a moment, lets go, stands and steps back. And Ernst…looks at her, like he might walk to her instead. Or bolt in the other direction. And it almost breaks her heart how good it feels to see that. But then he looks to the lycanthrope, and moves forward.
It happens so fast. Like it were nothing. Just a wave of a ghostly hand, and the rune falls free to the stone of the platform. And Ernst, beautiful Ernst, is standing there. As young as he was when he first took on the cursed rune.
He blinks. Looks down at the rune, then at his hands. Human hands. Then up at the Lycanthrope. Then over at Norma. And when he sees her he seems to let out a breath of relief. He recognizes her, and for a moment she thinks that means—
“Oh good,” he says. “I was really worried for a moment I had stepped through a portal in those ruins and ended up halfway around the world with a random werewolf. I mean, a pretty hot one, but I’m glad at least I’m not alone. What happened?”
Norma looks up at the lycanthrope, who fades, the light lifting off the dais and rejoining the dance moving around the chamber.
“You look like shit, by the way,” Enrst says, grinning.
Norma closes her eyes, feels a tear squeeze its way free. Then she opens them again, and smiles.
“Uh…” she says. “it’s a long story.”
And she takes his hand, and leads him away from the chamber, leaving the rune there on the stone floor.
“Also, what am I wearing? Did I have a good time and no one thought to inform me?”
Notes:
Aww, kinda sad. I mean, I'll get into a bit of why this is Sarah's story in the next chapters, but really it's something where I think it's important to her that she can hope that at the end of some stories curses are broken. Damage is undone, at least for some. That, in essence, some people can be saved. Even if there's a cost.
Chapter 26: Story Time on Magician's Isle (part 6)
Summary:
Story time wraps up, and Luc and Sarah are sent off to bed. Though not without some final words.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The night stretches like a lazing cat, the dark outside winning the battle against the dim flames of the fire. Leknaat turns, puts another log on. Sarah’s words linger like Luc’s had. Like her own had before. Reverberating with a truth that runs deeper than speculation. And Leknaat smiles again, so much easier than after Luc’s story.
Of course they would have chosen what they did. Luc, a story of stasis, injustice, and a desire that can’t be measured or truly fulfilled. Sarah, a story of sacrifice, but also of curses being broken. Of burdens long held being put down. Both were too old for the tellers, but that’s the way of the world. Pushing people too soon down paths dangerous and bleak.
“Thank you, Sarah,” Leknaat says, finally.
The tower is clean again, and empty, the “helpers” that Sarah summoned dismissed after the completion of their task. The island is still, and quiet, never a riot of noise to begin with and tonight the birds seem to hold their night songs.
“Well, that’s that,” she says. “You may both retire for the night if you wish. We’ll resume with a new lesson in the morning.”
“What was the point?” Luc asks. “Of the stories. Do you think that we learned something?”
Leknaat can’t force a smile. “What you take from the stories is your business,” she says. The words are perhaps more harsh than they should be, but Luc’s never been an easy student. Sometimes kindness is speaking the truth.
“If you’ve learned nothing, then that speaks to you as a student,” she says. “As a listener.”
“Oh?” Luc asks. “Because obviously a story about a dog tracking a criminal is something we can write essays of criticism and interpretation about. We shall measure our morality against the slutty vampire, is it? Or contemplate the weight of the universe through a penpal exchange?”
“You might,” she says. “Would it be any less worthy than how you would spend your time otherwise? Stories are portals, Luc. I’ve said this before, so if you want to pretend to learn something, at least don’t make me repeat myself. Unless it still hasn’t sunk in yet.”
“Oh I remember,” Luc says. “Portals. Into our world and into the infinite that stretches around us. Alternate worlds, some like ours, some very different. Each a reflection in which we can see ourselves. Which is a bit rich, coming from a blind woman who can’t see herself in the mirror.”
“My lack of sight was something done to me,” she says. Softly, but not hiding the edge of her words. “What’s your excuse?”
“I’m going to bed!” Luc says, and storms out of the room. Rather literally, give the gusting winds that sweep after him.
Leknaat sighs. She tries to remain even, removed. But the truth is, the truth that she’s still unable to say directly, is that she cares far more than she should about Luc. And Sarah.
“Did he not like my story?” Sarah asks, still sitting on the sofa.
Leknaat shakes her head. “He’s just a boy throwing a tantrum. I’m sure he liked your story. It was wonderful.”
“It’s strange,” Sarah says. “It’s like the story came to me…through a gate.”
Leknaat nods. “You are touched by magic, my dear,” she says. “And your affinity with the gate runes means you have a bit of what I have—the ability to trace lines through the infinite. To feel the stories and, sometimes, pluck them out from whatever future or past they reside in, and channel them into your present.”
“Can I do it again sometime?” she asks.
