The Scroll of Beginnings

[Fire Emblem 10] Every Wasted Moment

2009-07-18T09:22:42Z

Every Wasted Moment
By: Amber Michelle
Gauntlet theme: 32 - I kept your tie
31 Days Theme: July 28 - loneliness is anger given a better name
Fandom: Fire Emblem 10: Radiant Dawn
Characters: Altina
Words: 921
Warnings: angst? messy allusions to The Annunciation?

Notes: for this challenge with measuringlife.

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Once, Altina married a man for love - not his beauty, as her opponents suggested, nor his voice, which he would have indulged her with as friend, if not husband. Lehran was generous; he had everything and nothing, a goddess by his side, another enamoured with him, flitting to his shoulder and dashing away, favors in her wake - cherry blossoms, gossamer thread, diamonds like dust. Altina didn't know what she herself offered to him. A sword arm, when divine grace allowed him the walk of battlefields unscathed?

Earth, instead of heaven.

A child he created with words whispered in her ear, his desire a river running deep and warm within her.

She kept a lock of his hair in a cedarwood box, tied at one end with a black silk ribbon, a smooth length still perfect, neat, a decade after it was cut, each hair so fine it disappeared when held to the light. Three feathers hid in another, long as her arm, sleek, black, buried beneath her wedding dress in a chest at the bottom of the cathedral, where she remembered them only sometimes as she lay alone on a bed they once shared and recalled the way his wings brushed her shoulders, her ankles. Their daughter, now four, reached for the sky when black birds winged past her and chased their flocks when they alighted in the garden.

I'm a bird! I'll fly!

And if that twisted Altina's vocal chords into a knot, she could still smile, and clap, and tell her that was right - someday she would wing among the stars.

When her daughter greeted the new consort with a lilting father and ran to his arms, the pressure behind Altina's eyes, the tightness of her skin, the burning acid in her throat, made it impossible to swallow. Her lips stayed firmly closed against the words that welled up in her throat like bile. She'd made a promise to the dragon king, who appeared to escort her husband to his new home. He was a shadow taller than Lehran and without wings, his clan emblazoned on his forehead in red. He looked down at the cradle when he spoke to Altina, gazed at their daughter, said she was a beautiful child-- but what else could be expected of the issue of the heron clan?

Find a new husband, Dheginsea told her. Never reveal the babe's heritage.

The child looked like her, Altina realized: indigo hair curled around her shoulders, eyes of gold. Her arms and legs were still short, plump, but they would grow to be long, slender, and strong. It was her hands that reflected the other half of her parentage-- her fingers had a tapered look to them, like the slant of a wing, and the shape of her eyes would be narrow like his.

He named her Sarai when he held her with both hands, her newborn cries rending the camphor-laden air of the birthing chamber. Sarai for the first woman, for the issue of his queen's womb, and he made her name a song in the oldest of tongues, the one only he and the goddess still lived to share. Altina remembered the way the lamp light brightened when his voice danced the notes, the sheen on his hair turning gold from brown, his skin a soft glow like the moon. The goddess shined her light upon him when he sang, it was said; some went so far as to claim he was a god.

If I were a god, Lehran told her when he heard that story, I would--

What?

I would pull you to the heavens and give you a taste of eternity.

She'd traced the outline of his lips when he said that, smiling. Did she not have the privilege of tasting him whenever she liked? That was good enough. More than enough.

Sometimes Altina forgot an eternity to her was merely a day for Eternal Lehran, or perhaps an hour. He touched her every moment, found her every hours to place a kiss on her lips, her cheek, her temple, as if he thought she would disappear the moment he turned his back. He stole her paperwork and lured her to the bedchamber, woke her at night to take her again. Some day, he said-- someday I will remember this and regret every wasted moment.

Altina had not understood then, but she watched Sarai lavish her affection on the wrong man - it was Kerria rose her earthly child chose, fat yellow blossoms bigger than her hands and shaped like fluted goblets - and saw only wasted moments, days, years.

Lehran was no longer of heaven, no longer apart. He could be reached. All she had to do was stretch a little farther, call a little more loudly. What did Altina care if he sang the goddess's hymns? It was his heart she married - his heavy-lidded, lazy smiles in the morning, the way he covered her with his wings when she was cold, his hands beneath her dress, between her thighs, his face against her swollen stomach, ear catching every sound and every heartbeat of the child he longed for and yet only gazed upon once, when he named her with the most precious word in his memory.

These moments did not have to be wasted. Perhaps he would remember that, if he saw them again. Just once.

.

[30 Kisses][Fire Emblem] Realignment

2009-07-16T08:02:30Z

Realignment
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9-10
30 Kisses Theme: 04 - our distance and that person
Gauntlet Theme: 1 - unaware of the sadness in your heart, knowing only of the rain in mine
Words: 9363
Rating: ...M.
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~

Notes: modern AU + content I don't usually write, so it probably has issues. PRETEND IT DOESN'T. The rated material is fairly conventional.

Fuck this fic, anyway. Three drafts, guys. That's too much for a modern AU of any kind.

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"We should probably get a tablecloth if we're going to eat in the dining area," Sanaki said, crossing place mats off of their household shopping list with a purple pen. She glanced down at the red upholstery on their couch, a deep crimson darker than the rug, and added, "We'll make it a little more cheerful, though."

Sephiran's laptop clicked shut, and his desk chair thumped back on the carpet. "You don't like the color after all?" He joined her on the couch, his weight making the cushion dip, and he wedged his arm behind her to curl around her waist and pull her close, thigh to thigh. "It seemed like a good idea, with the rug in mind."

"I do like it, but if everything is dark it'll be impossible to lighten this place up." The fluorescent kitchen light made everything look stark and saturated; it was a nice red, though it still looked too new to her, too un-lived on, the weave and nap of the cloth still pristine and velvety. Sanaki hooked her legs over his knees, curled against his chest. She had to cap the pen one-handed, and almost dropped it. "Maybe cream. Or a light brown. I still think we need extra throws and sheets, too. Someone is going to stay over some time - like Micaiah, because she's lazy."

He laughed, and the sound reverberated when Sanaki put her ear to his chest. "She has a long drive home from here," Sephiran said.

Sanaki felt his chest rise and fall, listened to the rush of air in his lungs. The living room and the plain white wall shifted a little each time he breathed. "She wanted trees. She got them." His fingers pulled the ends of her hair, gentle, prickling her scalp and sending a shiver down her spine. "We need a painting, or something. A vintage poster, maybe..."

"Mucha," he said.

She chewed the inside of her cheek. "The one with all the naked women?"

"Almost all of them are dressed."

"In sheets." Sanaki grabbed his shoulders and pulled herself up, twisting onto her knees. "I'm not enough for you?"

"If you'd take your clothes off more--" She slapped his hands away when he pulled her shirt up, and he laughed, pressed his face into her stomach. His but you liked them-- right? was muffled by her shirt. His arms tightened.

She looked down at the crown of his head and the glint of the kitchen light on his black hair, the yellow softened by diffuse gray light from the window behind her and the sliding door. They showed a gray sky when she craned her neck back to see, lighter in the west, a line of orange gilding the horizon where she could see it between the trees at the edge of the complex. Five thirty, the clock said. The refrigerator was mostly bare, with some leftovers in tupperware in the back, some milk, and ends of vegetables she hadn't yet used. She didn't know if that would equal dinner, or if they'd be better off ordering in.

"I did like what I saw-- maybe." He repeated her muttered - maybe? - his breath hot through her t-shirt, his hair smelling like peach, slightly damp. He seemed to like putting her face there, and she still hadn't figured out why. "Should we look? Prints like that are expensive."

Sephiran turned his head so his ear pressed to her stomach. His hair streaked over his back, twisting on the red cushion. "Don't worry about the money."

Sanaki stroked her fingers over the smooth black. Why did she bother asking, when his response was always the same? He'd go out for food every night if she let him - to save her work, he said, like she believed that when he told her equally often he'd rather eat what she made. Unbelievable. She should tell him to get his story straight. "Are you sure? You've already spent so much--"

"It's mine to use." His fingers stroked over her hipbone from the back, flicked the waistband of her skirt through the shirt. "Build a home you enjoy returning to, and I will consider it well-spent."

She tucked his hair behind an ear and felt him lean on her, felt her knees sink into the cushion. "Why?"

"Why what?" She nudged Sephiran with her knee. "It would look like my mother's house if I did all of this. If I wanted her touch in the decor, I would ask her to buy everything."

"So Japanese men don't always want wives like their mothers?"

"I wouldn't know."

She sat down again, and he straightened. His mother would show up tomorrow. She'd seen pictures, but aside from noting her expression didn't change very much even when he told Sanaki she was happy, she only knew what the woman did: she sewed pillow cases, yukata, made everything from scratch. If you want it done right, the old saying went, do it yourself - and that should be pasted beneath the woman's picture with, maybe, a product of her culture. His grandmother was much different, he said - and she was always smiling or laughing in the photos he showed her, though he said she'd grown more solemn since being widowed.

But what did Sanaki know? She was a product of her own culture, and as she'd learned many times over from Sephiran, what one read in books was not always true, even in spirit. And even if it were, there were always exceptions. She says I'm too 'amae,' she remembered him telling her after a conversation with his mother - that he was too nice, he translated, too sentimental.

"My grandfather knew I wanted to stay here," Sephiran said, pulling his hair over his shoulder and leaning back. He stared at the empty tv. "He left more than I can use unless I want to buy a house. I see no reason to purchase an inferior product, only to replace it later and spend even more."

Sanaki leaned sideways against the back of the couch. "We should look around in the city, then." He nodded, didn't say anything. Sephiran's grandfather died before they met, but he was always the same when the topic came up - he looked away, stared at things. She wondered if he was closer to his grandparents, and part of her thought it a silly question after what she'd heard about his mother and father, but how could she assume? "What do you want to do about food? Today," she said, when he lifted his brows.

"Hm." His hand found hers and clasped it. "She'll want me to go somewhere with her tomorrow," Sephiran said, tilting his head back, resting it on the couch. "I'd rather stay in-- with you."

She squeezed his hand. "I'll find something to make, then. But I have to go shopping, we're almost out of everything."

He nodded, again silent, though he returned the gesture and his fingers nudged her rings, twisting the one with the heart-shaped opal around. His feet wouldn't stay still - first he crossed his ankles on the coffee table, then he pulled them down to the rug again. She watched his green eyes move, but there was nothing to see on the ceiling.

Maybe he was listing interviews, or mulling over his essay. Maybe he didn't want to see his mother-- but that was Sanaki's own prejudice talking.

"Are you okay?" she said, touching his shoulder.

Sephiran's green eyes slid to her. A slight smile turned his lips. "I was more worried about you."

"I'm better now."

"Good." His fingers stroked her hand. "I don't want you to worry."

Who was worrying?

.

Sanaki woke the next morning to Sephiran's thumb tracing circles on her thigh and the shadows on their ceiling shifting with the branches outside the window to a wind she couldn't hear. Their curtains were solid white, not much for keeping out the light, and still hanging half-open. The maple trees around their building were crowded enough she couldn't see the green separating them from the next building over, and the light prickled through the star-shaped leaves in beams. His arm folded over her belly from behind when she turned onto her side, intending to slide out of bed to twitch them closed.

"We're not done yet," Sephiran said. His hand spread, as if to keep her still, and his warm breath on her shoulder gave her a chill. "Unless you want to display yourself for whoever is spying."

Sanaki kicked back at his legs with a growl. "Exhibitionist."

He laughed, a chuckle that reverberated the length of her spine when he kissed the nape of her neck. His nails grazed her thigh all the way up, until they reached the fold of her entrance, slid inside, and he leaned over to kiss her throat. The other hand slid down into her curls and rubbed her clit. She rocked into his hand and he pressed his nose into her hair, told her she smelled lovely. Like lavender, like flowers, and like him. He smiled when he said that - she felt his lips curve against her throat, his lashes brushing her skin.

She pushed back on his hand. Harder, she said. Sephiran pulled his fingers out to clamp over her hip, their hold slicked and wet, meeting her glare with smile that showed teeth. He held her still while he reached back to the drawer on his nightstand, sucked on the skin where the nobs of her spine stuck out while she ripped the plastic open. Her hands trembled and she nearly dropped it. "I doubt we were seen." He let go of her to put the condom on, kissed her shoulder and lifted her leg to push inside. She arched her back, curling her hands into the sheets, and he angled her hips, thrust in again to make her moan and bite her lip. In her ear, he said, "They might hear you now, though."

Sanaki promised herself she would kick him for that later. Kick him hard. Smug, arrogant-- his response to her name-calling was to thrust in harder and make her cry out. He kicked the blankets back, holding onto her more tightly when she got louder, until his nails dug into her skin, biting every time her hips rocked. She turned her face into the sheets, felt him curl over her and press his face into her hair, and she grabbed his hand when he reached to help her along, weaving their fingers together and squeezing him inside as well as she was able, again and again. It didn't occur to her to slap him once he finished; he panted against her neck, his breath hot and moist, and he let go of her hips to wrap his arms around her and palm the curve of her breast. He didn't pull out, or away, and she let his arm pillow her head, let her eyes drift closed. There was studying to do, a half-eaten dinner to clean up - a bed to make, now, though he was usually nice about doing it for her before he left. Shopping, cooking...

His fingers worked on her flesh when she moved, kneading, almost like a cat. He let her slide away to turn onto her back and held her hair out of the way. We should wake up like this every morning, he said, and laughed when she rolled her eyes, kissing her chin, her cheek, the jut of her shoulder, rested his cheek on her breast while his hand covered the other, thumb tracing the curve. His hair tangled behind him across his side of the mattress, a messy, unraveling blanket of black. Sanaki combed her hand into it, turning her face toward him to kiss his forehead.

"I have an interview at eleven," he said when the clock flicked to nine and the alarm went off. Sephiran slapped the snooze button and helped her sit up. "I should be here with mother by two or so."

Sanaki pushed her hair out of her face, folded her legs. "Did you write everything you want on the list?"

"Yes. I think so." Sephiran was tying his robe closed when she looked back, the dark navy completing the frame of his face begun by his dark hair. He chewed the inside of his cheek and fiddled with the tie. "Did I give you enough? With the linens--"

"No, it's fine." She pulled the sheet into her lap and dropped back onto her pillow. Her leg dangled over the side in the cold air. "More than enough, actually. I'll show you the receipt later." The set of his shoulders was too tense when he turned around, too hunched and unlike him. Sanaki couldn't remember which interview he had today - the university, or the library? it could even be the editorial position - but he would be miserable all day if he stayed like that. "I can pick her up instead," she said. He looked back, blinked, and she elaborated. "Your mother. I can meet her at the airport instead."

He reached back to rub his neck, staring at the rumpled sheets. "No, it should probably be me." His eyes were shadowed. "But thank you. Maybe next time, when she knows you..."

His smile was a shadow, his lips pale and full and begging to be touched. Sanaki watched him disappear into the bathroom, listened to the water go on and the shower curtain slide across the bar, so he couldn't hear her sigh. His clothes were laid out over a patio chair in the corner, black slacks, black jacket, a button-up just the right shade of purple to set off his eyes, more of a plum - a reddish shade she wanted to touch whenever he wore it, and run her fingers along the seams.

Sephiran had no idea how to budget for food. He bought things right and left, and tallied everything up at the end of the month, and she wanted to smack her forehead with the check when she saw how much he thought it took to feed him for a week. At first she'd complained to Micaiah he was leaving everything to her, all the work, even if it wasn't quite true - he did his share of cleaning, carrying, vacuuming, mostly stayed out of the way, but--

But he was taking care of her. He didn't have to; they weren't married. I want to, he said when she hedged around the issue, biting her lip, looking at her worn nails. I want to make you happy.

If only her grandmother could hear that. It wasn't like a ring would hold him down if he got tired of her.

Much later, after Sephiran had showered and left, and Sanaki had cleaned up her mess in the kitchen from the night before, she remembered why she wanted to kick him and ran back to their room to make sure the window wasn't open. It wasn't. The wood bar was in place so it couldn't slide open; the metal lock was twisted down. She pulled the curtains closed. Though she didn't think he would do that on purpose, try to put their relationship on display like that for the whole building to hear, it would be just her luck to have it happen by accident.

Never gonna happen. He gets touchy when Zelgius sits next to you, and we know nothing's going to happen there, Micaiah said later when they pushed a cart up and down the isles of the local Japanese grocery, checking items off of a long list that was mostly Sanaki's handwriting, and partly Sephiran's requests, every letter the same height and width around the Jewel Cat illustration in the bottom corner. That was important when writing kanji, of course - so he told her, as did her teachers. It was habit. Her sister shook her head, rolled her eyes. At least he doesn't dot his 'i's with circles and hearts.

There were vendors in selling fresh takoyaki, croquettes, and little apple-potato pies Sanaki couldn't justify trying for almost five dollars, and instead of ambient music they listened to shouts for attention from the stands and children begging for pie or dango sticks. The line at the register was ten people long, and the traffic outside only slightly better for mid-afternoon. The apartment complex was quiet when they drove in and parked, most of the younger kids still away at school, the adults at work, their parking spaces long rows of empty white stripes. The door to their building was propped open by a round gray stone bigger than her two feet together, and someone was up on a ladder spreading plaster over a crack in the wall.

Sanaki had to dig her keys out of her purse and shoulder the living room light switch on when they got inside, because she forgot to open the curtains. She chose dark ones for the dining area, a rich brown that looked like silk but wasn't really, which matched the colors he liked for the rugs. They were still waiting for the dining table and chairs; the space in front of the sliding door was wide open, the boxes mostly emptied, broken down, ready to be cleared. Her pink exercise mat was still rolled out at the center, beneath the hanging lamp.

"What did you have for dinner last night?" her sister asked, piling her bags on the floor in the corner of the kitchen. "It smells great. Sweet."

"Something from that cookbook you got me." Sanaki shoved hers onto the counter by the rice cooker, where there was some open space. The dishes were still spread out on towels on the other side of the sink, and looked dry. "It was pretty good. I'll give you a copy next time you're over."

Micaiah's eyes flicked over the array of pots and baking sheets, and little white bowls, all the silverware and cooking utensils spread out at the end of the counter. "It looks like you've been cooking for one of Ike's football parties. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." Sanaki left her keys on the counter, and her purse, pulled the other bags up onto the counter, then onto the stove when they wouldn't fit.

"If you say so." Micaiah halted Sanaki and pushed a hand under her bangs, as if checking for a fever. Her sister wasn't that much taller, just a few inches, but she felt like a child standing in front of her, looking up, thinking Micaiah could easily put the canisters of flour or sugar away, and Sanaki would have to get a stool - or at least a pair of heels - to shove them onto the top shelf. "Call me if you need something. If I'm not at work, I'll drop what I'm doing and come over. Okay?"

Sanaki nodded, didn't say anything. She put the perishables into the refrigerator: meat, fruit, frozen vegetables. Nothing was wrong - aside from finals, which she couldn't do anything about. She'd studied, and Sephiran talked to her in Japanese about household things like cooking or family, whatever she wanted him to prompt her with; he'd helped her all semester, practiced skits with her, looked over her conversation homework. He'd had less and less time as the weeks went by.

"Sanaki--"

"It's okay. She'll be here in a few hours, so I should finish cleaning up."

Micaiah's sigh reminded her of their mother, and the tone she'd take after finding out someone had failed a test or left the oven on all day. She raised her silver brows, stared intently for a few seconds, then pulled the extra ring of car keys from their hook on the wall by the fridge and sauntered out. Her flats slapped on her feet like flip flops, and her long necklace dangled and clicked, a long string of amethyst she'd looped around her neck three times to shorten it. It matched her shoes, her faux leather purse, and the trim on the back pockets of her slacks.

"Baa-chan wants you to call this weekend," she called from the living room, digging into her purse for a pair of sunglasses. "Probably that bank investment thing. It's what she called me about this morning." Then she said good-bye, disappeared past the bend of the wall where the other room widened past the kitchen, and the door closed.

Someone hammered on something outside. The broken echo sounded like it was right under their balcony. Sanaki went over to pull the curtains apart and open the sliding glass door. Then she found a package of postal string and folded the boxes they'd broken down, two at a time, sitting on them to compress their shape into something manageable so they could be tied and carried down to the dumpster. Sephiran said he would do it, but he was busy - and his mother would arrive in less than three hours, so they had to be gone. Sanaki wasn't a neat freak, but her grandmother's instructions on how to receive guests played over and over in her mind: seat them comfortably, offer refreshments, ask them how their day has been, offer more refreshments...

Baa-chan used to have dinner parties; Sanaki supposed she would know all these things, and yet the values seemed a little out of date - like the ones insisting she be married before twenty-two or risk becoming a spinster. Don't depend on some man's favors. They're all unreliable.

She mulled over that one and its seeming untruth while putting the dishes away and making heart-shaped sugar cookies - it was the only cutter they had. They cooled on a rack while she scrubbed the sink in the guest bathroom, washed the mirror, tried to fluff the rugs. She locked the door to take a shower, and came out in her pink terry robe to scowl at the clothes laid out on the bed.

Skinny jeans were not going to impress his mother - but she might like the frilly white top if she didn't read into the pink butterfly print.

Sanaki was in the kitchen putting the last of the groceries away when she heard Sephiran's key in the lock and the chain rattling against the door. She dropped her jar of furikake and scrambled to catch it before it could break on the floor, and shoved it into place while they entered, talking about something in Japanese she only half understood - waiting, and being hungry. Or maybe not being hungry.

Somehow his mother was every bit as monolithic as Sanaki's imagination insisted she must be. She was tall, but not as tall as her son; her hair was a long, silky red tail held at the nape of her neck with a ficcare clip that wouldn't quite close. Maybe it was her posture, or the stories Sanaki had heard, but the woman wore her slacks as if they were layers of stiff silk kimono, standing perfectly straight, shoulders squarely back. She hadn't yet faced the kitchen, but leaned on Sephiran's arm with one hand to balance while she unbuckled her shoes and pushed them into an empty cubby with her toes.

Sanaki closed the cupboard softly. Sephiran smiled over his shoulder and her heart pounded hard, in her ears, her stomach - her legs wanted to give out when she walked to the edge of the rug and bowed with her hands clasped in front to introduce herself. Then she led their guest to the living area where their couch and chairs formed a square around the television and fled to the kitchen again to make tea. Her hands shook when she measured the leaves. While they steeped the ceramic teapot, she arranged cookies on a white plate.

Her grandmother would say the task should have been finished before the door opened. Sanaki thought she would be right, but in that case she wouldn't have been able to hide. She wanted to stay longer, but the leaves were only supposed to sit in the water for eighty seconds, and that was over in a flash.

She took the tea out on a small brown tray, then joined him on the couch. His mother had taken the chair facing away from the window and made it a throne on which she was a dark shape with a dusky halo of hair.

Some time after three their conversation trailed off into matters that sounded inconsequential - what the weather was going to be like for the week, where they might have dinner, an apology in English for any inconvenience his mother might cause by her early departure; she arrived early, and ate at the airport, so there was no need for Sanaki to prepare a meal. Her son would help her move her luggage into the hotel and drive her to visit a family friend. They would likely be served dinner there.

