Work Text:
“Commander, may I enter?”
After a busy morning where he hadn’t been able to see his partner once, Yuder Ail knocked on the door to Kishiar la Orr’s office. When no answer came, Yuder assumed that Kishiar was playing at sulking.
“Commander?”
There was no one in the room. He had expected Kishiar to be at his desk, or perhaps near the magic stone furnace, but even while observing the room, Yuder couldn’t find him. However, he felt his presence – the energy of another Awakener.
Yuder stepped further into the room. A movement caught his attention.
Something small and thin flicked from the desk area.
It was a tail.
An animal was on the desk. It looked up as Yuder came closer, unafraid.
A small, plump body that barely made up the size of Yuder’s thumb. A short-haired coating of fur, golden-brown all over, except for a white chin and belly, alongside pink paws. Attached to it all, a tail as long as the rest of the body.
…A harvest mouse? Yuder, who had spent his childhood self-sustaining and knew a thing or two about wildlife, instantly recognized the rodent.
But, what was it doing there?
A little face with two beady eyes and a pink snout stared up at him. The rodent was eating a kennel of wheat with both hands, as if patiently waiting for Yuder to come to a conclusion.
Was it a pet?
Yuder briefly tried to remember if Kishiar la Orr had ever owned a pet mouse, in their past life. But he quickly banished the thought.
That little rodent felt similar to Nipollen, in terms of energy.
However, it was clearly not Nipollen.
Instead, the energy that had fooled him into thinking that Kishiar was there seemed to be emanating from the mouse. Yuder stared for a long moment, then lifted his hand. The mouse stopped eating, and climbed into the open hand laid in front of him.
Yuder raised the little mouse up to his eyes.
“…Commander.”
The harvest mouse, small enough to be crushed with one finger, raised a little paw, and waved in belated greeting.
“It’s his own ability.”
That was what Nathan Zuckerman later explained. He’d come back from errands to find Yuder sitting on the couch, mouse in hand.
“This is a secret of the imperial family, hidden for generations. Since my Lord chose to show you, however, I will tell you.”
Nathan showed the usual unwillingness to share any private information about Kishiar la Orr, but he also didn’t look surprised by Kishiar’s decision. As for Yuder, he was surprised that there even was anything left to reveal.
Whenever spring began, Kishiar’s body changed for a period of a day and night, possibly because the harvest mouse within him could sense an incoming feast. However, that could only happen if Kishiar’s human body was healthy enough to sustain the change. That was why he had not transformed in many years, and why Yuder had never known of this in the previous game.
He listened carefully: to the history of the Orr family, to the diet Kishiar needed to follow, to the tasks that had been left behind. To the instructions on how to keep a small and fragile mouse safe.
Meanwhile, Kishiar obediently stayed in Yuder’s palm.
His weight was so small that Yuder repeatedly glanced at him to make sure he was still there. The short fur, whiskers, and delicate paws tickled at the skin of his palm. The long tail trailed all over his hand, from wrist to fingers, interlacing itself between his index and thumb.
It felt as though Yuder was being teased for not paying enough attention to Kishiar. Although his body had transformed, his mind seemed to have remained the same – including the mischievousness.
Yuder lifted the mouse up to his eye line.
“Commander, can you understand us?”
The mouse wandered too close to the edge of his hand. Yuder gently pushed him back with his thumb, curling his fingers like a cradle. Kishiar answered by putting a paw over Yuder’s nail, but he was so small that his claws couldn’t cover the entire nail.
“He can understand.”
Nathan answered that after a moment. Even he seemed a little exasperated at the mouse that purposefully avoided answering.
After that, Nathan left to accomplish the tasks that had been given to him. Yuder stayed behind to take care both of the Cavalry and the little harvest mouse that seemed determined to put himself into danger.
Weren’t small rodents particularly prone to dying in absurd ways? He’d heard a few times about pet rodents who imploded due to their own stubbornness and stupidity…
Of course, this had absolutely no relation to the fate of the Peletta Dukes.