Leknaat laughs. “You won’t have a choice in the matter, I’m afraid. Though I’m glad it doesn’t frighten you. When I started…seeing, we’ll call it, the stories of other worlds, they frightened him. So many things that could come to pass. I thought…it must be my responsibility to try and steer the world toward a ‘better’ future.”
“You mean that’s not why we see them?” Sarah asks. “It’s not because we’re supposed to change the future?”
“The future hasn’t happened yet, child,” she says. “And it’s not something that any one person, even someone touched by fate and empowered by the stars, can full shape. What’s most important is just…living our lives. As best as we can, and holding to the values that define us.”
“But what if…what if we there was a way to get to a better future by doing something that goes against our values?”
Leknaat sighs again. It’s a question that haunts her, but one that she’s faced for a long time now.
“I can’t tell you how you should live,” Leknaat says. “But I can say that often, when we sacrifice something important hoping for a better outcome, if can lead down roads we never predicted. The world isn’t just a path with a fork or two in the road. It’s a great tree, and it’s branches are infinite. Thinking that we can navigate that space, with anything like certainty… That is a mistake.”
“So we do nothing?” The question is a whisper, and Leknaat fears that Sarah has seen far more than she lets on.
But all she can do is teach. And trust.
“We live,” Leknaat says. “And, for the moment, we sleep. It’s past your bedtime.”
Sarah purses her lips, but nods, and gets off the sofa toward her room. Leaving Leknaat with the guttering fire, and the future stretching out in front of her like a storming sea, where every course might bring destruction.
Notes:
Witness me trying to imagine Leknaat's philosophy when it comes to being able to see the future. Or seeming to be able to. The whole infinity angle of the setting is an interesting one, and one I like to explore.
Chapter 27: One Last Story to Tell
Summary:
Years later, Leknaat waits to tell one last story as Luc and Sarah return to Magician's Isle...after the final events of Suikoden III.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Night. It always seems to be night these days. A tower empty of voices. A heart empty of warmth. And into both floats a pair of lights. Two souls, returning home. And Leknaat remembers, years ago now, that night of stories where she can hoped so hard this day wouldn't come.
“So, you’ve returned,” Leknaat says. She’s tired. More than angry, more than relieved, more than anything else, she’s tired. She could have intervened in the last conflict. Could have reached out more, could have dispelled the lies swirling around the Grasslands. Could have stood in direct opposition to her apprentice. She is not blameless in his actions, though his choices have always been his own.
The light bobs in front of her.
“That is fine. I will answer you if I see anything with these sightless eyes.” Not enough to have stopped this. Not enough to have convinced him, finally, that there was a better way. But she still sees so much, and there is something stirring in her now. A power. A defiant hope. Not for boy she knew. Nor the girl who wanted so much to save him. But for something.
“The wheel of destiny is heavy for a man to turn, but it’s not impossible.” There were worse outcomes, after all. Where he was still alive but a slave to his rune. A slave to Harmonia. Where he killed Sarah. Where he killed everyone.
“I’m the executor of Balance… I have no tears to shed.” Whatever ones she had she let fall when he left. When all the paths into the future narrowed, and all seemed to end in tragedy.
“Luc, you challenged God like a fool. You disregarded a million lives with a cursed soul, but I forgive you and bless you.” Of course she does. For all that he’s a fool, he’s still the boy she helped to raise. Who fought for reasons he believed in, which were far from the worst. His choice of allies… Well, he’d never really gotten people.
“You’re human, too.” And she feels the orb shiver at the words. He always wondered. Always worried. There was that technicality that would gnaw at him. That because he was created, he wasn’t human. Just a poor reflection. A construct. A vessel. But here he is in front of her now, and it should be all the proof he needs. A vessel would not survive the shattering.
“I bless your soul.” She is reminded of a story of a puppet and a fairy. A wish to be “real.” Something about that finds her here, in this moment, with Luc, his final strings cut, waiting for something from her.
“My apprentice, my son, child of a cursed rune, you’re a human child. One that can sleep now.” That should be it. She should let his soul lift and become a part of the universe again. Losing its edges, its distinctions. Energy flowing into energy, reborn but never the same again. She should because that’s her role. As she said, she’s the executor of Balance. It’s her job of make sure everything is put back as much as possible. That nothing tips too far.
But something in her protests. She is a being of power. She can raise the dead if she so chooses. She has before. The stars have aligned, and she tells herself that she didn’t interfere in the Grasslands because it wasn’t her place. Because she wouldn’t have made a difference. But she knows it for a lie. She could have done so much. She didn’t, and now, with Luc and Sarah no more than souls in front of her, she knows that it’s because she’s selfish.
Balance is a constant task. It requires a selfless devotion. An executor that will not put her thumb on the scale.