Then she excused herself, Sephiran walked her down the hallway, probably to show her where the bathroom was, and Sanaki leaned over to move the tea cups back onto the tray and took them back to the kitchen. A door closed. The ceramic cups clinked against each other, rattled, when she put them down.

"As you see, you don't have to worry." She looked over the counter, saw Sephiran leave the shadow of the hallway to approach the kitchen. "Half the visit will probably involve visiting her friends."

She shrugged her shoulders, worked them back. "It's a good thing. The cookies barely got made. I don't have anything else prepared."

"And even if she were staying," he said, reaching to work his fingers into her shoulders, "there is no reason for you to spend so much effort when you could be studying."

"I'd rather do the cooking." She sighed and slumped forward, pushing her head into his shoulder when he chided her. Good posture wasn't going to make her headache go away. "Where is this friend she wants to visit?"

He sighed, and she heard him crack his neck. "Concord."

Sanaki jerked her head up. "Concor--" He took the opportunity to kiss her and push her back against the counter, rattling the cups when they jolted the tray. When he parted from her for a breath she managed to sputter, "That's-- that's two hours--" and he kissed her again, worked his fingers into her back pockets, held her to him by the hips while his thumbs curled into her belt loops.

Then she heard the water run behind the walls, and clutched his collar to hold him still another few seconds before she let him go. He stepped back, drawing his hands from her pockets slowly and scratching the denim around the curve before he let them fall to his sides.

"I'll be late," Sephiran said, smiling faintly. A line creased between his brows. "I'm sorry."

Sanaki straightened and looked away. Down the hallway, the bathroom door opened in a brief rectangle of yellow light before it was extinguished. "Take care."

.

Night fell early with clouds clotting the sky and crowding on the horizon, but Sanaki left the sliding door open for a breeze that smelled like wet pavement. The apartment darkened steadily, the glow of the digital clock on the dvd player floating in deep gray between the darker shadows of the furniture. She turned the light over the stove on when she made dinner for herself - a rice bowl with boxed flavoring that tasted better than the real thing - and ate it standing at the counter with a white soup spoon while she waited for Micaiah to show up with the car keys. It was only the first day. Thirteen more to go.

The doorbell rang when she was running water over the pans in the sink. Sanaki let them clatter in, turned the water off, and went to answer, wiping her hands dry on her jeans. Micaiah looked tired under the florescent light in the corridor, the shadows under her eyes gray, her skin a pasty white that made all the color bleed out and look like sunburn. Sanaki opened the door wordlessly, and after a moment, she came inside and dropped her purse on top of the cabinet with their shoes and umbrellas inside. The spare keys clattered onto the wood.

"I thought you'd look better after it was over with," Micaiah said.

"You don't look so great either," Sanaki shoved her sister by the small of her back. "Take your shoes off. Are you hungry?"

Yes mother, Micaiah muttered. She did as she was told, stepping on the backs to pull her feet out, and didn't bother to put them away. "I'll just pick something up on the way home, unless you have leftovers. Don't waste the effort."

"There's some katsu left over," Sanaki said, walking back to the kitchen. It was still warm when she took the container out of the fridge, the plastic sides fogged. The rice cooker was set to warm, she'd already cut the onions. She pulled the sauce pan out of the sink and dried it with a towel. "It was going to be for Sephiran, but I have no idea when he'll be back."

"He left?" Micaiah pulled herself onto a barstool. "I guess he'll get fed. This is the mother that practically buys his underwear for him, right? Yeah, okay," she said when Sanaki laughed. She pushed her hands back through her bangs, let her head hang. "I hope she doesn't really." She scratched at her part, and her silver hair glinted. It frizzed around a rubber band where she'd pulled it back at the neck. "He does wear underwear, right?"

Sanaki slammed the pan onto the burner, and her sister snickered and put her arms over her head. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's not my fault, it's Sothe, he just keeps making me say these things-- and Tormod, and Eddie, and she really needed to find some female friends - he kind that wore skirts and talked about make-up and matching pairs of shoes and purses. She didn't know how to be a girl anymore. I swear Sothe has a hard-on for Ike, Micaiah said. I wish he'd just say something already. If Soren kills him and hides his body, at least I won't have to wash his dishes anymore. Sanaki smiled, cracked an egg into the pan, prepared a bowl of rice, but didn't look up.

The microwave clock said it was almost nine. Her cell phone was wedged into a back pocket and had yet to ring. If he'd driven to Concord, starting at four, and it was an average social visit--

It sounded like a math problem. She scowled at the setting egg.

"So, what, is she like Baa-chan? That's a pretty ugly expression."

Sanaki looked up. "No." She prodded the egg mixture with a fork, and poured it onto the rice when it jiggled like custard, breathing in the sweet, onion-scented steam before she carried it over to the counter. "Worse."

Micaiah's eyebrows lifted, scrunched. "Really?"

"Kind of." Sanaki slid the pan into the metal sink again. "Maybe not really."

"So...?"

"I'm being an idiot."

"That's nothing new."

She rolled her eyes and ran the water until it was steaming hot.

Micaiah's spoon scraped her bowl. "It's because he's been away a lot lately, isn't it?" There was a pause while she chewed, and the fridge went quiet, leaving the air still and hot, damp from the clouds outside and the water in the sink. "Those interviews must be sucking up a lot of his time. Some of them come with tests."

Sanaki scrubbed the pan. The water scalded her fingers. "He's had two interviews with the community college and one with our university. He turned down the research job because of the traveling requirements."

Her sister didn't say anything, and Sanaki put the pan on the rack to dry. The counter was already wiped down, the dishes were all washed. She folded the dish towel over her hands and wondered if she should dig into the cookie tin, since there was no ice cream, and she didn't feel like making tea. After that polite afternoon conversation and the three cups she downed while that woman was in the apartment, it would probably make her sick.

"You don't have anything to worry about."

Sanaki draped the towel over the handle of the oven and spread it out. "I told you, I'm not worried about anything."

Micaiah tilted her bowl and scraped the bottom. "Right, of course not. I'm the one who's worried." She spooned the last bits of rice. "I don't have to be a fortune-teller to see it's silly. If his mom hasn't convinced him to go back in all this time, she's not gonna do it now. He's looking at jobs, for crissakes. The really good ones."

Sanaki swallowed and felt like something was lodged in her chest. "I hadn't even thought of that."

"Sure you did," her sister said, swallowing. "Back when you first told me about the visit."

She stared at the empty stove top. The foil burners were dirty, caked with spilled broth or sauce. They'd have to be cleaned. "I... don't remember."

Micaiah's feet thumped onto the floor. "Go to sleep. It's late. I'll wash this and lock the door on my way out."

Sanaki let herself be steered out of the kitchen, and for once, she turned around and did as she was told.

.

The dresser drawers opening and closing woke Sanaki from a dream that left her chest and throat feeling tight. Dim yellow light colored everything an ugly beige - the walls, the curtains, Sephiran's white shirt. He turned around when she sat up on her elbows and rubbed grit from her eyes, and his fingers danced down the row of buttons, worked them loose. The clock by the lamp read 4:13 AM and he told her to go back to sleep, that he'd be there in a minute. She listened to his belt slide through its loops and go on its hook by the door, blinking slowly at the time, and tried to remember why it seemed so wrong.

"You... have an interview," she said, leg dangling over the side when she sat up completely. "At eight."

Sephiran threw his socks at the hamper, missed, and sighed. "Yes." Against white shirts his skin looked dark; it was pale again once he took his off and threw it aside, a light burnished brown against the darkness of his hair, and though he wasn't muscular the light carved each contour with shadow. He came around the bed to stand beside her and pulled the bottom of her shirt up. "She didn't know, to her credit."

Sanaki frowned at his pants, still half-undone, and raised her arms when he prompted her. "Did you tell her?" He pulled it over her head and tossed it away too. She let him push her back to attack the metal button of her jeans and peel them down over her legs, his eyebrows knitting slightly, creasing his forehead. "You should have."

"I should have done a lot of things." He kicked her jeans away and sat on the edge of the bed. Smoke and his mother's perfume tickled her nose when he tossed his hair back and leaned over her, and something else she couldn't place, his elbow sinking into the mattress at her other side and his hair draped cool and smooth over her thighs. His mother's face came to mind when he twisted her hair around his fingers, fanning the edges, and she sucked her lips in for a minute, staring at the purple and remembering her bright, sunset red.

"I'm sorry," she said. Why was it so hard to breathe? She traced the red marks over his ribs where he'd scratched. "Never mind, it's okay. You need to go to bed."

"In a minute." He leaned over to kiss her navel, dragged her bra strap down. "I would rather have you right now."

The fabric inverted, baring her breast, and he left the strap around her elbow to run his fingers over the nipple, circle it with his thumb until it hardened, and Sanaki felt heat in her abdomen and a chill on her skin, prickles and goosebumps that got worse when he crawled onto the bed and kissed his way upward between her breasts. There were days he did this - undressed her, teased her, only to rest his cheek on her stomach, her chest, and sigh. After a long day, sometimes, after a phone call home. After a critique of his writing, in which he always seemed to be lacking in his own opinion.

Instead of stopping as she expected, he pulled her underwear over her knees, pushed them apart, and his hair tickled her stomach and slid over her arm, and caught under her when she turned on her side to let him unclasp the bra.

He looked so tired; the lines under his eyes, the shadow, was not all cast by the lamp.

"You do everything she says, even at your own expense," Sanaki said, sliding the straps from her arms, letting it fall. His breathing was loud, a gentle warmth on her forehead to match the tightening heat between her legs. "If you keep doing that--"

"She's my mother," Sephiran said. He tilted his head, kissed her temple, the shell of her ear. "I can't just say no." His teeth scraped her lobe, his tongue ran along the edge, and he leaned on one elbow, the other hand sweeping down to part her folds and push a finger inside. "Do you want to talk about her right now?"

Sanaki closed her eyes and bared her neck for his attention. His finger slid out. "No."

He pushed two back in, nipped the skin on her throat, just a slight scrape of his teeth. "I'm not going anywhere."

Tears pricked her eyes. She looped her arms around his neck, squeezing his leg between her thighs as he stroked her from the inside, slender fingers sliding, reaching, bending. He found a sensitive area and did something that made her twist against him and arch her back, dig her fingers into his hair and grip. Promise, she whispered. Sephiran turned his head kiss her and promised, a murmured assurance with eyes wide open, each word a breath caressing her lips. His long hair slithered over her shoulders and curled across her throat, her arms, her breasts, a ticklish filigree of brush strokes black as sumi ink in the yellow light.

How like him. Everything he did was elegant in its uncalculated way - his hair decorating her body like a tattoo, the angle he dipped his head and curled his back to mouth a nipple, circling it with his tongue and suckling while her hands fisted in his hair and she tried to remember not to pull. His fingers moistened the path to her clit, rubbed it in circles, slid inside again while his thumb replaced them, moving in rhythm until she couldn't breathe quietly anymore, until she moaned and pushed against his hand, and let go of him to fumble at the zipper of his pants and yank them down over his hips. Sanaki liked his shape, that he was slender and almost a straight line, the way she could embrace him around the waist and press her face to his stomach - the way she could wrap her legs around and rub against him when he wasn't payng attention, though that didn't happen often-- when he was working, maybe, only he would never push her away.

She wedged her hands behind his waistband and curled her fingers around him. He pushed into her grip, silky friction on her palm, and lifted his head to expel a rush of air when she squeezed. "Everyone wants a piece of you," she said softly when he pulled away, though it was only to help her push his pants off. She kicked them over the edge. "I don't want to share you."

Sephiran's green eyes were heavy-lidded; she stopped him with a hand on his wrist when he reached for the nightstand, and they slid aside to look, flicked back when she pulled, gently, hand fisting on the tip of his hardened length. He followed, settled between her thighs, and she lifted her hips to let him glide in. "You don't have to." He placed a brief kiss on her lips, wrapping an arm beneath her. His smile was lazy, his lashes swept low. "I'll give you whatever you want."

Sanaki narrowed her eyes at him, pressed their noses together. His nose was rounder than hers, and his eyes looked red and dry. What she really wanted was something he couldn't give - at least not right at this moment. But if he really meant to stay, maybe--

She was a fool to even doubt. Everyone knew it but her. Even she realized-- it was the little comments, the offhand you always make the right choices when he fingered the new curtains and compared them to the rug; when he said I wish I'd let you take care of the furnishing, if I could have transferred that much money - and she told him that was so male, trying to shove all the work on her, while trying not to tear up and feel like an idiot because she remembered one little detail from class: it's tradition for the husband to give his new wife the privilege of decorating their home.

Idiot. Idiot. Sanaki clamped her legs around his hips, tried to squeeze her muscles inside and watched his jaw clench. Sephiran was the sentimental half of this relationship, not her. She was--

She-- he belonged to her. Sephiran was hers.

"I want you to meet the rest of my family," she said, holding him to her when he moved. The springs creaked when their weight shifted to her back, sinking into the mattress. "My mother--" He angled her hips, startled her into a cry, and she couldn't remember the names she wanted to add, just couldn't think of them, but closed her eyes tight and clawed her fingers into his hair, into his back, leaving marks he wouldn't forget. He would take them to his interview and remember her ragged gasps in his ear when he pounded in, and her ankles locked behind his waist, her knees digging into his sides every time he moved - the keen he muffled with his lips when she couldn't keep it quiet and her entire body shuddered and arched as she hit her peak and lost her grip on his hips. Her feet slid down, but Sephiran's arm was a vice around her back; he held her tightly until she felt him tense, thrust more forcefully, and breathe out a rush of air, a sound too low to be a moan in her ear.

She couldn't breathe right until he relaxed his grip and sank back into the mattress with her, cradled between her legs while he tried to come down. His heart beat rapidly against her breast as he caught his breath. The bedside lamp gilded the mat of their hair, black streaks over indigo, tangled together across the pillows.

Sephiran lifted his head and pressed his sweaty forehead against hers. "You were saying?"

Sanaki started to laugh, bit it back, made it a frown. "If you fall asleep now, that'll be so typical."

He smiled, chuckled. "No, really."

His eyes looked like bits of jade or jewel. "My grandmother," she said, picking strands of hair from his cheek and tucking them behind his ear. "Her seventy-first birthday is coming up. I want you to be there with us."

"A venerable age." He leaned some of his weight on an elbow, stroking her ribs with his other hand. "I would like to meet her." Another pause, this one spent tracing a circle around her nipple he followed with his eyes. "Though she won't approve."

Sanaki shrugged, trying to shift his weight off of her hip so it wouldn't hurt, and he pulled away to turn them both onto their sides. "She has to find out some time." Her legs slipped together, the sheets were slightly damp, and she wished she'd thought of replacing the kleenex box, or getting a towel. "Anyway, I'm sure you can convince her everything is okay. Just smile at her."

Sephiran laughed, the sound a reverberation in his chest. "I thought you didn't like it when I did that."

She stuck her tongue out. "I never said that."

Or maybe she did. Sanaki frowned and pouted when he lifted his eyebrow and pressed her face to his chest. This was more familiar than the lingering scent of his hair: skin, astringent soap she swore was Dial, though he'd shown her a Japanese wrapper that said nothing of the kind. She'd tried to get him to use her minty shower gel, and he said it was like slathering himself all over with mint julep - which was the point, and he just didn't get it.

Maybe it was a girl thing. He refused to use lotion, too, and his skin was dry against her cheek now he'd calmed.

Sephiran stroked her hair, and she lifted her chin. "I'm sorry I didn't call," he said.

Sanaki blinked. The golden light shined against his back, a halo on the shadow of his hair. "It's alright," she said, squirming upward, tucking her head under his chin. "I understand."

Quiet settled around them. Sephiran twisted and reached back to turn the light off, and the air conditioner rumbled on down the hallway. Sanaki didn't know which of them fell asleep first, or at what time - only that he was up before she was the next morning. She woke to the sound of the shower running, the door open a crack to release steam perfumed with bright, fruity peach shampoo that matched the pale yellow light. Her back stretched and twinged when she turned onto her stomach to bury her face in Sephiran's pillow, she felt sticky between her legs, and if he didn't have an interview in an hour, she would have told him to make room for her in the shower - only she didn't want to get up. Eleven thirty was the last time she looked at the clock before she fell asleep the night before; her Japanese textbook was still on the night stand, open to a section on transitive verbs.

Sephiran must have felt as awful as she did, but he looked awake when he came out of the shower with his curtain of black hair over his shoulder, a towel around his waist, combing from the ends up until it was smooth and shiny as silk. He smiled at her, leaned over to work his fingers into her back and relieve the knots behind her shoulder blades. His hair wet the sheets.

There were no classes to go to that day. She talked with Sephiran until he left, without eating, and he came back twice - once for his phone, again for the pad of paper with his mother's hotel room and number on the back cover. He was playing it straight in black and white, and Sanaki stroked the collar of his shirt with her fingers, stretching up to kiss him good-bye a second time when he came for the notebook and was about to rush out. Wouldn't he take something - at least some toast? Maybe drink? Anything?

No time. There was more than half an hour until the beginning of the interview, but he felt pressed.

Sanaki let him go. Her morning routine crawled by - shower, cook, dress, eat, check her email, go downstairs to check the regular mail. Yesterday she'd felt like there wasn't enough time to finish everything - now she felt there was nothing to do, and the day stretched empty until a point somewhere in the future, when Sephiran would get back. She didn't know what time that would be. Maybe his mother would be with him, or maybe he would go to see her before he came home to spare Sanaki the stress. He'd mentioned something like that.

If she had a real homework assignment instead of the general directive to be sure to review, her day might look like it had some purpose. Sanaki cooked because letting him into the kitchen was asking for a mess, but they had their schedules - hers involved class three days a week and going home for at least one, he had his essay to work on, trips to the research library. Sephiran was the one who spent all of his time in the apartment. It was why he did most of the cleaning, the unpacking, why he even went shopping sometimes when he wanted a break.

His essay was due in three months. Now, he hardly did anything else. Finals were nothing compared to a four month marathon of writing. Sephiran hadn't yet complained - only smiled, said he was tired, asked her to ice his shoulders, or promised dinner out if she ironed his clothes just this once.

She sat down with a folder of old tests and picked through her mistakes until eleven, when the doorbell interrupted her silence and she left it on the counter to answer it. Their table was supposed to be delivered that morning, according to her email, but when she opened the door-- it wasn't workmen or an Amarna employee who met her, but Ashera, her hair a dull, washed-out orange in the fluorescent lighting in the hallway.

"My son told me he would not be available to meet this morning," Ashera said after a formal greeting and a shallow bow. "I was hoping to..." A line creased her brow, starkly gray. "To greet him. With lunch."

Sanaki's fingers clenched around the doorknob. "Of course." She backed away, opened the door wide to admit her guest. A scent like lilies tickled her nose when Ashera moved past her, almost soapy, made her want to sneeze. "He had an interview this morning--" Sanaki bit down on her cheek and closed the door. She heard his mother removing her shoes, placing her purse atop the cabinet, and said, "--at eight. So he should be back some time in the afternoon."

The movement behind her paused. Something clattered on the wood - a maneki neko cell phone dangle with its paw raised. Ashera's face looked drawn, and she blinked at Sanaki several times, her eyes slightly wider than they were a moment ago.

Good.

"If you don't mind waiting a few minutes," Sanaki said with a smile she hoped was polite, taking a few steps toward the couch and leading his mother's gaze when she gestured to the chair, "I'll make some tea."

She saw Ashera's hands clutch together in her peripheral vision and didn't wait for an answer, though she should have to be strictly courteous. The tea canister was still out, shoved into the corner of the counter by the stove, with the scoop she used the day before still flecked with leaves on top. She filled a glass pot with water and put it into the microwave; the bell rang again when it had a minute to go, and Sanaki sighed sharply. How many visitors was she going to have today? She hoped it was one of Micaiah's unplanned visits - then someone else would be there to hold Ashera's attention while Sanaki tried to come up with a diplomatic way to tell her how thoughtless she was for making her son face an interview on two hours of sleep.

Instead, it was the Amarna people. Great timing. She directed them to the dining area, and went to invite Ashera into the kitchen, where the microwave was beeping and there was nowhere to sit. She didn't care, but wasn't that supposed to be the height of rudeness? At least it was clean. Ashera took the corner closest to the living room, where she could see the empty area in front of the sliding glass doors, and folded her hands.

Why couldn't it have been Micaiah at the door? Now there was nowhere to go.

"You say Sephiran has an interview," his mother said.

Sanaki spooned tea leaves into a big mesh ball and snapped it closed, dropped it into the glass pot, where their yellow color spread like a cloud. "Yes." The cups were in the dishwasher. She'd already lost track of how long the tea had been steeping - twenty seconds, thirty? Did it even matter? "For a teaching job at one of the colleges here. I think it's his second with these people."

Ashera looked at her intently, and nodded after a moment. Behind her something clattered in the doorway, and the delivery guys came in with a long cardboard box. "I wish he told me."

Sanaki looked at the tea and sighed. The box was dropped with a thud loud enough she hoped the downstairs neighbors didn't have a hanging lamp like they did. "He didn't want you to worry." And she was a bitch for telling the woman anyway. He wouldn't be happy about that, but he deserved an apology. "I bet he'll tell you if you ask."

His mother's hands folded over her stomach, and she wouldn't meet Sanaki's eyes. She bit her cheek and removed the tea ball, poured it into their cups. The other woman flinched at the rip of the box opening, and that line still slashed between her brows, dark in an otherwise smooth,oval face. Her hair was combed back into a bun; her slacks were black instead of beige today, the shoulders squared. Sanaki knew the feeling.

So she squared her shoulders and handed the woman a cup of tea. "Shall we make lunch? He'll he glad to find something ready when he gets home."

Ashera's smile was small, slow to turn her lips. "Yes."

.................................................................

I'm done with this fic - and the modern AU for a while. If there are parts that drag or don't quite mesh, or if I didn't write the smut that well (in fact, it's repetitive), too bad. I don't care anymore. This thing killed my motivation to write for more than a month while I tried to make it work. Screw that. I don't want to think about it anymore.

.

[July 14] [Fire Emblem 6] Live to Serve

2009-07-13T05:29:52Z

Live to Serve
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: 14 - forever was so many different things
Gauntlet Theme: 10 - within me my heart chars
Series: Fire Emblem 6: Sword of Seals
Character/Pairing: Percival/Mildain
Rating: K
Words: 1480
Warnings: lack of creativity?

Notes: post-game.

.............................................

When they were young, the prince perhaps fifteen, and Percival only a year older, he made a promise that ended with the word forever, one he was foolish to utter when his oaths as knight and general served to confirm his loyalty to the crown. A knight gives, his mentor told him, and never receives. He remembered Mildain's hand on his cheek, that it smelled like ink; he remembered lifting his face to see the halo of the prince's hair lit by many candles around the drawing room, a clutch of curls spilling over one shoulder, and the sound of the fire snapping behind the grate, of wood crumbling to red embers and gray ash, releasing its cedar scent.

