Work Text:
The final room of the labyrinth is a long, almost imposing hall. A mimicry of something noble, a place where one lays rich red carpet on the floor and adorns the walls and pillars with gold and marble. There are no carpets, no gold, it's all stone and brick, and yet the shadow of something more important looms.
Maybe it's all a trick of the mind. Maybe Gil is just remembering the real grandeur of places like it.
"The lack of decorations makes this feel much emptier than halls normally do," Lizel comments, walking in front of Gil and Eleven, his curiosity leading him to take charge rather than hierarchy. Eleven sneaks around, flitting from pillar to pillar to check that there really is nothing hiding behind any of them. Gil watches as he strides forward with heavy steps. The labyrinth has been disappointing so far, and he doubts a strong monster will spring out of nowhere to attack them here in the deepest hall. Another dud.
Between every pillar on the wall is an indent, the perfect spot for an expensive painting. Every indent is of a slightly different size, like the labyrinth is waiting for the perfect paintings to fit each spot exactly. It wouldn't be the first time Gil has found a painting in a labyrinth, though he's loathe to bring them out. They're useless for crafting and are a hazard to sell, only going on auctions.
Eleven stops to jam his fist in a round indent, barely large enough to fit it. "I can't imagine what ssssmall painting would go here. Would it be of a bug?"
Lizel tilts his head as he considers the space. "Perhaps an item?"
The space on the other side of the hall has the shape of a simple heart. The two they pass next are both square, one about the size of Gil's torso, the other much larger horizontally than vertically. And as the group moves down the long hall, they spot a space that has found its perfect painting.
Between two stone pillars, each cracked through with a deep-set lapis lazuli type blue gem, hangs a rounded painting of Eleven.
Lizel's eyes light up at the same time Eleven's go big, round and shocked.
The painting doesn't show him in the labyrinth, like Gil was expecting, used to paintings that record events only within themself, paint memories on canvas regardless of their significance. This is a painting of Eleven, folded over a coffee table with his face down in his arm, a hand held in his. Gil recognizes it immediately from the time Lizel put the true meaning of fear into him and he cried until his eyes were puffy. A small smirk crosses Gil's lips. "The labyrinth picked through your memories to find you acting like a child, huh?" he teases.
"Wha- shut up, it'ssss random-" Eleven goes on the defensive, ears turning red to match his hair. "And - no, if it was picked, it picked that one because it's the moment I decided to work for Lizel. Or the moment he first held my hand."
Gil scoffs. "Play that game with Studd, not me."
Lizel gently lifts the painting from its hook. "No matter the reason for picking it, I think the labyrinth chose a lovely moment. Will this fit in any of our bags?"
Eleven rummages through his, but has to relent that the mouth of it won't expand enough for it. Gil doesn't even attempt, knowing well what will or won't fit.
Lizel ends up tucking the painting of Eleven close to his chest, arms wrapped securely around it. Eleven tries to make a joke about Lizel keeping him close that doesn't hide his embarrassment, Lizel responds by calling him important, and Gil ignores Eleven's even more embarrassing reaction to the words, striding further through the hall. If just one of the indents had a hint of any kind of mechanism, or opening - he hasn't given as up on the idea of a hidden boss monster as he thought he had.
It’s not a monster that makes him stop in his track, just before the end of the long hall. What he spots is another painting.
Lizel and Eleven catches up, questioning looks on their faces as to what Gil is looking at. Gil shifts his attention to Lizel, a very careful eye on the noble’s reaction to the painting.
Lizel is a man of restraint. A polite smile always sits on his face, and not even an arrow narrowly missing his head was enough to break his composure. Yet the moment his eyes lay on the painting, they widen, ever so slightly, his lips parting in surprised.
It takes barely a second for Lizel to return to a forced polite smile, but Gil still saw his surprise.
“Woah!” Eleven exclaims, stepping close enough to the painting to touch it. “Leader, that’s you, right? You’re kneeling. Is that your king?”
Lizel lets out a soft breath, an almost reverent look in his eye as he answers Eleven.
“It is His Majesty and I, yes.”
Lizel steps close to the painting, standing beside Eleven as he reaches out one hand, his other arm wrapped around Elevens portrait. It stops short of the image, hand inching back before reaching the canvas, and instead rests on the golden frame.
The painting is tall, one that would reach Gil's pecs if it stood on the ground. It depicts Lizel kneeling at the foot of his king, head down, a small and ornately carved chest resting in his outstretched hands. Lizel’s Majesty is holding something in his fist, a soft glow escaping through the gaps of his fingers.
“This is certainly a view,” Lizel mutters softly, an indescribable look in his eyes as they stay glued on His Majesty’s hand and what it contains.
Eleven seems to have picked up on Lizel’s reaction to the painting, eyes wide as they take in his leader’s strange expression. Lizel doesn’t seem to notice either of them staring. No one says a thing.
“This is..” Lizel trails, fingers slowly retreating from the golden frame as he looks behind him and up at Gil, “It’s a very large painting, no? I don’t know how feasible it would be to bring home.”