Leknaat takes a deep breath. She can feel power flowing around her. She should visit the Grasslands. Offer to rebuild Karaya Village with a sweep of her hand. The power is there, crackling at her fingertips. But she doesn’t. Instead, she prepares herself to take an action she knows serves only herself. And those she loves. She smiles.
Love is such a twisted thing. She knows, in the core of herself, that anything she does will have consequences. That using this power now will not be without cost. She can trace the lines of it forward into the future. Most of them are paths deep in shadows. Many end in ruin. But she, too, is human, whatever the Gate Rune has done to her. Once, she was a scared girl running from slaughter beside her sister. In time, with the loss of her vision, she began to see things. The web that connects the Infinity. She saw her sister falling into pain and loss. And she did not act to save Windy, because she thought it would tip the balance too far.
She wonders now if she should have risked it, anyway.
But she’s tired of losing those she cares about because she’s supposed to be impartial.
“Even though Destiny can be brutal, it will allow you to rest. 108 stars bless you. Man is powerful enough to change destiny.” And so is she.
“No matter how futile our struggles seem, they all make a difference!” She says and she holds out her arms, feeling the warmth of the glow of Luc and Sarah. And inside herself she opens a gate into the Infinity of Worlds.
The rush of forces is immediate and nearly obliterating. As the gatekeeper of this reality, she watches and guards the ways between worlds. Is supposed to act to threats to it. And her she is, forcing it open, letting herself reach through her deepest yearning. Not to reverse time. Not to raise the dead. But to find something.
“Let me tell you one last story,” she says. And she finds what she’s looking for. And with her power she takes Luc and Sarah’s souls, and pushes them through the fabric of reality itself. The tower shakes. The Infinity shakes. And things that should have been left sleeping wake to the power she exerts. But she doesn’t stop. She pushes, and as she does she tells a story. A true story.
Notes:
I always thought it weird that Leknaat playing a decreasingly important role in the games after having done a lot in Suikoden I. By III, she doesn't even really make an appearance, and I feel it's because she doesn't trust herself to act against Luc. She wants him to choose his own fate. But that doesn't mean that, at the end of everything, she's not willing to bend the rules to give him something he never had...
Chapter 28: On the Other Side of the Gate
Summary:
Luc is crushing hard, but can he get over his own lack of social graces to maybe score a date with the bright young musician he's hoping will notice him? Across the gate of worlds, there are infinite possibilities. And maybe Leknaat found one to send Luc's soul where he can be happy. Where he can escape the cycle of tragedy he's caught in.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Luc sips a caramel latte and pretends to read over his notes.
“You’re not fooling anything, you know,” Sarah says, suddenly hanging over his shoulder.
“Go away,” Luc says, betraying no emotion as he takes another sip and adjusts his earbuds.
“You’re not even listening to music,” Sarah says. “You hate listening to music in public. You should just go talk to him.”
“Shouldn’t you be working?” he asks.
“Yeah well Mamie’s being a bit of a bitch right now,” Sarah says. “So I’m collecting up the dishes.”
Luc glances around the café, doing his best not to move anything but his eyes. It’s a slow day. A couple of kobolds are loudly eating pastries and lone man is bent over a laptop, furiously typing between rounds of double shot espresso. The only other person in the place is…
“There aren’t any dishes to collect,” he says.
“You know it’s weird to have a crush on someone who looks exactly like you?”
Luc feels his face flush hot. “Nobody asked you,” he hisses.
“Just saying, people will think you’re even more of a narcissist than you actually are…and that’s saying something.”
“If you don’t leave right now I’m going to create a series of fake accounts just to leave negative reviews about you.”
Sarah laughs but retreats. “Just go talk to him,” the words just loud enough to carry over the room to where…
Luc glances over, but there’s no sign that they’ve been overheard. He sighs, then adjusts his earbuds again. It’s true that he hates listening to music in public, but he doesn’t want it to seem like he doesn’t like music. He has the playlist all set to go, just in case…he walks over. The casual Hey, what are you listening to? Countered with maybe sheepishly holding up the playlist to reveal a phone full of music by Sasarai and the Harmonies.
Because…that wouldn’t be weird at all. To approach a man who just happened to be in the same café as you and find out that he has a phone full of your music. Luc feels something sink inside him, and quickly snatches up his phone. Shit! Why didn’t he think before he did things. No, he had to have a playlist that wasn’t just Sasarai’s music, that maybe just had one or two random songs by him but not like the whole thing. Not like Luc’s a stalker and just waiting for the off chance that the musician would come over and talk to him.