Mildain leaned down to kiss his forehead. Percival remembered him as he was now, after the war with Bern, but in truth his expressions weren't as schooled or subdued. He knew the pale face clouded, and perhaps the prince's brows contracted - because he remembered wondering if he went too far in making his oath to the person, rather than the throne.

Life would be easier if he'd achieved the impossible and minded his manners, remained distant.

"I should appoint someone to read the mail for me," his prince said. They were in a different drawing room, the decor green instead of red, the walls a light cream hand-painted with an endless pattern of vines, and Mildain reclined in a chair at a small, round table to the left of the window. Perfumed envelopes and small rectangles of colored paper layered the surface like scales, scattered where they were thrown. "I'd forgotten how much these people like to talk."

Percival remained facing the window and his own reflection in the glass, though he watched the shape of the prince, what he could see of it before the brocade covering blocked him from view. The group from the isle had always seemed noisy - lively the prince corrected him more than once - but most of them likely couldn't read, much less write, and the Etrurian nobility had collectively mastered the art of yammering in one's ear with ink and paper, the style of calligraphy, and a code of colors he'd ignored until the first blushing magenta invitation reached his liege's hands, adorned with gold ink and requesting a more intimate meeting than the usual dinner parties and dances.

"You need only say the word," Percival said. He groped behind the green brocade for a cord, and used it to pull a thinner, shimmering white curtain over the window. "I have nothing better to do while you hear audience."

"Nothing will ever reach me if it must pass through your hands first."

He left the window, crossed his arms over the high back of the chair opposite his prince. "I live to serve."

Mildain's face turned slightly away, but his eyes remained forward, the flame of the table lamp dancing across his gaze. His hair was tied back, and disappeared behind him to peek from the cushion behind his crossed legs, where the tail of gold dangled over the edge. "A certain marquess requests our presence for an observance of the vernal equinox," he said, flipping the card between his fingers to show the handwriting. "His daughter is abroad in Lycia, so we may discuss matters pertaining to Etruria's immediate future without fanfare."

Percival looked at the scrawl of black ink, wondered if it should be called elegant. Reglay wasn't often the subject of such compliments, nor was his daughter. "You are considering it, then."

His prince withdrew, turning the card and laying it on the table. "Unless you would have me marry Cecilia."

"Clever." He thought of snatching the card and tossing it into the flames. "She would favor that course of action, no doubt."

Mildain slouched in his chair, fingers hanging over the edge of the table. Another basket of envelopes still waited. He did not spare it a glance, nor did he do Percival the honor. "The Houses eye me like vultures do meat. I appreciate the irony, but I can't sidestep everyone. Best to make a choice now. Reglay will not take advantage of me - and should he die, Klein won't either."

Percival swallowed the sour taste on his tongue. He always frowned, and the prince teased him incessantly - but he couldn't excuse the downturn of his mouth this time, nor the feeling the rest of his face was betraying him, contorting out of his control. "You did say he should be your brother."

The prince flexed his fingers, chewing his lip for a second, maybe two. "Were you with me at the time? I don't remember."

"He told me. Blushed like a maiden when he did, too."

Percival watched his prince laugh, the sudden crinkle around his eyes and shaking of his shoulders before it subdued and his face reflected the light, and his eyes the lamp, nothing more. Whatever wood burned was too waxy, sharp in his nose, and he wished Aquleia were farther south so they might enjoy warmth at the beginning of spring and bid farewell to the lingering frost.

When Mildain looked at him, finally, the skin around his eyes tightening, Percival clenched his fingers on the back of the chair. "I don't care who you marry," he said before the prince did more than part his lips with the intent to speak.

"I thought you were sworn against lying."

"She will accept I am closer than your shadow, or cry and lament her lot - it is the lady's choice."

"Merciless." Mildain's hands slipped, fell into his lap. His pale robe creased, cast bronze by the mix of firelight and illumination from the lamp. "And if it is Klein's sister you insult?"

Percival uncurled his fingers and circled the table, approached the opposite chair to look down at his prince. "I pose no threat to her supremacy."

In shadow, deprived of the caress of light on his hair, his prince was small in the wide-cushioned chair, a slim figure in glowing white whose hands braced against Percival's arms when he leaned over the chair. "I'll repeat that to you later when your anger has cooled, and we'll see if you feel the same," Mildain said.

Percival turned his gaze away. The chair's arms were cushioned and wide, the hard edges biting his fingers. He could rip them from the frame if he wished, as he could break his frail prince should he lose all reason, or any woman who tried to drive a wedge between them. The thought of accompanying Mildain to Clarine's chambers night after night had his fingers clenching harder, and the wood creaked, but--

He swore to shadow his prince forever, be his shield - no matter where he walked, be it heaven or hell, the swirling sands of Nabata or the heart of Bern and a dragon's den. Forever. A daunting word. He would give and give, and someday he would not be allowed to take in kind. He knew it when he chose this path-- and yet he'd known nothing.

He straightened, and Mildain's hand flew from his elbow to his high collar, grabbed the fabric and yanked. "I didn't give you permission to move."

Percival's eyebrows lifted, and he looked down.

"On your knees."

The rug was a finger thick, the weaving soft, cream and brown and the glitter of gold; he hardly felt the impact. "My mistake, your majesty."

"Insolent even in obedience." Mildain straightened, leaning forward to push his fingers through Percival's hair, hands meeting at the back of his head as if to draw him inward. "You swore to follow my every command, no matter how inane or morally objectionable. Is that right?"

Percival's scalp tingled where his nails grazed. "That is correct."

"In the future," Mildain said, stroking his fingers through the short hair near Percival's nape, fanning it back and forth, "I will call on you to keep that oath often."

He took a deep breath; his chest felt tight, every muscle constricting. "That's why I made the promise."

"Forever."

He lowered his gaze to the safer territory of the prince's plain silk robe, and the ends of his golden hair curling across the trim. "I will die before I break it."

"No dying." Mildain's hands relaxed on his shoulders, warm weights through his wool coat. Like mirrors, his eyes seemed to reflect light. His ponytail slithered across the cushion when he leaned downward. "Consider it forbidden."

Percival would reverse the laws of nature if the prince demanded it; he even had the means if he were mad enough to pursue them. Death meant nothing. "I live to serve."

.................................................

Haha, lame ending, but I ran out of steam near the end. No planning took place in the making of this fic, so I had no idea how to tie it up.

[30 breathtakes][Fire Emblem 10] No Higher Honor

2009-07-09T05:38:01Z

No Higher Honor
Author: Amber Michelle
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Pairing: Sephiran/Zelgius
Theme: 30 - i watch your back as you walk away ; 15 - the white scarves of death
Rating: K
Word count: 1458

Notes: n/a

............................................

Though his master assured him the guardians on the first floor of the Tower of Guidance could not ascend to the second without the goddess's leave, Zelgius watched the mouth of the staircase after he forwarded his orders to Levail. The doors were still open; soldiers wandered through, heads craned to see the vault of the chamber ceiling, examine the pale blue lights, their red armor taking a golden sheen when they passed beneath the globes. The goddess had been generous with her blessing, but each of these men and women were chosen for their skill, their strength-- and their loyalty, not to himself or the Prime Minister, but to the Empress.

Lady Ashera looked into their hearts, his master had said, a simple matter for a goddess. I will not have anyone fight for me that does not hold Sanaki first in their thoughts. She would be tired - exhausted from a battle with the remains of the senior council, and the long climb between chambers. They should not force her to waste her reserves of strength dodging and fighting their own troops.

If he sought to mitigate his own guilt-- there were better ways, Zelgius thought, though Lady Sanaki would not see their point of view on the matter of the Judgment regardless. He had his orders; in the event of victory, he would take her to his master's chamber on the fourth floor, willing or not, and keep her from harm's way until the battle was over. Levail's orders were the same, should Zelgius fall.

She has been deceived, his master told them. Treat her gently, and bring her to me. I will plead forgiveness on her behalf.

And if their empress refused to accept such forgiveness, refused to capitulate - what then?

"You should show more faith in Ashera's power," his master said from behind, soft, leftward, though he appeared at Zelgius's right hand. The Tower distorted everything - red became cool, the sounds of swords being sharpened became a slithering, feathery grate on the ear, laughter fell flat; the accent to Sephiran's voice he'd never noticed before now twisted his words. "Since you fight in her name."

Zelgius met his gaze. "I fight in your name." Begnion's colors were muted in this place, but the green of his master's eyes thrived in the unnatural light as if they soaked it in; his hair had taken on a silvery sheen he had only seen once - beneath the boughs vaulting around the sacred altar at Serenes, the day his master returned to the forest and revealed his wings for the first and last time. "I'd rather go down and help them eliminate Lekain."

"Understandable." Sephiran reached back, gathered his hair, and twisted it over his shoulder, around and around, into a rope of black silk. "But it was the empress they betrayed - she deserves the privilege of deciding their fate."

Zelgius turned back to the door. "Fire or sword, claws or talons?"

"I suspect the raven king will reach him first - perhaps even on her orders." The ornaments on Sephiran's robes clinked. "That will also serve justice."

Zelgius saw his master's hands twist his rope of hair, even when it was coiled as tightly as it would go, kinked and rolled around his hand, over his shoulder, hands only pale streaks in his peripheral vision. "You said they'd arrived?"

Sephiran's hands slowed, paused; his answer, a faint yes the tower swallowed so it was a minute movement of his lips without sound, sent a thrill to Zelgius's stomach, made it twist, rather like his master's hair, into an imitation of a knot. Sephiran's looked down when his fingers slipped and his hair swirled out of his grasp, watched it unroll and disappear over his shoulder, the strands slapping the back of his robe. "A few minutes ago."

Zelgius remembered the feel of that hair sliding between his fingers. He knew the warmth of his master's hands in his, the soft skin, palms and fingertips that had never known weapons or violence. You'll have to help me, he'd said when they broke free from the cathedral prison. I've never ended a life before. No, never, not even during the massacre. It was the spirits lingering in the forest that gave him strength, taught him how to turn what was left of his essence and theirs into the energy to create light - or fire, or wind, or black, pain-wracking spells.

All of those released from life during their flight out of the capitol met their end on Zelgius's blade. If they were lucky tonight - once, he would have said if the goddess smiles upon us - Sephiran's hands would remain pristine as he wished Lady Sanaki's to be.

He was so close; two inches stretched between their hands, perhaps less, and Zelgius heard the scrape when the golden ornaments on his master's robes hit the plate of his armor. The men were quieting behind them, and silence lay beyond the door, though in a normal building he would have heard signs of battle from the floor below. He would have to give his final orders, prepare his troops for the battle ahead. He felt their eyes, the men and women under his command - for a moment he thought he heard every one of them breathe, and wondered how many would continue to do so, and of their number, how many would curse or spit on his corpse should he fall. If the empress prevailed against the goddess and the truth was revealed-- their names, his, his master's, would adorn a list of traitors whose remains would be burned and scattered, due no honor in death or the afterlife.

So be it. He didn't want to see elysian fields or the faces of his family. There was only one person he wanted to be reunited with beyond the veil of death, and if Sephiran lived after all, as Zelgius told him to, as his goddess surely would prefer, he would wait forever, alone, and watch from afar.

"I should go," Sephiran said. "She's waiting for me."

Which - the empress or the goddess? Zelgius asked him once, and the pause before he answered - my goddess - was a full breath long.

Sephiran turned, touched his shoulder so they might face each other, and his pale eyes were glassy, gleaming too brightly in the blue light. "I expect to hear your report later," he said, his lashes quivering but not daring to blink. His posture was stiff, his hands in fists at his sides. "You've never disobeyed an order before. I trust you won't today."

"Never." He should have wiped those eyes dry - drawn a handkerchief from somewhere, something, though of course his armor offered no such luxuries, and to raise his hand in such an intimate gesture now-- Zelgius folded his arm across his chest, fist over his heart. "I will see to your every command."

Sephiran's head tilted, and his lips parted slightly, ready to say something. His lashes flicked tears onto the shoulder of his robe. He nodded instead, the moisture glittering on his eyelashes, a streak on one cheek, and turned, walked away - slowly, for he had no reason to appear in a hurry. His black hair swayed, the ends fanning and gathering below his golden belt, blacker than the silk of his ceremonial robes and the darkness beyond the far doorway, where another staircase led to the next line of defense. Zelgius watched the shine, the halo around his master's head, until he disappeared above the frame and the doors moved, turning on silent hinges to close with a sound like bricks grating together.

A year ago he would have urged his master to reconsider, but their choices now were merely variations on a theme: death by the sword, death by the goddess's judgment, death by the empress's judgment, death by hawk laguz - but only if he slipped. On the last occasion he asked that question,l Sephiran asked if it was Zelgius, perhaps, who wished to reconsider, and perhaps abandon their task. He couldn't be blamed, if that were so; bringing about Ashera's rebirth was a heavy task for mortal shoulders.

No. Yes, but-- no. Zelgius was raised a knight, and pledged his service to one person, in life, in death - to break that oath would be to break himself.

He would be there later to give his report - or die trying. There was no higher honor than that.

.

[Fire Emblem 6] Glory For a Fallen King

2009-07-06T23:46:54Z

Glory For a Fallen King
By: Amber Michelle
Gauntlet theme: 22 - You said "it's just like a full moon"
Fandom: Fire Emblem 6: Sword of Seals
Characters: Percival, Elphin
Words: 4829
Warnings: n/a

Notes: for this challenge with measuringlife.

Haha, totally didn't edit! I will. It's just, I feel so lazy after having done nothing for the last few days. Indulge my need for instant gratification.

..........................................................

The Alliance Army was up at dawn, stretching from the edge of the foothills to the river up from the western sea, a forest of canvas tents and fires, lines of horses, and Percival watched it awaken while he waited by the picket line with a sack of carrot pieces he fed to his mount, Tancred, one by one; they were purchased at a dear price, and almost gone. The sky lightened in the east, gray instead of navy. His own men were bringing their tents down already, and he smelled porridge cooking, crisping salt pork, and heard a low murmur of voices below the ambient sound of so many moving, breathing, and a brush of air at the back of his neck.

Aquleia was over the next plain, perhaps two dozen leagues away. He watched a carrot disappear past the horse's blunt teeth, felt the velvety brush of his lips. Months ago, weeks ago, he wouldn't have thought himself unlucky enough to look forward to a clash with Douglas on the battlefield. The Great General had spoken of retirement and his old age, but the force of his blows still had the power to knock Percival back in a friendly spar - and he knew their power when driven by deadly intent. If he fell, Prince Mildain would be left short one vassal; if Douglas fell, his heart not behind his axe-- it would be the same. A fragile prince left behind, and a slip of a daughter with no guardian.

That was the trouble with marriage and its resulting obligations: women left widowed, children left fatherless. Percival had just passed his twenty-second summer, and he knew his father by reputation, by legend - and by memory, only as a faded image in his favorite storybook. He couldn't remember if he'd ever noticed the absence.

The sun was two lengths above the eastern mountains when the day's march began. A small band of twenty followed Percival, a length of ten or twelve horses between their line and the Lycian troops, and he spotted the green glint of Cecilia's hair farther up near the head of the column, perhaps talking with Roy, or her female pupil, whose name escaped him. Her forces merged seamlessly with the Lycians, with Klein's, and Percival watched the column in his peripheral vision. Stubborn, she said of him when he'd joined.

He was not a mercenary - nor were his men traitors. She couldn't expect him to ignore their discomfort. Etrurian discipline did not lend itself well to a casual merging of armed forces.

It was much later, once they'd forded the at the bend of the river and waited in the shade of a copse of pines for the rest of the army to follow, that Percival saw the wavy golden hair of his prince walking among the Western Isle force with his dun horse in tow. He left the men to his second-in-command and led Tancred through tall, sunlit grass, watched the prince speak with Lalum and her escort, whose hair looked nothing if not silver-plated and slightly tarnished, though her axe was sharp enough. Yellow flowers waved their heads in the breeze, bees hummed away from his approach, shaken from the stalks; the rebels clustered on a large gray rocks, some with flat tops and others slanted, the inclines shallow enough to be used for sitting. Beyond them the river shore was crowded with horses and fogged with spray. The din of their crossing drowned all but the prince's laugh. Percival's toe caught on a rock hidden in the grass, kicked it up, and announced his approach with a storm of white butterflies and the rattling harness of his horse when he jerked back and shook his head.

Enter the knight, he heard his prince's voice say, shaking and dissolving into laughter, and while Percival steadied his horse, someone clapped - the girl, who followed the prince as he led his mount over. "Just like a fairytale," Mildain said, his lips pursing to hide a smile when Percival lifted an eyebrow and snapped his own reins around his wrist.

Lalum skipped to a stop between them. "An unhappy fairytale, though." She put her hands on her hips. "Does he always look so angry?"

"It is said General Percival was born frowning instead of crying." Mildain switched his lead to the other hand behind his back when Tancred snapped at his horse and led her out of range with a tug. "The legend seems to be true."

If it were anyone else teasing him, Percival would have responded in kind. "You know the stories better than I, Master Bard. Where did this one come from?"

The prince smiled, a more subdued curve of his lips. "No need for such formality," Mildain said, tilting his head from the nuzzling nose of his horse. "Call me Elphin."

"Of course." It wasn't that Percival had forgotten, only that the alias did not leap from the tongue as Mildain did, or my prince. It did not have the ring of master, nor did it inspire the same expression, a lidding of the eyes and a not-quite smile.

"I'll ride with the general a while," the prince told his companion, turning his head to address her, and the sheen of his hair was pale sunlit silk. "Tell Echidna I'll join you later."

The din of their river-crossing faded past the copse of trees. His men didn't react to Elphin's presence aside from his second, who knew to keep his mouth shut, though his eyes widened and he dropped his canteen. In the shade the prince's hair dulled to mere gold, and the wear on his clothing was more obvious - threadbare elbows, a mended sleeve. His harp was in a case slung over one shoulder to thump against his back beneath the blue cloak, and when the wind tossed his braid it slapped against the hard leather like a drumstick. Percival wanted to untie the end, let the curls flow and drift on the current of the air.

At first they spoke of nothing - the distance to Aquleia, the speed at which the army marched and how much more might be expected of them in an emergency; the unseasonal warmth that beaded Percival's brow with sweat and made his prince hunch under the hand of the sun, though he should not be required to bend to anything, be it a worldly monarch or the myth of god beyond the blue sky. He climbed into his saddle and sat with his back straight, his shoulders squared, looked upon the remains of his kingdom.

Percival swung into his saddle, nudged Tancred forward. He raised his arm, motioned with his hand to his second - move up. "How many others know?"

"I could not hide it from Klein." Elphin rolled his neck, cracked it, lips hinting at another smile when Percival told him he shouldn't do something so inelegant in public. "Cecilia guessed, and aside from your second, I don't think anyone here came close enough to recognize my face. What is his name?"

"Robert." Lycian mercenaries walked in a loose formation to their left; Percival watched the group from the Western Isles to their right, and he was paid no notice, though Elphin smiled at the commander. "He would have met you at the gala last year," Percival said. He was close enough to reach over and touch the prince - his arm, his knee, his pale hand. "You didn't finish telling me of your own circumstances. I won't be distracted with politics this time - out with it."

"Is that an order?" Elphin chuckled when Percival's face flushed. "Why don't I tell you a story instead."

Percival glanced over, lowered his voice. "Unless this story involves your mysterious disappearance--"

"It's a plainsman tale," Elphin said, blue eyes sliding to watch him. "The Benevolent Ghost, as I believe it is known in Sacae." Percival snorted, and the prince raised his eyebrows. "Have you heard it before, General?"

"I cannot say I have."

Elphin's cloak fluttered in the breeze, and the hair framing his face drifted back, caught the sun. "I trust you will withhold judgment until I've finished."

Percival bowed his head. "Of course."

*

Two years ago to the very day Percival stood where he did come nightfall, after the Alliance stopped to make camp. An imperial villa lay to the west some thirty minutes' walk down a meandering dirt path through the pines, at the edge of a town and within sight of the blue and gray horizon of the ocean. He'd followed the prince past its white walls as squire, as knight, as general, sat with him beneath the low-slanting eaves to watch the night-blooming flowers at dusk and discuss matters not revolving around court. They'd read old scrolls by candlelight in the small library, bare feet on the cold terracotta tiles. They toasted to his knighthood in the garden, seated beneath an arch overrun with jasmine, and he remembered Mildain lamenting his own inability to wield a sword. He remembered telling the prince that was nonsense. His knights existed to hold those weapons for him, to spill blood so he would not have to - to obey his every command, no matter how unreasonable, wrong or right.

They'd waited at the crossroads for a scout to return and report the road ahead safe. Dusk had fallen then, too, leaving their small party in shadow, and Percival remembered nudging their mounts so close together their thighs brushed, ready to grab the prince and run if a threat presented itself. He even reached for his hand, rested his fingers over a slim white wrist, and felt the brush of his pulse beneath the skin - cold skin.

Stop fidgeting, Mildain said - though he didn't pull his hand away when Percival took it and rubbed warmth back into the skin. Who knows we're here?

No one. No one knew; they made the trip because the prince was tired of the birthday celebrations, the parties in his honor and the near-constant flow of gifts, notes, visitors to his rooms, the library, and wanted a few days of peace. Just the two of us. He was staring out at the full moon when he said it, seated at the table in a small drawing room he used for private dining, leaning his elbows on the table. Indulge me, won't you, Percival?

Always.

Another day passed before they ran into each other again. Aquleia was in sight once they stopped for the evening, though several leagues away across a deforested plain; the city lights glittered to the north like a sea of yellow stars scattered on the plain and hovering above the ocean, where ships sat in harbor. Percival remembered the uneven ends of Elphin's nails and found an apothecary among the services pulled along by the supply line to purchase a small pot of scented paste. It was the sort of luxury they had in the capitol, along with lotions, oils, perfumes - but if the prince insisted on working with his hands, they would stay healthy.

The perimeter guard was doubled at Cecilia's suggestion, and the troops were encouraged to retire early. The campfires were small, but there was no use in hiding them; the city must know of their approach by now. Douglas would be in charge of defenses if not Bern, and neither were slack in the execution of their duty. The outer city would be left undefended if Bern were in charge, and the walls to the inner city would be manned by archers and infantry with javelins. Percival had seen to the defenses weeks ago, maybe as long as a month.

He'd not seen the garden for much longer - a year, perhaps.

Elphin sat alone on a crate by a small fire. The tents nearby were lit; voices drifted on the night air, muffled by the canvas, and the fire snapped, sparked, played orange and red on the prince's hair and the strings of his harp. He lifted his head slightly when he heard footsteps, though he did not look up.

"Master Bard," Percival said, and the prince straightened at the greeting.

"Still so formal, General," Elphin said, and his fingers tightened on his harp. "I have not yet mastered the art. You pay me undue honor."

Percival side-stepped between crates and entered the circle around the fire, thinking to make the prince meet his eyes. Elphin's gaze remained fixed on the flames, a mirror for their shifting light. "I have a gift - for your service earlier, that is," Percival said, and approached to speak more softly. The murmur of conversation behind him didn't pause. "You must be working harder. I saw the condition of your hands."