After the third time Kishiar nearly catapulted himself off the desk, Yuder decided to keep him in his palm. Kishiar’s erratic behavior finally calmed, as if his previous daredevil attitude had only been a means of gaining Yuder’s attention.
“Why didn’t you warn me about this?”
Yuder couldn’t figure out why Kishiar had chosen not to tell him something so important. However, he felt that it wasn’t due to a lack of trust.
“…Did it take you by surprise?”
He pressed a fingertip against Kishiar’s cheek. The mouse grasped his finger and playfully bit at the skin… or at least, Yuder guessed he was biting, because he couldn’t feel anything.
“Or did you just want to surprise me?”
Considering Kishiar had planned Nathan and Yuder’s schedules in advance, it wasn’t very likely that he hadn’t felt the transformation coming. Would it be out of character for Kishiar, who liked to show a childish and playful side when with Yuder, to hide the transformation until he could greet Yuder with the body of a mouse?
Even now, Kishiar was playing with Yuder’s fingers, as if exploring them anew from a smaller perspective.
“Careful.”
Yuder once again had to rescue his Commander from vaulting himself over his fingers and into a certain death.
Perhaps he felt bored.
“Let me finish this first, then I’ll pay attention to you.”
The small mouse made a squeaking noise, and finally calmed.
“…Be good.”
Yuder felt secure enough to lay Kishiar back onto the desk. The mouse turned around itself a few times, then settled near Yuder’s sleeve, leaning against his arm.
Yuder waited a few moments.
But this time, Kishiar had decided to stay obedient.
About an hour later, Yuder finished the work that had been attributed to him. Most of it had been prefilled by Kishiar, who must have spent a sleepless night working in advance. The small mouse had fallen asleep against his arm.
He tidied away the desk with one hand, leaving his other arm motionless not to disturb Kishiar, who had settled onto his sleeve. For the first time, he understood what Ever had meant, when she’d used the excuse of Nipollen falling asleep on her lap as an excuse to be late.
Then, Yuder was left with nothing to do.
He looked down at the small mouse.
Golden fur, with a white belly. Delicate and small, light enough to climb on a wheat stalk without bending it. Yuder lightly pressed his fingertip into the unguarded white belly. It dwarfed the little mouse by almost half its size.
Worrying.
It was extremely worrying.
Yuder once again resolved not to let the Commander out of his sight.
What if Kishiar accidentally leapt over the edge of the desk? What if he got stuck somewhere? What if he couldn’t make enough noise to cry for help? What if Nipollen came by and mistook him for prey?
A flurry of worry flew through Yuder’s head. He continued to gently caress the white fur with a fingertip.
Rub, rub, the short fur tickled the skin of his index.
The mouse made a noise. Yuder froze. But the mouse only rumbled for a moment, then turned around and sleepily climbed into Yuder’s open hand. Tap, tap, the little paws barely indented the flesh. A little ball of fur curled in the center of his palm.
“…Commander?”
Yuder called out in a quiet voice.
The mouse squeaked once, then went back to sleep. A timid heartbeat pulsed against his palm. Yuder curled his fingers and brought the hand up to his face.
Since he’d discovered Kishiar like that, a strange feeling had awoken in his heart.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been faced with a vulnerable Kishiar la Orr. In their past lives, Yuder had been the witness of a failing body, and he’d been the one to stab that fragile heart. In this life as well, he was the only one to know Kishiar’s innermost feelings. Both physically, mentally, and emotionally, he’d witnessed Kishiar at his highest and lowest.
But.
Yuder laid his other hand on top of the mouse, trapping him in a two-handed, closed cradle. Like this, no one would never know there was anything in his hands.
Kishiar was at his mercy.
In a heartbeat, Yuder could hurt him.
Kill him for the second time.
But in exchange, no one else could harm him, no one else could even look at him.
This was a version of Kishiar la Orr that could belong wholeheartedly to Yuder.
And Kishiar had chosen to climb into his palm.
Yuder exhaled. His eyelashes fluttered.
For a long time, he held a sleeping mouse between two careful hands, feeling a tenderly beating heart.