Not that Sasarai was super successful. Not, like, a star. But he was good, and Luc really liked his lyrics. And he was a bit more successful than Luc’s band, the Destroyers, who really had only played a few times because Yuber and Albert were more off again than on again and they made the mood on stage really weird. So it wasn’t like Luc was a creepy stalker or anything like that. Not like he casually and discretely watched Sasarai sip his chai latte and work on lyrics, his guitar cradled gently in his lap, and think things like He could strum me all day. Definitely not.
“Hey, uh… What are you listening to?” a voice asks, and Luc realizes he got a little lost in his panicked thoughts there.
He looks up, and his body feels like ice. Sasarai is standing there, head tilted slightly to the side. He’s holding an empty cup and Luc curses that he had put himself close to the bussing station. Though really, this is exactly why he did, so he would be close but not too close, so there would be the opportunity for some casual connection as Sasarai was walking past and shit he’s just sitting there not talking not doing anything while Sasarai is looking at him shit he seems weird this is not good this is—
“Wait, do I know you?” Sasarai asks, that beautiful head tilting a bit further.
Definitely not from following you around, learning your routines, Luc definitely doesn’t say because even as a joke that’s creepy no he needs to think of something better.
“Uh…” he manages.
“You’re the lead singer for the Destroyers, aren’t you?” Sasarai asks, and Luc coughs a bit, surprised that anyone would know of his band, which had only really played maybe a half dozen times around the small city surrounding Greenhill University.
“Uh…yeah,” Luc says, nodding.
“Oh that’s cool!” Sasarai says. “I saw you over at Mukumuku’s! It was, uh…intense!”
Luc feels his face get even warmer. That might have been the show where Yuber started to strip mid-set and then punched a guy he thought was giving Albert too much attention.
“Ah, well, that wasn’t exactly our…best set.”
“It was certainly interesting!” Sasarai says. “And I liked what I got to hear around…everything else.”
“Well, we’re nothing to your band,” Luc manages.
Now it’s Sasarai’s turn to blush a bit, though on him it’s cute and not, like, the raging mess that’s going on with Luc’s face at the moment.
“Aw, thank you,” Sasarai says. “Are you coming to our next show? We’re opening for DoReMi next weekend.”
“Um…”
“I can get you ticket if you want,” Sasarai says.
Luc stares. Was Sasarai asking him out? Like, out? But no, it was just a show, just doing some organic promoting, definitely. Though, if he was giving out a free ticket then it was kinda like paying so it’s kinda like a date, right? Like, technically and oh shit he’s doing that thing where he’s not talking again.
“Uh that would be great!” Luc says. “I uh…” He thinks about raising his phone to show the music he’s saved there but then shakes his head. Nope, be less creepy. “Thank you.”
“No problem!” Sasarai says, fishing out a small rubber banded pack of tickets from his pocket. “Err…do you need any other tickets for…er…a boyfr—I mean girlfriend or anything?”
Luc makes himself swallow. “It would be boyfriend, don’t worry,” he says, then regrets it. “But not, I mean I don’t have one currently. Just, you know, if I did, it would definitely be…”
He makes himself stop talking. Sasarai laughs.
“Well good,” he says. He hands over a ticket. “I’ll see you there, then? Maybe we could get a drink or something afterward?”
Luc nods, willing his mouth to say nothing that will ruin this. “Yes,” he says. “Yes to drinks. With you. Afterward.”
Yup, definitely doesn’t sound like an idiot. Well done. Luc forces a smile rather than throwing himself through the window and into the street.
“Great!” Sasarai says, finishing the move to the bussing station so he can set his mug down. “I’ll see you then!”
Then he moves back to his table, grabs his things, and leaves.
Luc stares after him, not really sure what just happened.
“Completely smooth,” Sarah says, beside him again.
Luc slumps over the table.
“You have to come with me,” he says. “Stop me from making an ass of myself.”
“Yeah, because that’s a one-person job,” she says.
“I’ll pay for your ticket! And your drinks!”
She narrows her eyes as if considering, then nods. “Okay, but you also have to consider kicking Yuber and Albert both out of the band. They are not worth the drama.”
Luc nods. “Deal.”
Sarah smiles and moves off, grabbing the single dirty mug from the station before returning to behind the counter.
Luc lets out a deep breath. He closes his eyes, and there’s a flash of something there. A feeling like he’s on the edge of remembering a dream. Something strange, and sad, and kinda terrible. And then he sneezes, and it’s gone. And he laughs to himself, thinking about what he should wear, what says I will totally fuck you tonight but isn’t too slutty. Hmm…decisions…
Notes:
Just some fluffy coffee shop AU to maybe imagine for Luc a better future not dominated by tragedy. Probably not the most in character I could get for him but I do imagine him a bit bratty and absolutely terrible with people. Kinda cute, though. Hope you enjoy, as this marks the end of the "story" of this fic. The last two chapters are just bonus stuff and don't have anything to do with the framing device. Cheers!