Elphin rubbed his fingertips with his thumb, cradled his instrument to his chest. "Yes. The resistance was never what one would call a robust force. I am unused to playing for so many people, so often."

"Ask the dancer for help - it's why she followed you, is it not?"

"She knows who we march to fight on the morrow." The prince leaned to the side, reached down, and Percival heard the harp case scrape the crate when Elphin lifted it and felt for the clasp. "I sent her to bed, and Echidna accompanied her, or I would not sit here alone."

Percival's fingers twitched to open it for him; the prince felt for the inside of the case before he placed his harp inside, slowly, groping like a blind man seeing with his fingers. A chill pricked his arms. "Pr-- Elphin, is something--"

"Nothing." Elphin's blue eyes turned down, but they were not fixed on what his hands were doing; he appeared to stare at the ground, where broken grooves in the dirt bore testament to the drawing of a map, now swept away by a boot. "You have a personal tent, correct?"

Percival watched the light flick in his eyes, on his thick fringe of golden lashes. "Yes..." His hand trembled when he reached out, spread it before the prince's eyes. They blinked, did not shift. He sucked in a deep breath, and it became a hiss through his teeth. "Nothing?" Percival leaned down, took hold of Elphin's shoulders. "What is the meaning--"

"Quiet." The prince covered Percival's mouth with his hand, and finally turned his face up, a dull glint to his eyes. They looked at his chin, and yet at something far off, unseeable. "Take me there. Lead me, and I will tell you. I can't, not here--"

The old protest was on his tongue - rumors will fly, we should wait - but a shadow creased the smooth skin between Elphin's brows, and Percival straightened, pulled the prince to his feet, took the harp case and held it under one arm. "It will be a long walk." They would be seen many times over. Rumors would fly. Bards of the prince's caliber were valued in Etruria, and not always for their stories; he had never tried to attract one by offering patronage, but he knew of others who spent more than money on their favorite artists.

Elphin's arm curled around Percival's elbow, his hand grasping the shoulder of his tunic, and he turned ghostly in the moonlight when they left the entertainers' fire, maneuvering between the crates, then along a meandering pathway between tents. He adjusted his step to match, and the prince shuffled over the trampled grass, kicked up puffs of gray dust. He clenched his fist in Percival's sleeve, a tremor in his arm. It seemed every step was a heartbeat, or two, and the camp was deathly silent aside from their breathing, though some canvas walls were lit, and there were shadows crowded around the bigger fires, and meat still sizzled and cooked. The way the prince hugged his arm and stumbled, one might think him drunk.

He wanted to ask what possessed Elphin to stay outside when his companions left, what good they were if they did not check on him-- but Percival could hardly draw a deep enough breath to satisfy his lungs. If he spoke it would be in a breathless whisper, as if he'd run all the way from the capitol with Bern at his back.

He felt light-headed when they reached the dome of his tent and he lifted the flap, led the prince inside, and guided him to sit on the cot. It was unmade. Percival yanked the blankets in place and helped Elphin sit, left the harp case on the pillow. "What is this?" Percival whispered, the sound harsh, sibilant, another chill along his spine.

Elphin led his hands slide over Percival's sleeve, but gripped his hand tightly instead of letting go. "I'm sorry, Percival." His other hand reached, brushed the pommel of his sword. "I could not speak of it at the fire, you understand." He knelt at Elphin's feet because he didn't think his legs would hold him upright the way they shook. He'd neglected to light the lamp, and the moonlight filtered through the canvas only faintly, enough the prince was a shadow against the gray backdrop - and thin, cold hands that released him and rested against his cheeks. He tilted Percival's face up. "I am still recovering." He smelled like honey and ambergris, and sweet rose. "The healer tending to me said the poison may always linger - I suppose it might have damaged something."

He spoke of it with so little tone Percival choked on his own protests and had to swallow hard several times, holding the prince's hands to his face, feeling wisps of hair tickle his knuckles. "Never. When you return to Etruria we will have another care for you. Or, one of the divine weapons--"

"Rubbish." A jagged fingernail pressed the skin near Percival's ear. He thought Elphin leaned forward. "They must not be used for such a selfish purpose. You know that."

"Selfish?" Percival tensed at the volume of his voice, swallowed against a dry throat. "You didn't ask to be the victim of an attack--"

"I will be fine with rest." It was the movement of the air that told him Elphin drew away again, the sudden coolness against Percival's forehead, against his cheeks when the prince pulled his hands away. "I was fine earlier. I will be well in the morning, and you will forget about this. We can't have you trailing after a simple bard all hours of the day - consider this an order."

Rank be damned - Percival would do it anyway. He had followed his prince to dozens of parties and private meetings and managed to remain unseen - whether by his own skill or the willful ignorance of their hosts, he could not know, though he hadn't met many nobles one could call observant of anything but jewelry and the cut of one's clothing. "I do not say it often," he said, lowering his gaze to nothing - to the shadow that might have been his companion's lap, or folded hands. "But there are times you can be a cruel master, Prince Mildain."

A short, sharp sigh was his answer.

How often did this happen? Had the blindness struck before on this trip - before Percival joined, or after? Who protected Mildain while he walked in darkness? Who led him to his tent, hid him from the public eye - surely they must have. Blindness was sometimes the touch of the gods, and sometimes a curse, and the backwater towns clustered on the Western Isles could not make up their collective mind on which it should be. How trustworthy was their healer? The prince was alive, but--

Percival stared into the darkness for a count of ten. Maybe it was twenty. He managed to stand by bracing his weight on the frame of the cot, felt the tangle of Elphin's hair before he straightened and felt his way across the tend to the table with his maps, a book, matches, and the oil lamp. Its flame was a tiny sun that made the tent walls opaque, a dull brass color that made Elphin's braid look a pale brown over his shoulder, and his hand a shadow dancing along the weaving, down, down, playing the highlights like harp strings until he found the cord tying the end and yanked it loose.

Percival retrieved the harp case and left it on the table, removed his sword, his dagger, the pouch hanging from his belt, and heard the pot of salve clatter against the silver. The astringent scent lanced his nose when he pulled it out and worked the stopper loose. The ceramic jar was small enough to fit the center of his palm, packed to the neck with waxy, brown butter.

"The sun had just set when my vision faded," Elphin said, half whisper. His hair spread over his back in thick waves, spread on the blanket behind him, and the circlet and cord dangled from his fingers. "It looked like a beautiful night was approaching."

"Give me your hands," Percival said, crossing the tent floor and kneeling again beside the cot. He dug a nail-full of butter out, left it on the floor. Elphin's hands were warmer than when they'd touched last, still soft but for the tips of the fingers, where he'd had calluses as long as Percival could remember. The prince began his education before they met; even as a child the skin was hard there, accustomed to the plucking of silk strings.

"Tell me what it was like," Elphin said, eyelashes lowering as if to watch. He rested one hand on his knee. "The moon hadn't risen yet. The sky was still gold."

Percival rubbed the salve into Elphin's finger around the nail, rubbed it in until the skin was smooth and the nail shined. "I am not very good with words," he said.

Elphin found his cheek again, the touch of his hand feather-light until it drifted downward, rested against the side of Percival's neck. "Tell me anyway." His lips curved up, fuller in the dim light. "I want to hear your voice."

Heat spread from his hand like magic, and Percival found it difficult to breathe once again. He let the silence linger while he applied the salve, tried not to wrinkle his nose at the smell, though his prince could not see the expression. "The moon waxed full tonight," he said, holding Elphin's fingers spread, tracing the bones across the back of his hand. It couldn't have been more than a day since Percival last touched him, but it felt like the first time again - the first time after that long, dark year during which he sought death for himself rather than glory for a fallen king. "It rose against a magenta sky, and the stars seemed to come out in its wake..."

*

Percival woke to a hand shaking his shoulder and someone's voice outside calling his name. The air was hazy, warm, smelled of straw and dust. A thin slash of sunlight entered between the tent flaps, the angle just right to shine into his eyes when he opened them, blinked. Dust motes swirled when he expelled a breath. Metal clattered beyond the walls, voices shouted, and then once again, just outside, he heard, General Percival, I really need to talk to you, come on please--

He jolted awake. The muscles in his back pulled when he sat up too quickly, sore behind a shoulder blade where a rock had poked through the burlap floor, and he groaned. "Just a minute," he called, and the voice fell silent.

"Lalum," Elphin said, his voice still deep and lazy with sleep. He squinted against the sunlight when Percival turned, rising on one elbow. "She will have missed me."

Percival watched his blond hair slither over a shoulder, pool on the cot, slide over the edge. "Of course." He squeezed his eyes shut to rub them. "I'll--" He'd get up, talk to her, reassure her - quietly, though there was no use in trying to hide her now. His men knew better than to talk.

The prince shoved his shoulder, and Percival's joints cracked when he climbed to his feet, aching, stiff from sleeping on the ground. He ran a hand through his hair and pushed outside. Lalum was a washed out figure in the glare of the morning, against the east sky, the top of her head glowing gold and red. He hadn't realized how small she was; had she even come of age yet? "He's here," he said, and resisted the urge to rub grit from his eyes. "Please don't make a fuss."

Her hands went to her hips again, and he wondered if she met everyone with the same pose. "Would you want me to say nothing at all?" Lalum's eyes flicked up, down. Her gossamer scarves looped around her elbows, and the outline of her legs showed against the thin silk of her ballooned pants. "Didn't get much sleep, huh. You're even more sour than before."

Percival stared at her, then looked down at himself. Bare feet, creased trousers, no shirt-- "Just--" He cleared his throat, heat creeping to his face, said, "Just get him a change of clothes, girl," and bent to re-enter his tent.

He heard her giggle and clenched his teeth. Elphin's laughter joined hers to greet him, and glittering blue eyes a poet might have likened to jewels, but Percival could only stare at them a moment, note how the prince met his gaze, and feel his chest tighten.

"I am an amusing man," Percival said, leaving the entrance, approaching the cot. "So you told me a long time ago." He rolled his neck, rubbed the muscles at his back. "How amusing?"

Elphin covered his mouth with a hand and cleared his throat, seemed to swallow his laughter, though the set of his mouth was too firm, the corners still slightly turned up behind the fingers. "I couldn't have said anything of the sort," he said, slanting his eyes away. "Nor can I have poor Lalum running at your beck and call. I am only a bard, sir knight - not royalty."

Percival gathered the tangle of Elphin's hair with one hand and sat behind him, shoved the pillow over the edge when it got in the way. "This bard will be treated like a prince." It streaked over his lap when he let it go, brushstrokes of sunlight. Percival separated a section and combed his fingers into the waves, starting at the ends and loosening the knots. "No argument."

"Hmm. Stubborn." Elphin inclined his head slightly, perhaps looking at his hands. Maybe he smiled again - Percival's fingers were clumsy, snapped a hair, and his heart beat harder again as if he could see it. He would have given anything to see those lips again, hear this hum of a laugh. "If that is your wish--"

"It is."

A pause, a sigh. "You've developed an irritating habit, Percival."

"My apologies." The silk of Elphin's hair slid between his fingers, scented with roses. "Name my penance, and I will see to it."

Percival heard his second call out camp assignments - three to take the tents down, two to pack them into the supply wagon, two for cooking duty, and they were to be quick about it. The chorus of responses was loud - too loud. It echoed, carried on the cool air, and he stared at the golden curls in his hands. They marched on the capitol today. The battle would begin when they were tired, end with exhaustion, but they were too close to wait another night.

"I will tell you later - after the battle," Elphin said, and he reached back to find Percival's hand and grasp it. "You must return in one piece, unless you intend to compound your wrongs."

Always. He would never neglect to return to his prince. "As you wish."

................................................................

I hope this inspires someone in spite of the potential lameness. >_>

Anyway, part of the reason I didn't edit is because this is my first fic for the game and these characters, so I'm bound to hate everything about it later. May as well just bite the bullet and put it up.

[30 Kisses][Fire Emblem 9/10] For Memory

2009-07-03T02:27:04Z

For Memory
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9-10
Theme: 30 - kiss
Words: 851
Rating: T for implication of "adult content."
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~

Notes: Also for 31 - if love is fated, you'll chew it red from my list over at the gauntlet challenge. Assumes the "bad end" to FE10 involving these characters, and includes some Sanaki/Pelleas, though both are unhappy about it.

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Sanaki sipped bitter mint tea at the table by her bed, stared at the rumple of sheets on her side - the one near the window, where daybreak would reach first. The night sky was still a cold blue, pricked by stars but not lit by a moon. The yellow lamplight made the purple curtains an ugly, dull brown just a shade from red. When she was younger she'd wanted red for everything; red curtains, red rugs, red quilts, and he wouldn't let her have them - for the expense, Sanaki thought now, though at the time Sephiran told her it wasn't healthy to surround herself with such a color. It would turn her thoughts, he said, make them dark.

But it was blue that darkened her thoughts - and silver, and perhaps a certain shade of green. Red was the color of love. There was no more cliche verse than lips as red as the rose; there were party games to challenge the best poets among the aristocracy to turn such verses on their heads, make of them something new - blood, of course, of which she had plenty just now, and betrayal, perhaps the deep crimson of a favorite muscat wine. They served it at the wedding reception earlier, and it tasted just as she remembered, a perfect accompaniment for the dark chocolate truffles presented to her on a crystal tray. This is a joyous day, Oliver had said, lifting his glass to the light to begin his speech. It was a globe of garnet in the claw of his short, fat fingers. Altina's line continues, and we make our peace with Daein.

Daein was the most logical choice; Renning of Crimea was too old in her own estimation, and a marriage alliance with any of the laguz tribes would take a heavy toll on her bridegroom, but Daein - they had Pelleas, to whom Begnion owed the deepest of debts. Sanaki counted her blessings: he would not try to manipulate her, would not try to stab her in the back, literally or figuratively, he had no interests in Begnion to speak of. He barely knew what to do with himself in the bedchamber, but she had no intention of inviting him again once she secured an heir - nor would she invite anybody else. She wouldn't miss it. Her joints ached where her hips were spread, the skin stung between. It was messy, her nose objected to the smell. She'd already taken a bath and rubbed herself all over with gardenia oil and butter scented with tiare - for memory.

Gardenias would droop over her balcony rail come morning, planted around the perimeter in stone pots and basins. Their white petals would awaken with the sun, spread their wings, and their soft, velvety texture would remind her of the hands that used to pick them.

It wasn't his fault, Pelleas; he only embodied everything that had gone wrong for as long as she could remember, everything she thought was hers, and yet wasn't. He faced away from her now, his spine a long, slim line disappearing beneath the blankets, which he'd gathered and bunched in his arms as he slept. All she heard was his breathing. Sanaki counted her blessings again: he would leave in two months for Daein, and wouldn't return until the new year. Her advisers would keep their mouths shut now she'd made an effort to secure the throne. She'd kept her word, and acknowledged Daein as an equal rather than a lesser nation.

Sanaki always kept her word. Always. She would never break it, no matter how her husband's touch made her skin crawl-- even if he murmured someone else's name in his sleep. Maybe she did the same thing. Perhaps there was another name on her lips, waiting to be spoken, though she'd never thought of him in that way before - not really. It would have been strange to bring him to her bedchamber and let him undress her, to feel his hands caressing her skin or his lips anywhere but on her cheek, though leading Pelleas through the motions was just as awkward.

Sanaki could only imagine Sephiran would be a better lover. She remembered the butterfly touch of his fingertips to her forehead when he arranged her hair, and the careful way he embraced her, always perfectly appropriate. He told her she was beautiful every day, that she was the only thing that mattered in his life, the only person he loved.

It couldn't have been true. But even if every caress was a lie, and every word he said false, he would take her in his arms and whisper something soft, sweet, silly, comb his fingers through her hair and smile-- and while her husband would close his eyes and follow her hands, she knew Sephiran would begin the right way, with an embrace, an endearment - with a kiss.

....................................................

This is something I didn't explore in Silence at Daybreak because Pelleas died in my game. It's a little angsty, though.

[Fire Emblem 8] The Summer of Her Beauty

2009-07-01T05:33:24Z

The Summer of Her Beauty
By: Amber Michelle
Theme: 4 - I want to be where your bare foot walks
Characters: Carlyle, Ismaire
Words: 1433
Warnings: n/a

Notes: for this challenge with measuringlife.

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For once the summer dawned cool over Jehanna Hall and coaxed the olive trees to open their fragrant blossoms and litter Carlyle's path with round white petals. A bird of prey keened, its shape a black shadow against the morning blue; water flooded the stone channels irrigating the garden, sliding like silk behind the hibiscus and gurgling as streams did in books, a momentary glitter between the bushes that persisted in catching his eye until he reached the courtyard in which his queen was seated on a curved stone bench. Her back was turned to his approach, her red hair a smooth, straight fall over her slim shoulders, her back, to sway at the ends a hands-breadth from the dusty sandstone floor. Her chamberlain, tall, dark-skinned, round about the edges beneath his green robes, stood at her side and spoke quietly, eyes flicking upward to meet Carlyle's gaze for a moment.

He stopped, waited at the archway into the covered patio. The queen did not turn to greet him. Her hands curled into fists on her knees, and Carlyle turned his attention to the sound of the water and a breeze rustling through the branches of pomegranate climbing the arbor and scenting the air with large, trumpet-shaped blossoms a crimson red like her hair.

It must be that business about the clans; though he didn't hear what she said, the undertone to her voice and the pace of her words made his shoulders tense. When she waved the chamberlain away and called Carlyle to her side, the motion of her hand was sharp and quick.

"My queen." He bent knee, eyes on her hands. They folded in her lap, calmer, but her fingers curled and the bones stood out on the back. "The uprising to the north has been taken care of. I have a report."

"Not right now, if you don't mind." Her face was turned away when he dared to look up, her profile lit from behind by the sun emerging from behind the branches. The chamberlain had taken that path out; she frowned. "He's full of opinions regarding their motivations. Instability, he says - a woman on the throne, and no heir."

Carlyle listened to her sharp sigh and saw her fingers crease the dark silk of her dress, curling into fists again, and kept his hands still - one on his knee, one braced on the ground. Half a cubit stretched between them, an insurmountable gulf. "Even when your husband was alive--" No, that was not the best tack to take, and yet he'd already begun. "My lady, the clans agreed to follow his lead, but they couldn't have anticipated his decision to leave you in his place. Once we've proven the power rests firmly in your hands--"

"They've had five years," Ismaire said, and the line of her lips deepened into a frown, her brows drawing together. "I can only conclude they do not intend to bend their necks. If Joshua were here--"

A line of quails picked their way beneath the tangle of pomegranate near the ground, around the patio stones. A breeze flicked the leaves, shifted the dappled shadows painting the queen's silks and shimmering on her hair, and it was warmer than before, the sun rising above the garden wall, the olive trees and junipers, to glitter from her earrings and paint the cream of her exposed shoulder white. An artist couldn't have painted a more inviting curve.

If Joshua were there, she would not be required to rule. She would not be trapped on his throne, a gazelle tethered in the sights of a pack of lions - though such a description was generous when applied to the men at court, when they could barely lift their swords. Ismaire was stronger; beneath her silks was a figure toned by hours of practice with the sword, shapely, muscular. Her hands were callused. She smiled when they crossed blades, laughed in the face of defeat. Her face hardened to stone when she sat on the throne, her eyes only jewels - still beautiful, but dull.

"They want me to declare my son dead and produce another child."

Carlyle's head snapped up and he said no before he realized he'd spoken, and knew his mistake when she turned her face forward and tilted her head. "You must not consider it." He lowered his head again, took a deep breath. His heart beat like a deep-boled drum, slamming against his ribs, his pulse pounding in his throat. "They want to use you to place someone else in power. It will mean war."

"I thought as much." The wind brought voices from the other side of the garden and drowned Ismaire's sigh. If only he could take her hands. She splayed them over her knees, stretched her fingers. "He would not have wanted that."

His eyes burned, dry with the effort of remaining downcast. "No."

She leaned forward, her slender hands on his shoulders. "Stand up, Carlyle. This is ridiculous."

His queen remained seated, and he wished she would stand, steer him toward the garden walk, so he would have a reason to take her hand and place it on his arm. She was not young, not anymore, but when she clasped her hands and looked up at him, eyes blue and gleaming in the uneven sunlight, he remembered the afternoon they first met, when she sat beneath this very arbor, shaded by a parasol carried by her handmaid because it was newly built and not yet overgrown. Every comparison Carlyle's mind conjured that day - her hands softer than silk when he knelt to kiss her fingers, eyes like sapphires or the evening sky, skin like cream - they were all true. The scent of roses lingered when she moved, her robes perfumed, her hair.

He couldn't remember a time in which he had not wanted to run his fingers through her hair. Life before Ismaire was a faded watercolor image - a myth. Carlyle had not existed before the moment she congratulated him on achieving knighthood so many years before.

"Look again. Send your best agents." Ismaire did not wear lip rouge, and her mouth was still soft, delicate - there were no lines to crease her skin when she spoke. Not young, perhaps, but not aged. In the summer of her beauty, he had once heard said of a woman - an apt phrase, for his queen was in full bloom. "A boy of his talent will never remain in obscurity - I'm sure he would choose to use his skill. He is no fool, no matter what he said."

Carlyle watched the play of light on her wide sleeves and breathed out slowly so it would not become a sigh. A man of Joshua's talent would not remain unknown, perhaps, but he might die in obscurity, a knife between his shoulder blades or across his throat. "I will see to it personally."

"No." Ismaire reached for him again, seemed to think better of it, and instead rested her hand to her breast. "No, I will need your strength, Carlyle. Send someone else."

He opened his mouth to argue - and stopped. Her protest wasn't what it sounded like, though Carlyle's heartbeat was so loud, for a moment, he could hear nothing else. He managed a murmured as you wish and a shallow bow, and she thanked him before ending their meeting with a request that she be left alone. Her smile was pale, not what it once was. He couldn't bring himself to warn her.

They might find Joshua - or what was left of him. Perhaps only a trace, a story. The prince would become another storybook painting yellowing on dusty parchment in a book nobody read. Perhaps it would be better that way. No son of his, Carlyle found himself thinking as he strolled beneath the olive branches, would abandon Ismaire in such a fashion. Sometimes he wished he were as shameless as the men pressing her to remarry and offering themselves for the candidacy, though she wouldn't trust him as she did if he shed his morals and abased himself.

War was inevitable, but he would not let it end with the passing of his queen to another. Her scented hand and pale smiles were his alone.

.