Gil studies Lizel’s face for a moment. He’s almost completely boarded up again, true feelings hidden deep between layers of ingrained noble bullshit, but Gil can just barely see hints of reluctance. And just the slightest stroke of what might be fear. “I’ll carry it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Then I’ll do it!” Eleven announces, hands reaching behind the painting to gentle lower it from its hooks. “Don’t want anyone else snatching this, they’ll just sell it for a stupidly high price.”
It is fear that hides in Lizel’s eyes. Gil is sure of this now, as he sees it spike at Elevens words, the idea of someone else finding the painting worse than taking it out themselves. Lizel flies his rifle behind the painting to unlatch it from the hooks, and Eleven smoothly hoists it onto his back to carry with them home. Gil walks behind him, ready to catch it should anything happen.
“What’ssss happening in the portrait anyway?” Eleven asks casually of Lizel. Lizel seems calm once again, surprise leaving behind a simple acknowledgement of their current actions.
Lizel is quiet for a moment or two, but then speaks and a soft, reverent tone, gentle words carrying nothing but love.
“It is the moment I gave His Majesty my name.”
“The moment you introduced yourself?” Gil asks for clarification, brows furrowed in slight confusion. It seems much too big to be a simple meeting. In the same way the stone hall carries shadows of something grander, something rich and golden, the painting carries an echo of significance. A moment you can't forget.
Lizel looks Gil in the eyes, then drifts back to the painting, in step with his party members and so just glancing at the golden frame of it.
“No, that is not what giving ones name is.”
There is another, weighty pause, and then Lizel tells them something Gil had never expected.
“A name is your identity. Your entire being. You carve your name into a feystone, imbue it with mana, putting everything that is yourself into it. That creates a namestone. Anyone in possession of said name will have full control over you. They can command whatever they want, and once they die, their namesworn dies with them.”
Gil tightens his hold on the hilt of his sword, and Eleven stops in place, hands loose around the rope holding the painting up. Lizel doesn’t notice, standing a step behind them, eyes only for the portrait, for his king, for the fist around his namestone.
There is a soft smile on Lizel's lips as he once again says, “It is the moment I gave His Majesty my name.”
-
Gil's grimace and Eleven's sulking and Lizel's presence dissuades the adventures taking the same cart back from the labyrinth from asking about the two cloth covered items the three are bringing back with them. Little is said between them on the ride, conversation from the labyrinth dropped once within others' earshot. Lizel asks about an innocuous detail surrounding the landscape they pass through, Gil answers it plainly, and they spend the rest of the time listening to other adventurers regale each other with tales and woes.
"Where do we even store them?" Eleven asks when they reach the city. "You two are in an inn, right? Not like ya can hang art up there," he jokes.
"Do you intend on hanging yours up?"
"Hell no, Leader," Eleven cringes. "Not anywhere people can see."
Gil scoffs and pushes the two to enter Judge's store. "We need a cover for these," he says not caring that it comes across as more of an order than a request. Judge looks up from his work, taking off his specialized glasses and moving away from the crystals he had been inspecting. His eyes barely glance at Gil and Eleven before resting on Lizel.
"What did you find?" he asks their group leader.
Lizel reaches a hand out to pet Judge by instinct. "Two paintings that we don't intend to sell. Do you have some covers we could use for storage?"
"Of course!" Judge smiles, eager to please Lizel and always having far too many random things on hand, "But why would you store them instead of hanging them, if you don't intend to sell them?"
"They're of us. I can't currently hang such a thing where I live, but I would like to keep it still."
"And I ain't ever letting anyone sssssee mine, so you better not sssnoop, ya hear?" Eleven threatens.
Judge runs off to check in the back for covers that suit their needed purpose, and the three are once again alone. Eleven stands still by the counter as Lizel wanders to look at the recent items Judge has put out and Gil leans on the nearest wall.
"Ssssay it all again. And explain it better."
"I've explained it as well as I can."
Gil shakes his head. Lizel has talked and answered each and every one of their questions on the way out of the labyrinth, and it still doesn't make sense to them.
"I just don't get it," Eleven scowls, hands clenching the counter.
"It's not something everyone can get," Lizel says once again. Gil stopped asking details when Lizel first said it, half the way out of the labyrinth. He knows not to keep treading on a topic he doesn't understand, and Lizel speaks the truth when saying it's beyond him. "It's rarely ever done, for many a reason. None of my coworkers, or anyone I know, have wanted to do the same. It just fit me and His Majesty."
"It'ssss your whole life," Eleven mutters. He throws himself down to sit on the floor, leaning his back against the counter and looking up at Lizel, inspecting a larger space saving purse than the one he currently has. "You die if he dies, he can- he can command anything of you, and you have to do it? That's just not - why would you do that?"
Lizel just smiles at Eleven. Gil sighs and tells Eleven to give it up. "We weren't raised like him. No use thinking about it."
Gil is thinking about it, but he isn't whining about it. He's thinking about Lizel's Majesty far more than he's ever wanted to. Gil has never once cared if Lizel's king was safe before, but now he does. He must have guards and allies. He must have enemies. Gil wonders in what way Lizel would die, should his Majesty. If his heart would simply stop beating. Gil hates the implication, that Lizel's Majesty holding his name means that Lizel is only alive for him. That his heart beats for another.
There's nothing for Gil to do about it, so there's no use thinking on it.