[30 Kisses][Fire Emblem] First Day of Summer

2009-06-30T09:16:12Z

First Day of Summer
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9-10
Theme: 13 - excessive (chain)
Words: 1498
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~

Notes: modern AU. Since I have no idea how to interpret this theme, I'm ignoring the second half and just using excessive as my inspiration. Prequel to Realignment, which will be up once I'm done nitpicking. And then I may ditch the modern AU for a while, so if you're not a fan, there's relief in sight. :p

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Sanaki dipped her spoon into a cup of steamed egg custard and held it up, tilted it to see if the egg ran too much, then put it in her mouth. It tasted like egg, and shiitake mushroom, reminded her a little bit of the egg and chicken bowl her mother made whenever she wanted comfort food. Over the counter, where it curved out from the kitchen wall to extend the kitchen into the living room and border it with a white tile bar, she saw Sephiran in the opposite corner, at his desk, with the blue-white glow of his laptop. His typing was faint, overtaken by the hum of the refrigerator when it rumbled on behind her. She carved another scoop, tasted it, wondered if it was worth calling him in for. The tip of an orange shrimp tail peeked at her from the cup. She'd placed a slice of mushroom on top of each bowl before putting them in the oven; surrounded by the yellow egg, framed by the glazed white porcelain, they reminded her of eyes. Creepy, misshapen eyes, the kind that marked villains in supernatural books and anime-- not that she read any of that drivel.

So it only took her three hours and four batches to make a decent bowl of savory custard - and it would still taste better without the shrimp. Maybe she should have tried something easier. Nothing was wrong with grilled cod, or mackerel. A good old standby like teriyaki salmon wouldn't kill anybody either, and it was a cinch to make; throw together the sauce, marinate for an hour, drizzle with sesame oil, and it would taste like a masterpiece.

"How is it?" She heard Sephiran's chair squeak, heard the pad of his feet over the Persian rug. He had expensive taste, but the background was a beautiful cranberry red, and the golds and whites and greens of the design were still bright and clean.

"Passable." She looked up, and he leaned on the other side of the raised counter. "Time to give up."

His brows contracted a hair; he took the spoon from her, reached down for the bowl. "You're always so hard on yourself."

Sanaki put her hands on her hips and watched him eat a mouthful. He raised his eyebrows. "Well," she said, spreading a hand. "What does it taste like?"

"Chawanmushi," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "So I'm in the ballpark."

"It's good." Sephiran came around the counter, into the kitchen, digging for another bite. "Do we get to eat it? I'm starving."

"I can't believe you," she muttered as he leaned down to kiss her. She told him to take a second bowl, because they were small, and there was rice in the cooker-- then she took the last bowl of custard and picked the shrimp out. "Here."

He held his bowl out, the one they'd both eaten from, and she let the shrimp slide in. "Sit down," he said, rounding the counter to take a stool. The table they ordered was still in transit, or so the Amarna website told them; they had two of Zelgius's barstools on loan, the same ones they used when Sephiran was still his roommate. "You've done more work than I have."

That sounded better when one neglected to mention he'd gotten home an hour ago. The sky outside the sliding glass door was still pale, pink and yellow, darkening slowly to orange as it disappeared behind the treeline at the edge of the complex.Though Sanaki had opened the door to cool the kitchen while using the oven, splashing and yelling in the pool down below was louder than the tide. They were using the grill too; she smelled something on the coals - garlic, probably some kind of red meat, and wished she'd thought of putting more on the stove to supplement the chawanmushi. Chicken, anything. The rice looked lonely on her plate, blending with the plain glass and pretending it wasn't there.

She dumped her custard over it, digging it out with another spoon, and Sephiran laughed. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose?" When she stuck out her tongue, he tried to snatch it with his chopsticks.

"I'd like it better with chicken," Sanaki said. Her carrot flowers slid over the rice, onto the plate.

"So make it with chicken."

She scooped up a slice of carrot. There were little splits in the petals, like cherry blossoms. "That isn't the way it's supposed to be made."

"Who judges such a subjective thing?"

"All the recipes say--"

"She won't care. Don't worry so much about it."

Sanaki stuffed a spoonful of rice into her mouth, worked the carrot in around it, and stayed where she was - at the counter, to the left of the stove, which she hadn't turned off yet. She hit the button with the base of her spoon and pretended not to see his stare in her peripheral vision. Dishes filled the right side of the sink. "I just want her to know you're being fed - and not with those disgusting boxed mixes, or--"

"I managed just fine before," Sephiran said. She paused mid-chew, turned her head slightly to look at him. He smiled and tried to hide it, and his shoulders shook. "Those frozen dinner boxes were all his."

"Zelgius taught you so many bad habits."

He lifted a brow. "Now you sound like my mother."

Sanaki opened the cupboard behind her and stood on her toes to reach for a blue glass with a school of tiny fish scattered like yellow polka dots all over the side. She wedged it under the hook of the filtered water spout at the sink. "It's just, if she knows at least one of us won't burn the kitchen down--"

"Sanaki."

"Sephiran--"

"I have a request," he said.

Sanaki glanced over and tried to relax her frown, filled her glass by sound until it nearly overflowed, and brought it to her lips.

"That salt-cured salmon that you made last week," Sephiran said, carving a crescent of custard out of his second bowl. "And the rice mixed with hard-cooked eggs, and the corn chowder. And-- that spaghetti..."

She took little sips of water, and it hurt her teeth, it was so cold. Her shirt was soaking water in from the edge of the counter, getting clammy and cool, but the kitchen was still hot from running the oven for three hours. "That's four requests," she said.

He put his bowl down, the spoon clinking on the side. "Come here."

Sanaki took two sips, watching him watch her, then put the glass down and walked out of the kitchen. The stool actually made him taller; the wood creaked when she stepped up on the bar to meet him, for once able to look down at his face without being horizontal. "You already told me not to worry."

"Clearly I have to tell you again." He tugged her arm, and she heard his dish scrape across the tile, pushed away with his other hand. His pull was persistent, and he didn't led up until she gave in and straddled his lap, the edge of the counter hard against her spine. "If my mother wants to eat Japanese, she can go to a resturant and be served. I'm sure she won't bother, as she can make any of these dishes for herself at home at any time."

Though he steadied her with a hand, and the counter kept her from sliding back, Sanaki dug her fingers into his shoulders and listened to the scratch and slide of her manicured nails, made sure he felt their crescent bite through the cotton. The collar was unbuttoned. She stared at that. "You don't think she would want to feel at home?"

"Not if it means you exhaust yourself with stress." His fingers crawled up to her waist. "You have finals in two weeks. My mother understands this. Her opinion of you will not degrade simply because you aren't cooking for her. Don't waste your energy."

It wasn't like she'd exhausted herself in the kitchen. She wasn't his housewife, or his maid, or his mistress-- or maybe she was that, but the agreement didn't stipulate things like chores and food. No, she was just-- hot, maybe; she'd changed halfway through the first batch of custard, kicking her school clothes off for a skirt and tank. The oven heated the room; the air still vented from the back of the stove. The breeze from the sliding door was warm too. She shifted on Sephiran's lap, felt the smooth khaki fabric rub the inside of her thighs, and knew he'd tensed when the cords of muscle in his legs stood out, pronounced, through his pants.

No, exhausted wasn't it at all. Sanaki looked up, kept her chin down, and dragged her nails over the thin gray lines striping his shirt, across his heart, to pick at the buttons. "You should finish eating," she said. His stare made her legs weak. "It'll get cold."

Sephiran leaned in, kissed her cheek, nuzzled her hair. His arms folded over her waist and pulled her against his chest. "It's better cold."

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I'll just say I'm dissatisfied. It's been that kind of month. Nothing is turning out right.

[Fire Emblem] [Drabble 22] Forgiveness

2009-06-25T01:38:23Z

Forgiveness
Author: Amber Michelle
Challenge: 22 – mistake
Word Count: 500
Game: Radiant Dawn
Characters: Elincia, Lucia

Warnings: spoilers to the end of chapter 2.

Cross-posted at fe_drabble.

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Night fell on a day of victory, and Elincia sat on a white chair by the balcony rail with a length of Lucia's hair in one hand, bound at one end with ribbon, a straight, blue curve over her palm and across her lap. She twisted itaround her hand. Stars winked in an indigo sky. Summer's heat lingered in the still night air; the walks down in the garden were drenched after the watering and smelled like mud and grass, and a nightingale's call echoed.

Lucia said the cut was a blessing in disguise, but all Elincia could remember before Lucia returned were the hours she'd spent combing it when they were girls, the times she washed it, oiled it, braided it. If Elincia had faltered one moment, just one, this handful of hair would be the only thing left of a loyal friend and the closest thing to a sister she'd ever known.

It was a lesson, she told Ike - one Elincia would never forget. She wondered if it would haunt Lucia's dreams. And what of the way Geoffrey forgot himself when the noose was looped over his sister's neck and grabbed her arm while she watched with her knees locked, wondering if she could just stand there and let it happen-- and if he would forgive her.

Would he?

A knock sounded from inside. Elincia clenched her hand and called for whoever it was to enter.

Of course he would.

He said he did.

Yet, when she felt arms slide over her shoulders and recognized Lucia by the bruises around her wrists and the pattern of the veins over the back of her hand, Elincia dropped the lock of hair and grabbed her arm with both hands, eyes going hot and wet, threatening to blot their hands with tears and doubts.

Lucia's sigh stirred her hair. "I knew you'd dwell if I left you alone."

Elincia clenched her teeth until her temples throbbed, closed her eyes. Ten hours ago they'd stared at each other over the battlements, sure they'd never meet again. Lucia stood beside her again thanks to someone else's foresight.

"It's like that time you hit me with a broom, remember - almost took an eye out--"

"It's not remotely the same!" Her jaw ached, maybe in the same place Lucia's was colored black and blue. "Of course I felt bad about that."

Lucia's amusement faded. "You want to make up for it? Let me plant my fist in Ludveck's gut before he dies. I'd like to return that favor."

Elincia drew a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

Her next breath was shakier. "Later." Maybe they should draw lots for the privilege. "If we can find a suitable excuse." Lucia laughed, and Elincia leaned back into her arms.

Anything to hear her laugh - anything to make sure it never stopped.

.

[Saiunkoku] Cold Light Melting - I

2009-06-18T07:33:44Z

Cold Light Melting - I
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: T
Genre: introspective?
Warnings: n/a
AU/Canon: slightly AU.
Pairing/Characters: most of the Kou family, a few OCs.
Words: 3628

Prompt: June 2009 - still waters run deep (1500 word min.)
Previous Installments:
+ Prelude: A Kinder Season

Notes: Spoilers up to book 14, but I ignore some of the stuff that happened, or at least don't acknowledge it - maybe that makes this slightly AU. We're pretending the stuff at the very end didn't happen.

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There were few things Reishin loathed as much as clan meetings. Kurou was not normally on that list, though today his brother's smiles and booming laughter made his teeth grind. He spoke to each of the prefectural heads when they came through the doors, framed by the arch that led from the entry chamber to the area set with round tables, chairs. At the head of the room, on a raised platform with its own rectangular table and high-backed, carved seats, Reishin sat at his place in the center, leaning into the hard back of his chair, and watched his brother's back while the guests he'd already welcomed at the door inched toward the dais, bowed low to pay their respects to their clan head, then hurried to their places.

'Meeting' was hardly the word for it. 'Picnic' was closer, 'banquet' being too good for their guest list. He recognized a few of the faces hidden behind their sleeves when they came to him - Shin, family head in the prefecture of the same name; Shoushi, matriarch of the Shun branch; an old man said he hailed from Yuan reminded Reishin so much of Shou Taishi he felt sick to his stomach.

He looked down at his tea, but he'd blended it himself; it was untainted. The silver cup was worked into trefoil shapes on the outside, etched with cherry blossoms inside, at the bottom, shimmering with ceramic paint so it appeared real flowers gathered at the bottom. Grated orange peel steeped with the tea leaves, smelling fresh and sweet, and a plate of tangerine wedges decorated the plain black tray by the silver teapot, their flesh almost red, cut from the first harvest of the season. The flower shape at the center of the dish glittered with sugar. He choose a piece from the unadorned circle at the edge and squeezed juice into his cup, sipped, licked his lips. The antechamber doors were being pushed closed, and Kurou was walking toward the table; a low murmur, many voices chattering, laughing, whispering, filled the room and made it small.

Kurou's wife returned to the table first. She murmured something he didn't listen to, took the seat to his left; Hakuyuu offered his perfunctory bow, hands tucked into his gold-trimmed sleeves, and took his seat a chair away, where he would sit at his father's right hand. Only Sera smiled, and seemed undaunted when he only lifted his eyebrow. She wore her hair in loops like Shuurei, tied in front by red silk ribbons, but the rest was rolled at the back of her head in a fan that reminded him of Yuri's favorite formal style, and the pins secured in the loop and hanging down were once his wife's - gold blossom shapes with amethyst hearts, and pale jade dangles. He remembered giving them to her after a new year's dinner a long time ago.

I've been teaching her Aunt Gyokuka's art, she'd said to him in a letter, more than a month ago. If you're going to sit there and ruminate on your own failures, at least spend some time attending to her skill. It'll be good for you.

Hah. Good for who?

"No news from the capitol," Kurou said, at his back, and his red robes swept into sight when he sat at Reishin's right hand and draped his sleeves over the arms of his chair. His mouth was set in its perpetual line, slightly turned down. "This will be the first they've heard of Shouka's ascension."

Reishin let the corner of his mouth curl up. His fan remained on the white tablecloth, the slats slightly spread to reveal their carvings. "We should break it to them gently."

Kurou's eyes slid toward him, though his face stayed front. "Brother--"

"No complaints." Reishin pushed his chair back and stood. The scrape echoed, and the talking below, the scattered laughter, fragmented and fell silent when faces turned to the dais, fans and eyes lowering. He shook his sleeves out, waited until true quiet fell over the crowd, swept his eyes across the sea of variegated shades of red and brown and the glitter of hair sticks and combs. "Welcome, friends. I trust this meeting finds you all in good fortune." He smiled, and saw Lady Shoushi's fan twitch up, and a man whose name he didn't care to learn glanced at a companion and whispered something. "You are present today to celebrate the ascension of my eldest brother, Shouka, to the seat of clan head. Your blessings will be forwarded to him through appropriate channels."

Silence.

Again Kurou said Brother, a whisper hissed through his teeth.

"An heir has not yet been chosen. Opinions on this matter may be directed to me, or kept quiet." Reishin let his smile fade and turned his gaze to one of Hakuyuu's most vocal supporters, a man from their own prefecture, whose face he recalled only faintly from a social call to his father. He couldn't remember his name - only that he was first on the list of men investigated for their parents' murder. How had he gotten free of that charge? "All other clan matters will be announced after luncheon. Enjoy yourselves."

Reishin sat down again, and the creak of the wood seemed to echo. Several of the faces turned to him blinked, one flinched back at the sound, and after a count of ten their whispers flowed together like a river again, white noise he ignored as he picked his tea up again, swirled it once, and sipped.

"What happened to 'breaking it gently?'" Kurou's wife murmured. Her lacquered nails clicked on the lion's paw arm of her chair, gleaming red.

He watched bits of tea leaf settle at the bottom of his cup. "If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."

Her sharp sigh, more an exclamation, made his sleeve flutter. "Insensitive clod." It was said under her breath.

Hardly worth his time. Houju would have done better - would have taken that very seat, as a matter of fact.

"It would be better practice to show some concern for their sensibilities," Kurou said, his wife's common courtesy at the very least sneaking in just after, drawing a sigh. "If you didn't want to come--"

"Why bother?" Reishin pushed his mug onto the table again. Only the dregs remained - an apt metaphor. He spread his fan in lieu of holding a cup to his lips and let his gaze drift across the room again, noting other individuals he knew, or was familiar with. Yuri would have known better; she dealt with these men and women in his name, did his work - she would have known which to suspect as the source of the most recent attempt on his life. "I'm asking myself the same question," he said, and went on only when his brother opened his mouth to respond. "It would be equally offending to their sensibilities were I to ignore them while visiting, isn't that so?"

"Father, you said you didn't like how indirect everyone is." Sera leaned forward to peer around her mother, a flat, round fan held up to shield her face from their audience. The white silk was painted with a scene from one of the classics, a brush painting of a celestial maiden among waving grasses with her robe of feathers.

Kurou sighed again, subtle, almost silent. To their right, behind a folding screen, a pair of double doors opened to admit a line of servants with square, polished black trays: a woman carrying a soup tureen with both arms stretched out to accommodate it and trembling slightly; behind her, a young man carrying an arrangement of dumplings and rice cakes in pink and white; a girl slightly older than Sera appeared behind him, her head only shoulder-high, carrying a silver teapot with heavy silk mitts. Her hair bounced in two tails over each ear, and she alone was in white, the others in layers of pale and dark pink. The dais was served first, and while their trays were arranged, other servants came out in a long line, weaving between the tables to serve the others. Conversations started again, and there was laughter, calls to the servers, the clink of ivory chopsticks on porcelain dishes. The soup tureen was painted with wild roses and green grass, a hummingbird in vivid blue and green at the center. Silver scrolls rolled outward like gusts of painted wind.

His poor brother. To think, he'd said this event might be enjoyable. "I'll be leaving before the discussion starts," Reishin said.

He couldn't tell if Kurou was relieved or not by the cant of his head or the angle of his look; he simply nodded, and picked up his sticks, though Reishin hadn't lifted his own utensils yet.

The main course was beef marinated and baked in a clay pot overnight, spiced with ginger, garlic, and chile, accompanied by rice sprinkled with black and white roasted sesame and simmered lotus root with green onions. The quality left nothing to be desired, though the lotus root was a bit salty for his taste and he only picked at it until their audience appeared truly absorbed in their chatter. His agents mingled with them, one dressed as a servant, the other standing in for a lordling from a northern prefecture. He leaned over, told his brother he would be leaving, and left the table. The little girl who brought their tea in hurried to his side, asked if he needed anything, and Reishin said he was going outside for a few moments of peace; he would be right back.

Outside, the morning haze had burned off, leaving the sky starkly blue, and the grounds of their city mansion bright white, green, and yellow. The grass was trimmed down, the hydrangea carefully planted along the limestone pathway; another servant met him, and then another, and he sent each off on a false errand until he reached the gates. His carriage waited, the horses still harnessed, the driver at the ready.

It was the quiet ride home that reminded him most of the capitol; the jolt of the carriage wheels over a rock, the rush of wind past the window. The gathering of fools in the banquet hall was more typical of court gatherings, featuring the same selection of minor personages and the bright silks and ornamentation they wore to offset their insignificance - only the names were different, the faces scarcely so. Perhaps he would find a Houju among their number, or a limp to remind him of Yuushun. Such replacements would be undeniably provincial.

Perhaps he was lucky - there was nobody in Kou Province to remind him how far away they were - nobody to highlight their absence. Only his memory of Shuurei's ehru music, and Houju's sarcastic commentary when they sat outside the Censorate building to listen.

*

The hours passed more slowly than Reishin thought they would with the house empty. Yellow crept eastward from the setting sun on the edge of the sacred mountains to the west, riming wispy clouds with gold, and magenta meandered to meet it and clash. His windows were opened to the garden and he sat on the hard wooden seat by the bowl shape of his biwa propped on the side, leaned against the frame, heard it creak open a few inches more and disturb the hydrangea stalks crowded against the pavilion. Some were pink like the sky, others variegated shades of blue and violet, domes of little flowers as wide as his hand. A willow cast its curtain between himself and the grounds, veiled him from the eyes of the servants watering flower beds with wooden buckets on bars across their backs. If he listened, he could hear the low murmur of their voices and the slide of the brook between his building and the one Kurou used.

If he tried, he thought the scent of wormwood lingered too, caught in the curtains. They'd aired his rooms out and changed everything - the linens, the rugs, even the furniture. Reishin had displaced Kurou again for most of a day and night - he didn't breathe much of the poisoned incense, just a little, just enough to feel dizzy and sick. The person responsible had not been found. He sent to the capitol for his own servants, and that was that.

A maid came in to ask if he would eat. Reishin sent her away and picked up his biwa. The opening notes of Water Under the Bridge came to him, too playful, the sort of thing one performed for a child, and he remembered playing it once - only once - for Houju. Fitting for someone like you, he'd said-- shallow, bouncing and breaking at the smallest hindrance.

Reishin couldn't remember his response, no matter how many times he played those two measures. It must have involved throwing something.

His hands would not be so quick now.

There was noise near the front of the house; his brother and the family were returning, perhaps. Someone came in to light his lamps, and he flattened his hands over the strings to silence them until the door opened and closed for the second time and the child's soft footsteps left his range of hearing. Heavier tread neared in the corridor outside, and his heart pounded, tried to jump into his throat, but it passed. The song of a mockingbird replaced it after a count of ten deep breaths. His fingers throbbed in time with his heart.

They were red; they'd blister. The tip of his fourth finger was already swelling, the skin turning white, and he wondered-- how long since he played the biwa like this - every day, every night? Yuri had a soft touch. He'd fallen into the habit of sleeping to her playing instead, leaning, his back to hers, with a lock of her golden hair twisted around his fingers. He would come home with the sunset, find her waiting in the garden, let her remove his hat and take his hair down, comb it with her fingers. His hair never tangled when she took care of it. The ends never split. She would gather it in her slender hands and lean forward, plant a kiss to the back of his neck. If she stayed in the capitol as she said she would--

His hair was already growing out. It was long enough to curl beneath his elbows when he let it loose, longer than strictly decent for the brother of the clan head. Of course, nobody in the province would care, and if the throne tried to enforce that ridiculous rule he would ride back to the capitol and take the idiot emperor by his ear until he repealed the order, but - somehow she always managed to come home at the right time of year to take care of it.

Would Shouka be able to leave the capitol? Or would Yuri continue to take care of clan business, and travel back to Reishin?

He put the biwa down and reached backward to the table by his bed. A short knife was sheathed there, and beside it, an oblong plate of wood thicker than his hand and a little longer. The left side was already shaved down, though it wasn't yet smooth.

Normally he started these with an image in mind: affected by the heat, angry at the world. He'd memorized the planes of the face it would cover - with his eyes, with his hands. He always carved the lips just right, if he did say so himself, though wood could never match the pliancy of the real shape, nor its softness. Once he'd painted those lips, the real ones, with cherry juice, on a winter night so harsh they could not leave the department to go home and with too much sake in his blood.

It didn't happen often. Reishin couldn't begin to count the number of people who wanted him dead. The scroll would unroll forever. He only drank with one person, and that person was not, damn his luck, about to show his ugly face.

He drew the blade and carved a thin shaving from the wood. It fluttered to the floor, and another after it, and another. A breeze cooled his forehead and sent them whispering across the floor to gather around the folds of the curtains tied back from the alcove ensconcing his bed.

The nights were still warm for autumn, but the leaves would brown and fall soon enough.

*

"If you're here about the speech," Reishin said when Kurou's frame darkened his doorway the following morning, "I'm not interested."

His brother stepped inside and closed the door. Reishin arranged the skirt of his robe to cover his legs, pulled his bedsheets over, a porcelain cup in one hand. Thin gold lines were painted along the lip, shaped like petals, and it gleamed in the lamplight. His curtains were still drawn, and he'd forbidden the women from opening them when they came in carrying the robes he requested. Those were draped on their stand in the far corner beside the door to the bath, shades of blue layered over yellow, and not a smudge of red in sight. Kurou ruined his attempt to purge the room with his usual dull maroon robe and the red of the cap covering his hair.

Why was it, Reishin had often wondered at court, that members of the clans insisted on flaunting their chains in the color of their robes, or their hats, or any number of tasteless accessories - handkerchiefs, pointed shoes, fans? Why restrict one's wardrobe? Red didn't compliment his brother's pallor, and it only highlighted Shuurei's resemblance to her mother when he saw her wearing it; pink suited her better, though only barely. Green or deep purple would be more fitting.

"I heard your name uttered in conjunction with the words 'graceless' and 'narcissistic,' quite a few times, but the effect was otherwise unremarkable," Kurou said, gathering his sleeve with one hand and holding a folded piece of paper between the fingers of the other. "They expect you to be rude."

Reishin sipped his tea. The sweet flavor soured on his tongue. "My agents will have noted their names and rankings."

His brother snorted, and brought the note, tossing it onto the covers when Reishin made no motion to take it. "If you're going to stay, you should try to be more personable."

He looked into the yellow of his tea, lifted his brow. "I'm perfectly pleasant."

Kurou looked at the green glow of the curtains. "Yuri said you would take her role as Sera's teacher. Is that true?"

"I never said anything about that."

His brother's eyes slid to watch him, though his face was still turned away. "Treat her kindly."

Reishin frowned. "I told you--"

"She also mentioned a midwinter trip to the house to check on you."

His lips pressed together. Three months. He would be an old man by then. "I don't need to be checked up on."

Kurou sighed, and his eyes flicked away. It always sounded the same - a deep breath, the sort that reached to the diaphragm, a gravely undertone of the voice, and he let it go like a weight had been dropped on his chest, like a horse fell on him and forced the air out. "I told her not to worry, but she'll come anyway." He turned his back on Reishin and walked toward the door. "I doubt Shouka will bother with clan business. It'll be the same as always."

Another frown creased his face, and his eyes narrowed, but his brother left, closed the door, and it was too early yet to hear anything but the chirping of a few birds and his receding footsteps. The tea smelled green like grass, and he lifted it to his lips again to see if it would taste better now Kurou was gone. Reishin unfolded the paper with his other hand.

Shou and Shun are loyal. The incense has been traced to the Yellows, a store on the border with Shun prefecture.

Well enough. The only others Reishin knew of to make use of medicinal incense on a regular basis were the nobles of Sa Province, and the business there had taken a sharp downturn since his niece held the governorship.

A list of names followed, and a list of insults. A timetable was given for his request of tropical wood; the river flowing south, out of Saiunkoku, was running low and grounding trade vessels.

There is Hyou activity near the capitol. Three mysterious deaths.

Reishin leaned down to place his cup on the floor by his bed and took the note to his writing desk. His hair slid over his shoulders to curl on the table when he bent over to open his writing box, wet his brush, and compose his reply. Hyou activity at the capitol meant a threat to his niece, his brother - possibly to himself, but certainly anybody close to their target was fair game.

That would have to be taken care of. Immediately.

.

[June 17][Suikoden III] Blooming Season

2009-06-16T08:27:28Z

Blooming Season
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: June 17 - This is the death of beauty
Series: Suikoden III
Character/Pairing: Luc, Sarah
Rating: K
Words: 1008
Warnings: n/a

Notes: n/a

.............................................

The second month of the new year had come and gone and the plum trees shed their blossoms to sprout pale green leaves when Luc took the opportunity a warm day provided to leave the tower and walk down to the beach. The sun shined from a slight angle behind spiky, needle-laden boughs of pine, whose leavings crunched under his boots on the broken stone path, a brown and yellow carpet with spots of new-fallen green needles. High, wispy clouds made the light white. The surf pounded on the rocky beach, and the rush of the tide receding beneath the foam echoed between the cliffs on that side of the island, lent the broken columns bordering the walk the illusion of a voice. Sarah once tried to explain what ruins sounded like to her, and how their voices differed, but while unable to pin specific words to the ones they found in Harmonia, or Toran, she said the stones here sounded like the ocean.

She was young when he asked, perhaps six or seven - they didn't know her true age, only that she remembered a certain number of springs from the snowy wasteland she described as home. Maybe, she mused, staring up at the jagged break of a wall, they're trying to hide from their hunters. Like us. He told her it was ridiculous to attribute humanity to objects, and she looked up at him with her water-crystal eyes and laughed.

Luc took a tributary path, one that ran parallel to the beach and climbed onto the bluffs, and found her in the branches of an orange tree at the end, where it widened into a gallery of crumbled benches and columns broken in half or down to the base. The bricks were nearly buried in sand and the grasses that took root there, some of them bowed up in the flat areas, broken by bushes and ground-crawling strawberry vines bare of leaves. The fruit grove had once been planted in neat rows, but like the ruins had fallen apart - the trees died, or dropped seed in the water channels, and now it was a forest Sarah liked to venture into on warm days for shade, and in the winter for fruit.

"Master Luc." Her voice was muffled, faint - her golden hair glinted between the branches. He squinted, saw her straddling a branch quite high, her skirt gathered around her knees. Her feet were bare and dirty. "Am I needed for something?" She leaned forward on the branch, looked down. Her hair fanned over her shoulders and shaded her face.

He blinked up against the glare. "No." She'd changed so much; even her color had deepened, and her round face had narrowed into a more elegant shape, her pale lips into a full pout. Her figure had slimmed, her legs-- she was taller than he was, though only by a hair. The dress he purchased for a new year's gift, to indulge her fancy, fit snugly around her shape, and he regretted giving it to her. He couldn't look away when she stretched her arms up to bend a branch out of her way. She was a silhouette against a bright spot of sky for a moment. "No, nothing I can think of."

Sometimes he speculated on her bloodline. At least ten noble families could be traced northward, some exiled, others impoverished, and she said her home was up there, where the years were mostly snow, sometimes broken by blooming seasons. Was she one of them? Did her family sell her to the Temple for money, or status? To bribe?

A branch snapped, and Sarah tossed an orange down to a basket on the other side of the trunk. It bounced against the side and rolled over the others into a corner. His eyes snapped to follow it. "These are the last of the season," she said. "I think we should make marmalade. They're not sweet enough to eat plain." The leaves rustled, broke, crumbled, and the branches bent under her weight as she shimmied downward, catching on her skirt and pulling it to show her long legs, her thigh.

He ripped his eyes away again. "Sarah--" Heat rushed to his face, but it was the sun - it was breaking through the clouds, brightening to yellow and dappling the crumbling bricks with shadows. "You shouldn't climb trees in skirts. It's inappropriate."

"Nobody is looking."

Luc turned his face up again before his brain caught up, jerked his head away again, gave her a sideways glance when she laughed and settled on the lowest branch. Her hands smoothed her skirt over her knees and it gathered around her dusty feet in deep blue folds. "Are you finished?" Her head tilted, and he said, "There's something I need to talk to you about."

Sarah's skirt flared when she jumped down, grabbed his hands when she stumbled. "Your mysterious trips off the island?"

He looked at her. She was old enough to stop changing now - for a little while. Maybe ten years, or twenty. Then it would start again, and instead of growing taller, prettier, she would shrivel to dust. "You could say that." Luc steered her toward the basket, picked up one handle. She took the other side. "I'll be taking a long trip," he said. The oranges rolled around the bottom of the basket. It would be the last time he left this island - the last time he did anything, if his plans came together. He wouldn't have to watch her grow old and weak.

Her gait slowed. He saw her frown in his peripheral vision, then bite her lip. "Where?"

Luc shrugged and wished for a breeze to cool his face, his neck. "The Grasslands."

.

[30 Kisses][Fire Emblem] The Child-like Empress - III

2009-06-11T06:59:27Z

The Child-like Empress - III
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki (platonic)
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9-10
Theme: 07 - superstar
Words: 8105
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~

Previous installments:
+ Part One
+ Part Two

Notes: Part of the Bloodline series of (mostly) canon storylines.

I'm so sorry for the length. >_>

......................................................

"Sephiran."

Pale flames licked the air within round, brass lanterns hanging on chains from the ceiling of the corridor, two hands above his head, and while the wall to his left was open, merely a march of columns dividing the covered area from a fountain courtyard, it was no better than the indoor hallways - the air was stuffier, heavier. The empress's hand slipped in his, but she held his fingers tightly when he attempted to withdraw. "Your majesty?"

Sanaki's indigo hair swayed against her chin. Wisps clung to her neck, beneath her ears. "How did you pass the barrier?"

Sephiran looked down, but she was watching her feet, and a flick of his gaze from side to side revealed the profiles of her knights. They hadn't forgotten, though he thought the empress had let the incident slip from her mind forever when she neglected to ask this question over the course of the last week. Why not three days ago, or five, when the journey to the vault was still fresh in her mind? "Consider our location," he said, adjusting his hold on her hand. It was so small, easier to wrap his fingers around her wrist. "If you wish to fill the silence, we should discuss tonight's session. You must have questions."

The empress lowered her chin, and he didn't know her well enough yet to decide what that meant. He thought she'd paid attention during the proceedings; she always bit her lip and rubbed it between her teeth when she tried to understand something, and picked at the embroidery on her sleeve when she was bored. His ears caught the churn of her stomach when she was hungry, and Sanaki had already proven herself stubborn when she was physically uncomfortable. Court broke for an hour that night to accommodate her appetite, and Sephiran spent forty of those minutes resisting the urge to fold his arms on the table and take a nap. His lady feasted on thick slabs of bread and cheese heaped with fresh tomatoes and herbs, drizzled with olive oil, and he stared out the window of the break room, past her reflection, glad she chose to speak with Sigrun. He tried a cup of chamomile tea at the urging of one of her knights, but it was flat. He managed two gulps and held it between his hands on the table until Sanaki was ready to return to the meeting.

Every matter brought before the senate that day left a bitter taste in his mouth. Their emissary to Melior, dispatched a week before Sephiran's promotion, was attacked en route by Phoenicis; the ship was wrecked, and Kilvas charged fifty thousand gold to return the passengers to Begnion soil. Their messenger challenged the senate to find another to way, and the public nature of the meeting stopped the senior council from invoking their advantage over the ravens-- but only that.

Then a report on wyvern riders spotted during the last week's border dispute with Daein soured the air further, and he remembered Sanaki's fingers tapping the arm of her throne while they argued, while suggestions were made - root the traitors out, send a messenger to King Ashnard to negotiate their capture - and her bracelet clanked on the wood. He'd knelt beside her, placed a hand over hers, and explained why the senators from the south, especially those from Asmin, were so intent on revenging themselves on these mysterious riders in the north.

"I thought--" Sanaki said when they alighted the blue tile steps into the palace hall, "I thought our border with Daein was that wall. I thought there was a deal."

"A treaty." She let her hand slip to her side, and Sephiran reached back to retie his hair as he spoke. "Azalea Hill, 515. Daein's king at the time wished to extend his reach to the southern half of the mountain range, where the mines are still active."

"He lost?"

"Of course."

"But--" Sanaki stepped on the hem of her robe and stumbled, grabbing his arm to steady herself. Sigrun paused, her hand whipping out to grasp the empress's other shoulder, and the other knights clomped to a stop, spear butts scraping the tile. He heard Sanaki sigh, saw her mouth turn down. "I hate this thing."

Sigrun smoothed the mantle, the empress's hair, and said, "Four flights is quite a climb. Shall I carry you?"

The halo of reflected lamp light shifted when Sanaki canted her head at the knight, her fingers shifting, curling slightly into Sephiran's sleeve. Then she turned her head, and looked up at him, and he felt the heat of a lamp at the back of his head. Someone chuckled - one of the newer recruits, Tanith or Catalena. "The exercise is good for you," he said. When she stamped her foot and opened her mouth, he leaned down to pick her up by the waist and said quickly, "but I can manage a few stairs after carrying you across the province."

The little empress sniffed sharply and said that's better. Her thin arms wrapped around Sephiran's neck and shoulders; small hands pulled his hair away from his neck and smoothed it. She adjusted the collar of his new coat as they ascended the stairs and rested her head against his when she'd finished preening him. He heard her heartbeat at his ear and the rasp of her breathing, and was glad for her rosy scent - the way it drowned the smell of leather and polish and dust.

She was only a little heavier than before, and far too thin. Her elbows were sharp, digging into his shoulder. When they entered her rooms and he put her down, she bounded away at a half-run, twisting between her chairs and a sofa to pause at the open door to her bedroom and call Tanith. It's your turn, isn't it? she said, and disappeared inside. One of the others told her not to come out drenched this time, and the young knight followed the empress and closed the door. Sigrun commanded the others to leave - but she stayed behind, at his back, her breathing audible to him above the footsteps of the others and the click of the door pulled shut.

Sephiran listened to her rhythm a moment before he moved away and reached to open the glass doors to the balcony. The room was dry and hot, and smelled of lamp oil and dust. He was rewarded with a breath of gardenia while he stood at the door and looked over the treetops; there were maples, pines, magnolias, cypress, juniper, planted so the textures of their leaves stood out, one against the other. Only a stretch of the imagination would allow one to imagine it a forest.

"Will you answer her question?"

He watched a five-pronged maple leaf twist from its branch on a breeze and flutter down, past the wide stone rail and out of sight. The air cooled his forehead for a moment and was gone. "Which?"

Her armor creased; perhaps Sigrun folded her arms. "You think to convince me of your ignorance when you've contrived to place yourself at her majesty's side so quickly?" Her boots hardly made a sound on the rug, but he still heard her approach. She stopped on the other side of the table and turned a teacup over on the left. "It took a week at most. I'm impressed."

Sephiran twisted, looked over his shoulder; her pale face was set into a near-frown, lips slightly turned down, but her unblinking gaze reminded him, for a moment, of the first morning he spent at Sanaki's side before the full senate. Sigrun looked so young - she couldn't be much more than twenty years. Her fingers curled around the tall back of an extra dining chair and her nails scratched the wood. So young, and she treated the empress as she would a daughter, though she must not have any children - perhaps not even an immediate family. Only those who lost what they loved were so desperately paranoid when they found a replacement.

Or-- perhaps she was abnormally good at detecting lies. They were all noblewomen, these pegasus knights - maybe some of them were tainted by the traditions of their families before they got away.

"Duke Culbert moved before I could contact my own patron." He turned back to the balcony and watched the branches sway in another hot breeze. "Do not overestimate my influence here. He placed me in this position to keep the empress quiet, not to support my agenda."

Her knuckle cracked, a faint sound, and the chair moved. "That agenda is-- what?"

"Have you not been paying attention?" He left himself open for that question; he had to swallow his annoyance and relax his expression before he turned his back on the garden. "I support laguz - the restoration of property and bloodline, radical things of that nature. Do you think they would give me the power to do anything about it?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Yet you took the position anyway. If you intend to use the empress, even for a good cause--"

"Don't be ridiculous." He wished the door to Sanaki's bedroom were open, so he could hear her voice. She must be laughing. The bathroom was probably drenched with water, if the splashing he normally heard was any indication of how much she played. Goddess knew she never had any other opportunities to do so. "Sanaki is young. If she learns to respect the needs of all of her subjects, no matter their race, don't you think Begnion will benefit? Her presence on the throne has not quieted every disturbance in the provinces - only most. She needs to learn and live up to her responsibility. The others were weak rulers, but she can be strong."

Sigrun frowned. "With you to help her, of course."

Sephiran sighed sharply and turned his back on her again. "If you're so determined--"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

He halted, his hand on the paddle-shaped handle of the glass door. "Tell you what?"

"Your lineage." She came around the table quickly and pulled the door from his hand, pushed it shut. "You weren't affected by the barrier, and the empress didn't lead you through. Did you not think it worth notifying us, so we can guard against--"

"It isn't something I want in the open," he said sharply, loudly, and she flinched back-- but held her ground at his right hand. He turned his face the other way. "What accusations would have flown if I'd revealed that to you?"

"This is Begnion, senator." Sigrun stepped around him, made him look at her. "If I believed everything I heard, the empress would be dead. Blood ties aren't proof against betrayal, and neither are sympathies for the downtrodden."

"But both will get me in trouble," Sephiran said, "and my problems will reflect on the empress, so keep it to yourself."

She had her hands on her knives so often in his presence he thought she would reach for one at that moment, but a high-pitched oh startled her into looking aside. Sephiran turned his head more slowly, slanting his eyes left, and found they had an audience of two in the frame of the bedroom doorway, and the little empress had her hands to her mouth, covering what looked like a smile.

Sanaki lowered her fists. "Did we interrupt something? Do you need more time alone?"

Sigrun made a strangled sound and stuttered a protesting your majesty, and Sephiran stepped away from her and bumped into the table, a flush of heat creeping into his face. It must be what made him so charming, this appearance of innocence, as if he hadn't been caught in more embarrassing moments during his lifetime, with more attractive companions - though she wasn't unpleasant. "Where did you learn that?"

Sanaki canted her head. "Oliver."

Tanith's muttered ew was lost beneath Sigrun's voice. "Duke Tanas is not a suitable example of courtly behavior, your majesty. Please don't listen to a word he says."

The empress let her smile fade and chewed the inside of her lip, showing the beginning of a pout. "He said to pay attention to the senators." She pointed at Sephiran.

He folded his hands behind his back, lowered his head. "Perhaps I should be more specific in my instructions."

"Do that," Sigrun muttered.

Sanaki's pout became a frown. "Then why were you talking like that?"

"We were discussing tomorrow's party," Sephiran said, moving past Sigrun to kneel before his little empress. "Sigrun said she would be delighted to accompany us, so you can attend after all. I think we should find a dress for you, majesty - don't you agree?"

There was silence at his back, but Sanaki's squeal nearly shattered his eardrums. He smiled and lifted the girl in his arms as he regained his feet. She kissed his cheek and told him he had to go with her to look at her wardrobe immediately.

Sigrun couldn't arrange his untimely death in public; perhaps she would see, when the ordeal was over, the merit of his hand in the empress's education. If not-- Tanith was a promising candidate for her post.

*

A tray of cards greeted Sephiran the next morning when he left his bedroom, dressed and bathed, hair combed and tied back, a black round with silver chased handles, the sort that would carry a porcelain tea set and a plate of pastries if the servants had not already been instructed to send his meals to the empress's table. The envelopes were multicolored, like flowers; a dark pink scented with rose (and Valtome's square cursive script for a curt note: I've been told you'll be attending without escort tonight - may I suggest instead--), a paler tint, cherry blossom (The Marquess Elandra wishes to reserve a dance), an expensive blue dye with a gold-leaf insignia on the flap (surely you do not intend to go alone; a man of your caliber requires a companion of equal beauty. I have not yet been engaged--) and Oliver's scrawl looked hurried, not as beautiful as the make of his other notes.

The last - plain white envelope, unrefined parchment of a cream color, ink more brown than black, as if thinned - said: a word with you, Minister. Seven-thirty, and he wondered if Sigrun ever slept, or if she'd transcended her human needs by strength of will.

He left his coat folded and draped over his dining chair and buttoned the high collar of his white shirt as he walked to the door. The clock on the end table by his bedroom door read seven thirty-seven, which meant she must be waiting outside, perhaps deflected by a servant, or one of his ornamental guards, until he made it known he was ready. They were armed, and yet their white armor was so heavily decorated with gold scrolling he'd thought the pair flanking his door the night before were statues, mannequins, to improve appearances according to his ranking, as the commander said when Sephiran asked.

Begnion was so strange now. He remembered simplicity from Altina's time - functional decor made luxurious by her choices in materials, oak and silk, lace to line a table runner, red varnish to highlight the natural beauty of the wooden floors and paneled walls. Now the floors were mosaic, marble; now the furniture was painted gold where it shouldn't be, the cushions stuffed so full of wool and feathers he thought their silk seams would burst. Rugs woven in the poor regions of the capitol province layered the floors, hid the natural beauty of the stone. Altina wouldn't recognize her own palace.

Eight hundred years, he supposed, was a long time for beorc. For all Sephiran knew, the place he built on these grounds with Altina at the beginning of the empire had burned down centuries ago, to be replaced with this monstrosity. At least the gardens were maintained. The trees had dropped seed and propagated. He knew their strains well, having planted their ancestors with his own hands. The echo of their generations still thrummed in their wooden hearts. Even he could hear it.

Sigrun was waiting outside as he suspected, leaning against the opposite wall of the small antechamber between his living area and the hallway. She lifted her pale eyebrow when he leaned out, and came forward when Sephiran stepped backward and opened the door to admit her. She had shed her coat, her armored boots and gloves, and wore her jade hair down in a braid, not twisted up as he was accustomed to seeing it. A dagger was sheathed at her hip, and when she paused by his table, shifting to place a hand on one hip, it seemed she missed the taller hilt of her sword where she was accustomed to resting her arm when they spoke.

He shouldered the door closed, leaving the shadowed alcove around the door, arms folded. "If you want to discuss something with me," he said, pausing where the curtains were parted to shine a bar of cool light across the rug, "please tell me before you leave. I understand the nature of your schedule. It won't be a problem."

She blinked once, slowly, her lashes a shade paler in the light. "I am perfectly capable of meeting my own needs, senator."

"No doubt." When her gaze did not waver, Sephiran walked past her to gather the notes and envelopes, stacking them even with his hands on the tray. "What is it you want so early in the morning?"

"You didn't tell her."

He straightened. "And I won't - yet."

"She deserves to--"

"She says what she pleases and cares nothing for the consequences of her words, as young children often do." The time of year was too warm for fires, even at night; there were no coals blow upon and feed with paper. Throwing them into the pool of his bath would only taint the water with ink and spent perfume. "I will tell her when she is mature enough to keep her secrets, and if it angers her, she will also know to direct her dissatisfaction to me, and leave you out of it."

Sigrun blew a sharp sigh through her nose. "It isn't self-preservation that motivates me to say this. Lady Sanaki thinks she is alone--"

"It's better that way."

"How can you say that?"

Sephiran looked over his shoulder. "Bloodline is meaningless. If it were not for the peculiar abilities possessed by the Apostles, the throne would have been taken by another before Lady Sanaki was born. I cannot be the only person in the capitol whose blood carries a trace of hers - and it is only a trace, I assure you. We are so far removed only tradition would call us family."

Her arms crossed; her stance shifted, all of her weight on one hip while her head tilted in the opposite direction. "A trace strong enough to trip every ward in the vault. I see." Sigrun's eyes traveled over his bookcase, lingered in one place. He imagined the colors of his spellbooks reflected in the shine of her eyes. "Strong enough you could have taken custody of the throne in her place, perhaps? Until a proper female descendant might be produced, that is." Her eyes flicked back. "It has happened before."

"Good question." He tapped the notes against his hand. The corners poked his palm, pricked between his fingers. "I don't know, and didn't care to take the opportunity when I had the chance, as you see."

She appeared unaware of the special properties of blood attributed to Altina; Sephiran wished he knew more, and doubted the records in the vault would provide the information he wanted. When he met Misaha - when he realized such a thing as Branded existed, that his own children and grandchildren were marked by his blood and thought it a curse-- when he learned it passed from daughter to daughter, he'd wondered at the pattern of transmission and how consistent it was in his own descendants, when Zelgius and others led him to believe the appearance of a brand was random. Was it the touch of the goddess? She lay not a league away - not even past the border of the cathedral grounds, but within walking distance - and she slept, but how soundly did she sleep?

Soundly enough, he remembered, that she did not hear his cries when his child with Altina robbed him of his birthright. Yet she said-- you children will have the ability if I must be awakened.

Did Ashera know what would happen? Did she?

"Your opportunity has not yet passed, as I see it."

Did she? Did she know?

His eyes focused on Sigrun again. The silence stretched a moment while he cast his mind back for the thread of their conversation. "I will be targeted often enough as guardian without taking the regency as well. I doubt it would sit well with the council." Sephiran turned his back on her, walked away to drop the notes into a wastebin. It was woven like a basket, painted brown and varnished to match the shelves. "Is that what you were worried about?"

"You speak in past tense."

He knew he glared over his shoulder when Sigrun's eyes narrowed and her knuckles cracked. Sephiran glanced at his books. Three Dissertations on Compassion caught his eye, a yellow canvas cover and black ink title, and if he hadn't had company, he would have laughed. "Your worries are unfounded." It was said Ashera influenced the minds of her servants in subtle ways. Yet-- was he not showing compassion? Understanding? The woman still lived, though his task would be easier without her. "Be at the imperial quarters at four. Someone will have to help Lady Sanaki dress for the party, and it should not be me."

"Speaking of targets--" he heard her shift again, didn't look. Let her speak to his back. "This party will be an excellent opportunity for anyone wishing to be rid of her."

"Security is your job." The gardenias weren't as lush outside of his window; it faced the cathedral, and he saw the glitter of a stained glass window through a gap in the maple boughs marching across the gardens. "I will taste anything she wants to eat first. She has to learn her role somehow, Sigrun - if she won't read or listen to her tutors, then we do this the hard way."

A party. A ball. An excursion to the black forest reserve north of the city where the hills were vivid green and dotted with bright purple and mauve flowers, a tour of the vineyards of Persis. Sephiran would take his empress to all of these events, on any excuse - it wasn't as if their presence in Sienne was required for the senior senators to take advantage of her - and place himself at her beck and call. He would teach her what to say, how to say it, how to be skeptical without letting on by expression or body language.

"She'll listen to you, I'm sure." Sigrun's voice parted the mist of his thoughts, made his neck prickle. She was only partially armed, but a knife was no different than sharp teeth or claws. "I want Sephiran. Make him read. Her words."

Lady Sanaki already heaped favor after favor upon him. He didn't need the throne. It was his by proxy if he wanted it, but it belonged to Altina's daughters - and even if he told Sigrun, she would never understand what he meant. He was glad they kept Altina's portrait, and their daughter's image, in the vault. It was Misaha's benevolent smile beaming down from the wall in the chamber used for senior council meetings instead.

How did they stand it? How did they look at her golden eyes without remorse?

"We will see about readings tomorrow once she has rested," he said. "Are you finished?"

The sound of her footsteps receding was his answer.

*

The empress met him in a simple white dress with a skirt that bounced and fluttered when she skipped over the rug to link her arms around his neck. Little lace gloves with pearl buttons decorated her arms, and the straps of her dress were flounces of gauze and lace, like her skirt. Sephiran picked her up when prompted, smoothed her skirt over his arm, and complimented her on the butterfly barrettes holding her hair over her ears, and her little dangling earrings and matching bracelets, all pearls and emeralds and gold accents. Sigrun stood back, arm folded over her waist, looking as she always did; her gauntlets and boots had been replaced by softer suede, her hair was held with a large gold barrette instead of her invisible pins - but her expression was the same, caught between affected neutrality and the beginning of a frown.

"Did you eat?" he asked once the empress had shown him her jewelry.

"Yes." Sanaki pulled her lip in with her teeth. "I thought this was a dinner party. Why did I have to eat before?"

"It isn't polite to eat very much in public, your majesty." He turned his back on Sigrun. The other knights were waiting outside to accompany them; Tanith opened the door and followed as far as the hallway, carrying on a whispered exchange with her commander. "You must also bear in mind the danger of poisoning," he said. "Valtome will no doubt take every precaution to protect your health, but no one can be completely sure of their servants."

"Valtome." She wrinkled her nose.

"Didn't I tell you he was the one arranging the celebration?" She shook her head, and Sephiran felt her hands smoothing his jacket, and then his hair, and she leaned over his shoulder to see it drift behind them as he walked. "It was his idea. We'll see what he really wants once everyone is busy."

The empress told him white suited him better and he should have consulted with her before changing; his hair disappeared against his black coat, and she didn't like that. It was her favorite thing about him, the prettiest thing except for his eyes - they were nice too, and he had such a beautiful voice. He would have to sing for her someday, she said. Sephiran wondered what she would think of his wings - if she would play with the feathers as she did his hair, or find them something to be ashamed of as other humans did, something he should hide. She perched on his arm like a little bird for their walk downstairs to the drive, and on the edge of the carriage seat during the short ride to the Culbert mansion, trying to stretch her feet to the floor, her fingers curled underneath like talons.

Unlike the Tanas palace, or the Asmin house, Culbert did not admit guests to a private drive by gate, but by a narrow street stretched outside the premises, both sides unbroken white plaster walls, paved with flagstone. Their carriage was allowed to draw to the front, and Sephiran led Sanaki through the painted wrought-iron gate after Sigrun and another knight whose name he did not know. Bougainvillea spilled from wire baskets; the entry was narrow, perhaps three people wide, opening a good dozen steps inward to a crowded garden. Leaves and paper-thin petals in pink and magenta crunched under their sandals. The path wound around a fig tree whose arms reached over their heads and spread wide, five-fingered leaves. He pointed out the green bulbs of fruit, and Sanaki walked with her neck craned back, clinging to his hand with both of hers.

He recognized olive trees, and, rising far above the crowns of the others, the fronds of date palms and the scent of fallen fruit. Cicadas screed, and far away, somewhere in the house, Sephiran's ears caught the thrum of strings and the warping of their tone as they were tuned. He didn't know the instrument; if the house were the measure against which he might judge Valtome's tastes, he supposed it must be something native to the region he governed.

Valtome met them at the door to his dwelling, dressed modestly in the uniform white and gold of his senatorial costume. The yellow tiles he knelt on were swept clean and scrubbed. "Your majesty, Lord Sephiran, thank you for attending. You honor my home." The thick kinks of his red hair were gathered by a gold ribbon that shined when he lowered his head.

With his neck bent like that, Sephiran almost thought he meant it. He waited for Sanaki to make the appropriate response, then said, "It seems we're early. The road was still quite open when we arrived." The other senator straightened, looked up and away from the empress, though he had the decency to remain on his knees. "I apologize for the inconvenience."

"Unnecessary. This is part of the arrangement." Valtome turned his gaze back to the empress and humored her with a smile. Her grip on Sephiran's hand tightened. "The empress has never visited Culbert province before," their host said. "I thought she might like a tour of the house. It is traditional, down to the smallest piece of furniture."

"Really?" Sanaki leaned forward. She dragged the toe of her sandal on the tile. "There are round wardrobes? And the rugs?"

Valtome's laughed a moment, his smile narrow. "They still have four sides," he said, pushing up to his feet, straightening his coat. "I'll show you. There are dozens of rugs - and curtains, and quilts, and cushions, all hand-made. Come and see."

The empress bounced on the balls of her feet, tugging Sephiran forward by the hand, and he heard Sigrun follow, and the others disperse - to examine the grounds, he assumed, as they couldn't possibly trust Valtome so completely. They caught a glimpse of the open area on their way to the stairs before a servant ran to twitch the wooden screen closed; the impression he left with was red - red rugs, red silk cushions, gold tassels and weavings, deep browns, all of them soaking up the light. Pastry fried somewhere, the buttery scent calling to mind images of crisp turnovers and finger-sized pies, garlic and vegetables roasted, and Sanaki said it smelled good. The walls were wood-paneled and polished to a golden sheen; the marble floor was pale brown, yellow, and white, streaked by gold. Their sandals slapped and echoed in the stairwell, and Sigrun's footfalls sounded twice as heavy.

This chamber, Valtome told them when they left the stairwell and walked into the first open space, is where the family meets to eat and talk. Hangings adored the white plaster walls in a rainbow of bright color, yellow and green, the shades between, blue and red, worked in stylized plant motifs and geometric designs. A low table was the room's focal point, golden pine wood polished to mirror perfection, wide enough an adult might lay across the diameter comfortably. Sanaki let go of Sephiran's hand and ran across the rug - shades of brown he didn't want to step on, they were so tightly and precisely woven - and crouched on a blue cushion. The yellow fringe bounced. Her knees sank into the velvet. She pet the fabric, crawled to the next one - green silk and braided trim - pressed her fingers to the table, and asked how they ate sitting on the floor without their legs falling asleep. Valtome giggled, and Sephiran was too distracted by the shrill hee hee to pay attention to his answer.

Short corridors opened from the central chamber and became bedrooms; they were shown to two guest rooms and their adjoining baths, and Sanaki opened every carved cabinet, tried the edge of both beds, and wanted to know why there were cushions instead of mattresses, and why they were so hard. She liked the trapezoidal shape of the first wardrobe, the way its glass-inlaid doors bent open like an accordion, and her lip stuck out when it wasn't any different inside than her own. The second specimen saved them from a litany of complaints - a stand-alone octagonal wardrobe like a wooden column in the middle of the room, in which Sanaki immediately tried to climb up and fit. Sephiran coaxed her out with a promise to carry her downstairs and - damn Valtome for the suggestion - feed her with his fingers for the first course.

His empress smelled like vanilla, perhaps to match her dress, and leaned heavily on Sephiran's shoulder as they followed Valtome back to the first floor. He hoped Ashera's judgment would come within the man's lifetime - that his plan would succeed before Valtome was too fragile to suffer. The senior senators were responsible for the destruction of the heron clan, Misaha's death, the near extinction of Altina's line, all of whom were the goddess's blessed servants. She must have dreamed of it; she must know. She would reserve some special punishment for them, even if he had to embellish their crimes to convince her.

Sephiran would follow them, no doubt, for his own misdeeds - but as long as they fell first, he didn't care what punishment awaited him.

The screens were folded open, and the wide open space reserved for the party was darker than when Sephiran first glimpsed it; the lamps were turned low, their golden glow soaked in by dark silk wall hangings, crimson rugs, divans carved from golden wood and cushioned in a range of monochrome brown arranged in a circle around another low, round table. They were led to a seat top center, covered with a red embroidered throw, and he let the empress slide from his lap to the cushion and drape herself over the wide arm.

She wanted one, of course. It was almost as comfortable as a real bed. Perfect, Sanaki told him, for telling stories.

Dark wooden screens stretched across the width of the room behind them as they had earlier in front to block his view, and through the top panels, carved into wooden mesh shapes - lotus, rose, birds in flight - Sephiran saw the gleam of the darkening evening sky. The sun had set, but the stars didn't appear to be out, leaving the streaks of clouds colored red, purple, orange, and limned with gold. Culbert said they would be opened later once night fell and the jasmine had fully bloomed.

Then the inevitable happened; Sanaki had Sigrun take her to 'freshen up' as the knight termed it, and they were led away by a female servant in a long, slim dress trimmed with tiny coins at the hem that clinked like bells, and Sephiran was left with the senator. Voices drifted in from the front. He recognized two as senators, and another as the woman Duke Tanas kept company with on occasion, and felt Valtome's eyes linger on his profile, though he resisted the temptation to slide his gaze over.

Though he was part of the senior council by way of promotion, Sephiran hadn't yet been invited to a meeting - and doubted, in fact, he would ever see their meeting chamber again unless they wished to give him more specific orders in relation to the empress. He had not been required to endure this man's scrutiny since the night he was called for their examination, and thought he preferred Tanas - the man was straightforward with his intentions, at the least.

"You see why I did not want an escort," Sephiran said, lifting his eyes long enough to confirm his guess when the voices got closer and the first guests were led into the room. He smiled, raised his hand to greet them, and Culbert welcomed them from his seat on the stool beside her majesty's divan. "At the moment I don't think she will stand for only half of my attention."

"Perhaps." Valtome adjusted one of his rings, twisting the band so the ruby setting was positioned just so, and flattened his hand to examine it. "I assumed I erred in only offering women, but my agents tell me you are notorious for turning down almost everyone."

His emphasis on almost had Sephiran's lips pressed flat before he was aware of it. Zelgius must have been followed when he visited. "I am not interested in that kind of advancement, Senator."

"No?" The lilt to Valtome's voice set his teeth on edge. "Oliver insisted you were amendable. My apologies."

Sephiran sighed heavily, curled his hands on his knees so he wouldn't rub his temples, and looked away from Valtome's annoying hee hee hee to watch the corridor his empress had followed. Duke Tanas had quite an imagination to accompany his lack of social grace, it seemed. Sephiran would never consent to have tea with him again.

Sanaki's return deflected their host's attention, and the beginning of the festivities involved every guest coming forward to greet her with a bow or curtsy and a compliment to her dress, or her jewelry, or the way she'd curled the ends of her hair. Lady Marsilikos bent so low when she greeted them Sephiran thought she would spill out of her low-cut dress; a younger female, third cousin to Hetzel and already famous for her poetry, bent on one knee and bowed her head over the empress's white sandal, and composed a short verse attributing the grace of herons to her tiny feet. Then she turned her head and said she'd written a song for his own ascension - that she hoped he would find it pleasing, and speak to her later.

Her skin reminded him of the almond bark of the slender trees crowded around the altar in Serenes Forest, and she was slim like their number, and moved gracefully, and her voice was pleasant enough. Before he could accept, his empress wrapped both of her hands around his wrist and said he'd already promised to keep her company. The female laughed, introduced herself as Tigana, and left them with the promise to perform later.

Sephiran looked down at his empress. She frowned with a full lower lip. "You did," she said.

"And I meant it," he said, loosening her hold on his wrist with one hand. Her grip relented. "You are invited to any conversation I choose to have."

He didn't deserve the narrow-eyed look Sanaki gave him, and when she climbed over his lap to settle in the narrow sliver of space between his thigh and the rounded arm of the divan, she said, "I think Sigrun is right, and I need to keep an eye on you."

Valtome's snicker was nearly lost in the buzz of conversation. Sephiran imagined Sigrun's stuttered y-your majesty, really-- was accompanied by blood rushing to her face, and wanted to turn around and mortify her with a stare, but Oliver chose that moment to arrive and exclaim from across the room what a lovely image he and the empress made framed by crimson silks and gold candlelight. Lady Sanaki adamantly opposed his attempts to take Sephiran's hand away from her, going so far as to climb into his lap and sit with a puff of frothy white skirt. He sighed. At least she wasn't discriminating.

"Now, your majesty," Oliver said, his beringed hands still stretched halfway between his bent knee and Sephiran's lap, "we would also like the pleasure of Lord Sephiran's company--"

You would - all alone, Valtome murmured.

"--and his smile is yours nearly every day. Surely you can find it in your heart to allow me a few moments."

"No."

Oliver's mouth hung open a moment, his next words seemingly stuck in his throat, then his teeth snapped shut. "I really must speak--"

Sanaki kicked the frame of the divan with her heels. "No."

Oliver's rings clicked when he pressed his hands together. "Five minutes--"

"Stop begging, Oliver." Valtome curled a hand in front of his mouth, cleared his throat loudly. Under his breath, he said as he stood to speak, "Do it later, at the council meeting."

Sephiran's eyebrow lifted. Duke Tanas shrugged, a hand pressing on the table to rise again, while their host welcomed his guests once again and drew their attention to Lady Sanaki and his own presence. Sephiran looked down at the empress, felt her hands curl around his arm, though she showed no other sign of being discomfited by the attention. The main courses were announced: grilled eggplant, stuffed zucchini, feta cheese pies and onion pancakes, and a servant, the same woman who led the empress away earlier, knelt by the arm of the divan with a plate of diamond-shaped baklava slices in a pool of their own honey, arranged in the shape of a flower.

So. Duke Tanas wanted to see him for some legitimate purpose, did he? Sephiran couldn't imagine what. Not for any official matters, unless he'd misjudged their intentions, and-- he thought not. Would they really pull him into one of their private meetings for anything more than a show of solidarity? He watched Lady Sanaki take a sticky diamond of pastry, hold her hand beneath it to catch drips of honey, and she cooed her approval around a mouthful.

At least she was enjoying the party.

"A lovely image." The speaker had bowed her head and spread her skirt in a curtsy when Sephiran looked over. And when she stood-- it was Helene of Damascus, another senator, her smile accompanied by shallow dimples. "I don't think we've spoken face-to-face in over a month, Lord Sephiran, but I must say you are a perfect fit for little Lady Sanaki."

His empress stiffened, and Sephiran closed his hand over her sticky fingers when they moved to push her hair back as she always did when she prepared to assert her authority, trying to smile. This was never going to end.

*

The empress slept through the carriage ride back to the palace, and Sephiran carried her up to her rooms, where Tanith waited with three others to relieve Sigrun's shift, into her bedroom, where he lit the lamp wick with a few words. The oil smelled like gardenias; a small basket of blossoms sat on the opposite nightstand, their petals rimed with brown and wilting. Her eyes were open when he laid her against the pillows, though she had not uttered a word since Valtome bade them good-bye. He sat on the edge of the bed, reached back for the quilt folded on the chest at the foot.

"You know all those people..."

Sephiran shook the blanket out over the edge of the bed. Blue stars and moons were woven into the white damask. "Some of them. Most I have not spoken to outside of committee meetings and the like." he spread it over the mattress, folded back, and took one of her feet to untie a sandal.

Sanaki's lids were heavy, but the gold hue of her eyes gleamed, glassy, at a glance too much like another pair of eyes that lived only in his memory. It was remarkable how consistent Altina's features were in her female descendants; if not for the silver hair, Sanaki's grandmother would have resembled her more, but the violet hair, the eyes, the hue of their skin-- how could he not notice it every time?

But her voice was different - young, yes, but it would not be as deep as his wife's, nor as unrefined. He remembered trying to teach Altina how to sing, and the laughing afterward when she proved hopeless and gave up, and reached for him to bend his attention elsewhere. Her contralto laughter had seemed to ring in the vaulted height of the audience chamber the first morning he walked inside, when the sky outside the high windows was still a twilight purple like her hair.

They like you so much, Sanaki said. I had no idea. Sephiran reached up, smoothed his hand beneath her bangs to push them out of her eyes, and dropped the first sandal onto the floor so he could work on the next. I wonder if anybody will like me.

He pulled the other sandal off. "You received quite a few compliments to my memory," he said. She sat up at his bidding and he un-clipped her barrettes. "If you laugh and smile like that--" He combed his fingers into her hair to straighten it, rested his hand on her head. "Forget about Valtome. Even Oliver was charmed when you jumped in to play his word games. Lady Tigana, too."

The empress stuck her tongue out, and he laughed. "She tried to pull you away," Sanaki said.

"But I didn't go."

"You won't go, will you? You won't leave me again? I had them look all over for you, and nobody would tell me where you went." She looked up at his arm, blinking the bright gleam of moisture from her eyes. "I'm tired of being lied to."

Sephiran withdrew. She would have been happier with her mother at that isolated villa; if only their search for the first princess and been successful, perhaps Lady Sanaki would not have to grow up listening to corrupt old men convolute the truth for their own purposes and twist her arm until she did what they wanted her to do. Nor would she sit there, on a bed too large for her stature, and thank him for his honesty.

He took one of her hands, the one without the ring, and bent to kiss the back, still soft with baby fat as her knees were, and her chin, her elbows. "I won't go anywhere, my empress." Sephiran smiled when he straightened, smoothed her hair again. "Except bed - I'm exhausted."

Sanaki blew her bangs from her eyes and pouted, but let him go once he'd promised to be there again first thing in the morning. Tanith saluted when he left, and Sigrun was thankfully nowhere to be found, though she would probably pay him another visit in the morning. What would she criticize this time - the late hour to which they remained out, or perhaps the number of ladies, both young and not, who dared infringe on their empress's territory? Would she be obliged to beat them off with a stick to maintain Sanaki's mood?

By all means, Sigrun, he would say, and he imagined her jade eyes would narrow.

Sephiran smiled down at the stairs as he walked. The halls were empty, the lamps turned down, the windows at the end of each corridor shrouded by curtains. The guards at his door saluted as Tanith did, their fists over their hearts, and he went inside. His own rooms were cold and dark; Zelgius could not visit him openly, or surely he would be there to warm the chambers and keep his master company.

You won't go, will you? You won't leave me again?

His sleep was uneasy that night. Morning dawned gray, the sky like ash.

.

[30 breathtakes][Fire Emblem 10] Invitation

2009-06-05T10:31:19Z

Invitation
Author: Amber Michelle
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Pairing: Sephiran/Zelgius
Theme: 09 - body language
Rating: T
Word count: 1288

Notes: Modern AU, set during high school or thereabouts.

............................................

"You have to learn to say no," Zelgius said, pulling the refrigerator open. Cool air ruffled his hair. "That Japanese politeness stuff isn't going to work on someone like Marcia." He reached past a carton of organic milk for a slab of white cheese and hoped it wasn't frozen again. It always crumbled when it was like that. "Just lie."

"Hmm." A page turned. He could imagine Sephiran rolling his eyes. "Lie about what? I don't know anyone."

Zelgius slid the cheese onto the kitchen island by the cutting board, grabbed the butter dish, kicked the door closed just because his mother always told him not to. The thing was ancient - a Kenmore in ugly greenish yellow, and it froze everything, or the food went bad because it wasn't cold enough. They kept the butter in the door, and it was soft around the edges. "What are friends for?"

Sephiran's eyes flicked up, over the top of his English-Japanese dictionary. He couldn't do anything casually; a normal person would lean back on a counter and slouch, but his back was straight as an arrow. The island counter hid is feet, but they were probably crossed precisely at the ankle, left over right. "Cooking," he said. Zelgius snorted. The other boy's eyes moved down, and he lowered his book a few centimeters - not enough to show a smile. "What are you making?"

"Grilled cheese." Zelgius pointed at the drawer behind Sephiran - no, the second one down, in the white tray - and described the cheese cutter he wanted: white handle, with a wire across the top, hadn't he ever seen one before? No. "No? You haven't--"

"My mother cooks at home." Sephiran pushed the drawer closed with his hip, closed the dictionary with his index finger between the pages to mark his spot. His hair caught on the handle. "She didn't use cheese. Or milk." He turned around to untangle it. "It's a sandwich, is that right?"

He pronounced the word like there was an oh at the end of the sand. Zelgius found the cupboard with the bread by feel, pulled it out - five slices left, just right - and watched him turn forward again, hiding a sliver of flesh between the top of his jeans and where his shirt hiked up in the back. "Yeah." The shirt was pulled straight, down over the hips, and he ripped the cheese wrapper more than he meant to and cut too many slices. "It's really easy. Mom uses spices when she does it, but cheese and butter is good enough."

Sounds very bad for you the other boy muttered, and Zelgius smeared butter on the bread. They could eat healthy when his parents cooked. He wasn't going to cut vegetables or rip up greens - if he sliced anything it'd be that bastard Jarod for his smart mouth. That sonnovabitch deserved more than having his head flushed. He said so again, for the fifth time today, Sephiran told him, and his comeback was drowned when he pulled a pan out of the cupboard and started an avalanche of clanging steel and teflon. He lit the burner, left it there, spun the spice rack by the fridge, but he didn't know what his mom used to make sandwiches.

"What are you looking for?" Zelgius cut a block of butter and dropped it in the pan, watched it melt into bubbly white and yellow, browning around the edges. He watched the other boy's thin fingers comb into his hair, fold it back behind his ear, and when he leaned back it was like he reclined in a chair, his back slightly arched-- He arranged the cheese and bread on a paper plate and took it to the stove. "Just ask me, I can probably tell you faster."

"The word 'fairy,'" Sephiran said.

Zelgius almost dropped the plate. He flipped a slice of bread into the pan, buttered-side down, laid three slices of cheese on. "And you wonder why I'm still pissed off."

"Why?" When he looked over his shoulder Sephiran had tilted the dictionary to his chest. "I just don't understand the usage. I thought cross-referencing might help."

"Don't worry about it."

"But--"

"He's an asshole."

"Wh-- yes, but--"

"Next time some girl tries to drag you on a date, just tell her no. And tell Jarod to fuck off if he doesn't want the team bending him over a rail, got it?"

The answering y-yes was faint, but Zelgius had to flip the sandwich over before it burned, and by then Sephiran was hiding behind his dictionary again, shoulders slightly hunched.

He turned back to the pan and chewed the inside of his cheek. It wasn't like Sephiran was spineless; he wasn't weak, or he would've been intimidated by Jarod, and Marcia would've had him on a leash in less than a minute. He just-- he was so damned non-confrontational. And clueless. And he dressed in button-down shirts he ironed himself, and wore his hair long and silky, like a mane or a veil, soft to the touch and ticklish in the wind when it curled across the car seat to brush Zelgius's arm. And then he ran around the house in undershirts that shrank in the wash because Zelgius was an idiot with laundry, and jeans slightly too big because his hips were so slim--

Zelgius flipped the burner off. "It means you're feminine." He heard the book close again. "Or other stuff, but that's probably what he was ribbing you for."

"I see."

He glanced over his shoulder. From the stove, Sephiran was framed by the bright rectangles of the windows in the dining room, the light turned a rosy orange by the sheer curtains. It blushed Sephiran's pale face, his lips, the white tile on the counters and the metal glint of the knobs and handles. His eyes, cool and green, framed by dark lashes, were slanted toward the refrigerator and the small mirror on the freezer door in its magnetic, blue mesh frame. He held the corner of the book to his lips like a fan, and for a second Zelgius could see it - a fan instead of a book, the bright whiteness of a silk kimono instead of the scoop neck of his t-shirt. It would suit is thin frame, those straight, clean lines and a slip of fabric for an obi.

"I have been accused of this before," Sephiran said when he didn't respond. "Also of being... indecent? It doesn't matter."

Zelgius rolled the spatula handle between his hands. Butter flicked onto the stove top. Mom would kill him. "Because you don't like girls?"

The other boy's gaze moved to him, slightly narrowed - or it could have been the light. "I like girls. When they're not like Marcia, or that Mia."

Zelgius watched the corner of the dictionary creep up to hide his mouth. That curtain of hair looked so black from his angle - like real silk. "What about boys?"

"Hmm." Sephiran's head tilted, the shadows on his face shifted, and Zelgius's hands twitched to take the book and toss it onto the table in the other room. He watched the angle of Sephiran's hips shift when he leaned back against the counter again, and the book lowered a fraction - enough to show a curve to his mouth. "Boys too."

............

Edit:
After some thought, I think what bothers me about this attempt, besides my opinion that the pairing only works in canon situations, is the seeming stereotype Sephiran embodies by being a)slightly feminine (which isn't MY fault, thank you designers), but also b) in the way he is supposed to have interacted with other people. What I had in mind - a gulf between how he's trained to act and how he's expected to act by the people in this environment - comes across as him being weak. My fault for not depicting it right. It's a little harder when doing so from a distance (vs. actually writing the scene.)

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, ignore me. It's something I talked about in a locked entry on the other journal. :D

[Fire Emblem 8] Queen of the Sky

2009-06-01T06:31:30Z

Queen of the Sky
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: flying
Character(s): Tana
Words: 950

For: starlitlady (original request post is here).

What is it with my inability to keep Fire Emblem fics short? >_>

I'm really sorry for the spam. This should be it for today, and the meme is almost done, so the frequent posting will taper off very soon.

......................................................

For years Tana thought her first flight, saddled on her own pegasus, would be the most memorable experience of her life. She was seven, with an entire year of riding with Syrene under her belt, and so many laps around the castle grounds she'd lost count. Tana knew how to fly. The wind pushed her hair from her face, cooled her forehead, tugged it back into a blue banner that came down tangled and knotted on her back when she finally landed, but she didn't care; half an hour with the comb, while listening to Syrene's lecture on what she did wrong, was enough to straighten that out.

You have to use the stirrups, Syrene would say. Your legs aren't strong enough to keep you saddled for a dive, or a sharp bank, or--

But she'd ignored her teacher's instructions and came back fine, and the pegasus frisked around the yard, stretched her wings, pranced to her handlers. Vanessa stood on the lowest tier of the fence, bent over the top rail, and asked what she would name him. Tana blinked, stared, her mind going blank, and spent the rest of the night testing words and names. It was like trying to name a child. Victoria? Minerva? Dianne, Camilla, Amelie after her mother - she would hate that, if she were alive - or maybe Ishtar, for the ancient warrior queen? Innes made fun of her for it, but she hunted down every story about that mythic ruler, even if what she found was just a variation on something they'd already heard, or broken into sentence fragments and blotted by long lacuna. Someday Tana would take to the skies, glittering gold and silver like the queen in those tales, and defend Frelia from whatever dared to threaten her people. The demon king might come back and go on a rampage, and he would never stand a chance when faced with the point of her silver spear.

The road to that dream was an endless string of days spent in the training yard, or above it, trying and failing to hit Syrene's targets, and even when she succeeded Vanessa was a step ahead of her and Innes, who sometimes watched from the battlements, would tell her to do this or that to improve her aim - how did she expect to spear a soldier, a wyvern rider, with an aim like that?

She told him to shut up and stomped all the way back to the stable and her unnamed pegasus, who nickered and rubbed her nose to Tana's hand. Innes didn't know anything about flying. His thoughts were firmly grounded - he even said so.

Vanessa told her not to worry about him - brothers were supposed to be idiots and miss the point. It's what they did. Tana thought of Eirika, Ephraim, and wondered: if Innes had been born with her, if they'd curled in the womb side by side, would he understand her? Maybe he would at least attempt.

It was that day, practicing a new maneuver with Vanessa, what they called running the wall, that Tana felt her hold on the reigns loosen and thin air between her knees where they should have been pressed to the sides of her mount, and she felt like she wasn't moving at all, even though her hair was blown up by the wind; the sky was all blue, clear as water, the air rushed past her ears. This must be flying - the weightless sensation, nothing beneath her feet, nothing to hold onto, nothing to stop her.

Her eyes watered, a scream caught in her throat like a rock, choking her, she clawed at the air and tried to look up, and then-- nothing.

She opened her eyes to candlelight, and the white canopy above her bed tinged a dim gold along the shadows. For a moment Tana was sure she must be dead; they told her later Syrene saw her fall and dove to catch her, that the impact knocked her unconscious, but when she woke up all she could do was claw at the sheets, and grab the hand that steadied her - Innes. He pulled her up and hugged her around the shoulders so hard her bones grated against each other. Stupid, so stupid, how could you do that, how could you let go, how-- He told her he'd never let her go up there again and hugged her tighter when she protested, smoothing her hair over and over again with both hands. Father was worried, father wanted to see her - but father had already talked to Syrene, and when he came in to see Tana, he didn't tell her not to fly again.

You have talent, Syrene told her later, when Tana was well enough to sit up. A bruise the size of a shield purpled her abdomen, her ribs, her arm, where she'd hit the saddle. Syrene limped, but she promised her injury wasn't as bad. Your father knows you like to fly, and he understands that falling isn't what shows your mettle - it's getting back up again. Can you do it?

Of course she would do it! Syrene smiled at her enthusiasm, ruffled her hair, and left. Tana leaned back against her pillows and looked out the window at the blue sky. White, cottony clouds drifted in a scattered line across the arched glass.

Tana would get back up again as many times as she had to. She wasn't afraid of falling again. She wasn't afraid of anything.

.

[Saiunkoku Challenge 49] First Kill

2009-06-01T03:25:45Z

First Kill
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: T
Genre: dark? and gen.
Warnings: violence, blood.
AU/Canon: canon.
Pairing/Characters: Seien
Words: 250

Prompt: #49 - you can never go home again (250 words or less)
Notes: eh.

Cross-posted at saiun_challenge.

...............................................

His mother's hair streaks the snow like a river of purple ink, and red flung from Seien's blade blots the slush like plum petals. Five dark shapes make banks in the white. Flakes drift down, swirl in clouds when he breathes, and he knows where his enemies stand by the puffs of mist they expel with each pant in moonlight filtered through the tree boughs. Pine, spruce, and fir lance his nose with their balsamic scent.

If only you had never been born. The cold burns his ears, but he hears them when they move into shadow: three men, two taller and heavier than Seien by the crunch of their footsteps, which means they'll fall harder and hide the third. He spins and lashes out at the first.

Until now he hasn't ever killed. The only blood he's accustomed to seeing is Ryuuki's, and the memory of brown smears on his tiny knuckles makes Seien hit the next one harder, slice him across the midsection, across the throat. He can almost see the sixth concubine's face turn gray and dissolve against the ash and white snow when the assassin drops.

He doesn't know how he kills the third, only that the snow is melting and his mother's corpse is sinking into the slush. He bends down, picks her up. Her face is a gray ghost. Seien can't leave her there, but he wants to. He can't go home now - but he wants to.

.

[May 31][Fire Emblem 10] Matters of Principle (S.Chronicle 17/30)

2009-05-31T08:58:28Z

Matters of Principle
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: May 31 - the 36th alternative
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Sanaki, Sigrun, Tanith, Marcia, Lekain, others
Rating: T
Words: 6328
Warnings: n/a

Notes: AU, part seventeen of the Summer Chronicle. This is a first and ongoing draft; a list of known issues is being compiled here.

In the interest of not grinding to a halt, I did no research on bows whatsoever. One more thing to fix later. :P As planned, this should be the last Sanaki chapter for a while. It may take me a bit to make the shift, not that this chapter didn't take forever anyway...

.............................................

"Before the passing of your sentence," Sanaki said, stretching her fingers on the curved arm of her throne, curling them around the end, "have you anything to say for yourself, Duke Gaddos?"

Her echo seemed sharper than the last time they held court, the words shorter, staccato, and her robe of office was heavier than a suit of armor. It pulled at her shoulders and strained her lower back, made it ache, and she hunched as if to hold the velvet up, though she tried not to. She must look like Leveque, bent beneath a hump in her back. His hands were clenched at his sides until the knuckles tried to pierce the skin. He had nothing to read, really didn't have to be there at all, though she thought he would have liked to pronounce the sentence himself. His sandalwood cologne curled around her, or maybe it was the pomade he used to slick back his ebon hair; there was some herb mixed into it, lurking beneath the heart of wood, that made her want to sneeze. Her scent locket seemed no competition, but perhaps its failure could be blamed on how cold she was, despite the heat fluttering at the high windows.

She would have liked Sephiran's sweeter, lighter scent then - his white coat at the edge of her vision, and the contrast of his hair spread against it. He would have liked to be there. Sanaki would have allowed him the privilege of condemning Lekain if he wanted it; hearing his voice pronounce death by beheading, three days from now at the beginning of the third watch would be as pleasing as her own - moreso.

But it was Lekain who had his satisfaction today, though it would be the last time he triumphed over her minister. He'd abandoned his hostile stares and lowered his head when he knelt, but his gaze upon entering was brazen enough to belong to a man in full possession of his rank and money.

He had so much money. The numbers quoted in the reports were ridiculous. What was the point? He didn't spend it.

Sanaki suppressed a sigh after a long ten seconds had passed. It would only mean more trouble if he spoke; he still had ears in the senate, allies in the city and the provinces, and the noble's gallery was packed according to Sigrun's report in the antechamber, full to bursting an hour before the proceedings began. News would travel from the audience chamber as fast as the gossips could talk - quite swiftly, almost as if with wings - and she would have a new problem on her hands as soon as the old was taken care of. She wished his head could be struck off now. Just to be sure. Unless she saw him dead with her own eyes--

"Lady Sanaki, I beg you to listen to reason."

Her eyebrows shot up an instant. She brought them forcibly down. Reason-- from Lekain? From the man robbing the commoners under his control for the sake of having a little extra gold when he must have enough already to pave the streets of Sienne? A sliver of his blue eyes glinted beneath his blond lashes. Beside her, Leveque almost moved forward, and stopped himself. He remained poised on the balls of his feet. Sanaki curled her toes into her sandals.

"End the campaign at Serenes," Lekain said, lifting his head a fraction, and the fabric of his unadorned white robe was thin enough she saw the muscles flex in his arms when he clenched his hands. "You defend the perpetrators of your grandmother's murder, and we cannot shield you while in chains. We have kept our oaths, and the traitor Sephiran--"

"Be silent," Sanaki said, and her echo snapped back at her twice as loud. He shouldn't have known about that. He was supposed to be kept in isolation until he entered the audience chamber. His guards should have been sworn to secrecy. "Your part in our history with Serenes and my grandmother's assassination is not to your merit. Slandering your enemies when the grace of this court has allowed you to speak is the height of dishonor, and I will not stand for it. If you've nothing appropriate to say, keep your silence."

"You will see," Lekain said softly. His voice didn't echo; perhaps no one heard it. He smiled; the ends of his mustache lifted. "Do not let your emotions overwhelm your common sense, my empress."

The skin along her spine crawled. Her fingers ached, and the bones stood out on the backs of her hands. "I won't hear the words of a traitor on this matter."

"It is illogical to defend one traitor's word against that of another, your majesty." His eyebrows climbed when he cast his eyes downward again, though only slightly. She'd seen the expression many times during meetings when he condescended to explain what he thought was very simple, or wanted her to think so. "I ask only that you judge us fairly according to the oath sworn upon your coronation - to uphold the office of the Apostle and maintain the order of the empire as set down by the first of your line."

Sanaki wished she were able to fathom his definition of logic. In a world where defenseless herons supposedly bent all their talents toward the goal of her death, she supposed Lekain, Culbert, and their lot of corrupt senators would indeed be paragons of loyalty. In such a world Sephiran might slip a knife between her shoulder blades, and Ashnard would prove sane and true. It would be the festival of fools come to life. "Twenty seconds," she said, clipping the words.

"Without the blessing given to your predecessor--"

"Ten seconds."

Lekain lowered his head once again. The yellow afternoon sunlight glinted on his hair, the strands slightly unruly, the smooth sweep back from his forehead coming apart; the style must have been set with water. She allowed the last few seconds to pass in silence, though she knew he wouldn't try speak again. There was no need to.

There were no disturbances when she walked the familiar path back to her office. She looked up at the wisteria out of habit, noted the blooms were gone and the vines bristled like leaves, curling down in places to catch on Sigrun's lance or Tanith's hair. Yellow sun lit the courtyards. The cherry trees were shedding their blossoms like snow, and petals gathered in the cracks between flagstones, in the dirt plots, on the surface of each fountain, even caught in the winding arms of the wisteria and roses. Her train swirled over them, pulling the petals in swirls down the hall like foam in the wake of a skiff. She scattered them all over the blue tile steps up to the palace. Marcia attempted to shake them off, but Sanaki didn't pause. Sweat trickled down the channel of her spine, moistened her petticoats at the waist. She wanted to shed her layers and sink into her bath where the world would be turquoise and cool. There were no guards where she walked, aside from the usual compliment to secure the corridors. The skin on her back pricked when she turned her back on windows, curtains, doors locked and chained.

Security, she was told, had been tightened the night she was attacked; passes were required to enter the cathedral, and the palace was completely shut down, maintained by half the staff, all of whom were vouched for. Those knights in Sanaki's service longest were assigned to prepare her meals. Catalena and Amelie were being kept on the lowest prison level, far away from the senators, from Sephiran, from the prince and his retainer, all of whom demanded better treatment according to their stations. The traitor knights would have been dropped into the oubliette in the old days and left there to starve, but Sephiran had it walled in years ago - before Sanaki was born.

The report her knights compiled told her the prince was imprisoned near him, on the floor above the senior council. Their guilt wasn't proven-- not even close. The word of a traitor meant nothing. They were allowed the comfort of running water, the privilege of having visitors, of asking for items formerly in their possession - books, clothing, and apparently Sephiran had asked for a certain canister of tea which he was allowed to have after it was sifted and examined for hidden items. Rafiel had gone down with Sigrun to see him two days before, after twenty hours of confinement while the premises were searched, and returned to say her minister was well, though perhaps a bit high-strung.

He asked after your health at least three times, Sigrun told her. Tanith said the first thing Sephiran did, when they marched into his room to arrest him, was ask if Sanaki had been hurt. We thought at first it meant Catalena was telling the truth, but he didn't respond correctly to any of our probes.

He fought us the moment he understood you had been attacked, Eirene said. His windows were broken. Sanaki saw it when she went to retrieve her books and decide which of his clothes to send down. Boards were hammered to the frames. The floor still glittered, her sandals crunched on the rug. His rooms were dark, full of shadow, sliced with beams of light and swirling dust motes. I don't remember how it happened, Tanith had said. Only that there was suddenly so much noise and wind.

Such evidence looked bad; why did he resist arrest, if he was innocent? The senate would hear his composure snapped and turn deaf ears upon the rest of the explanation.

At at the end of the long climb to the fourth floor, there were people waiting in her office when Sigrun opened the door: Shirin, Leveque, Lady Gaddos, and Amelia, and Tanith came in behind Sanaki, followed her around the desk, stationed herself just behind the tall back of the chair, and to the right. Marcia's pink hair flashed between the ranks of her visitors. She closed the door quietly.

They bowed, Amelia curtsied, and Sanaki peeled silk from the back of her legs and sat down. She'd like the costume twice as much if it had half the layers, and perhaps if it were shorter - enough to let a little air in to cool her ankles instead of dragging along the floor. It gathered in folds around her feet and felt like a blanket over her lap.

"I'd like to know what he was doing," Amelia said as she straightened, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, "if it wasn't making war."

"Making money, of course." Leveque straightened his white coat with two yanks to the hem. "It's what the Gaddos family does best."

"I don't believe I've ever heard you mention them without an accusation of thievery or extortion," Shirin said.

"When you do it for me?"

Sanaki rolled her eyes, and Amelia smiled when their gazes met, shook her head, and smacked Leveque's arm with a roll of paper. He turned with an I beg your pardon--

"I assume you have a reason for meeting me here," Sanaki said. They quieted, Leveque straightened. She tapped the desk with her nails to hear the thin snick snick snick snick, and their eyes moved to her hand, seeming of one will. Poor Lady Gaddos was the only one to look away; she stood with an arm across her back, a posture reminiscent of the military at rest pose, and her red eyes were fastened to the windows. "I'm sure you understand this has been a trying day, so if it isn't too much to ask, let's get to the point."

Leveque scratched his ear, and Shirin stepped forward just as Amelia opened her mouth. "We have not been told the circumstances surrounding Lord Sephiran's arrest, your majesty," Shirin said. Her gray pallor and the dark smears under her eyes explained the slight, gravely edge to her voice. Her hair glowed in the green light cast through the trees outside her windows. "Prince Daein's incarceration is not a surprise, but..."

"What she really wants to ask," Amelia said, coming even with Leveque, "is why you decided to take such a risk. I believe we deserve an answer."

"I would say so. Are we not trustworthy?"

Sanaki looked at Leveque, the swollen knobs of his knuckles. They slid under the skin when he tightened his hold on his leather folio, the skin there a lighter brown. His hands would have frightened her when she was a child. "You question my precautions now?"

"Your majesty--" Shirin's voice caught in her throat when Sanaki's gaze turned to her. Her voice was thin, high-pitched for an adult, though not quite child-like. Her hair was swept back, but tendrils clung to her chin. "You must have known any attempt on your life would reflect on him, and therefore on us."

"I apologize." Sanaki shook her head once, closed her eyes. "I did not expect an attack of that nature. Not in the same place, the same manner--"

"It means something," Amelia said. Sanaki's mouth twisted, and she took it in with a lift of a dark eyebrow. "Attacked in the same manner as your grandmother, nearly in the same place. What were you there for?"

Sanaki looked at Lady Gaddos; she had not moved, and her attention to the window was too intent. "We'll discuss this later," she said, meeting each gaze and holding it for a few seconds. She pulled her hands into her lap and clasped them. "Why don't we address Lady Gaddos first, since she has decided to join us?"

Astrid's head snapped frontward when her name was mentioned, and Shirin shifted back to look over her shoulder; Leveque's eyes moved in the right direction, but his head hardly moved. Only Amelia turned as if she'd expected Sanaki's inquiry, and led the younger woman forward by the elbow. "We have a proposal regarding her continued shelter from the Gaddos and Damiell families, if you will hear it. I believe it will be beneficial to both parties, your majesty."

Sanaki shifted, crossing one leg over the other. Her skirt hung like a lead curtain from her knees. The room was starting to feel stuffy, scented with someone's gardenia perfume and the intense sandalwood of Leveque's cologne. She lifted a shoulder in a shrug, and hoped it would involve enough discussion she could throw them out before they pressed her for details about the incident three nights ago. Her back was starting to ache. She hadn't eaten, and her stomach was starting to feel hollow. If the meeting went on much longer, it would embarrass her by starting to make noise. It would be like her early years on the throne all over again.

The meeting stretched almost an hour, and most of her body hurt by the end of it; her shoulders and elbows from being propped on the arms of her chair in the same pose for too long; her knees for being crossed and recrossed a dozen times, until her legs tingled with numbness; her stomach roiled, and all she took in before starting her work was a glass of milk and a slice of rosemary and wheat toast, dry - just enough to convince her body there was something to digest. She returned to her rooms at three, tossing the last sheaf of letters and petitions into the cold fireplace at the back of her sitting room. Sigrun said she would return with some soup, something soothing like corn pottage or egg drop, and left Sanaki after asking her not to open the balcony doors. If the heat became unbearable, she should ask someone to come in with a fan.

Instead she shed her clothes in the bath chamber, but left her hair up so it wouldn't soak when she sank into the pool. Her sleeves stuck to her arms, the silk clung to her back, plastered to the skin, her sandals slipped right off of her feet, the insides dark and damp. She dipped her toes into the bath water and found it tepid, almost cool - good enough. Sanaki filled her washbasin from it and untied the last of her layers - tulle to shape her skirt and give the illusion it floated over the floor, and loose white pants that ended a finger past her knees. They were smeared with red, deepening to brown, unsavable. The petticoat she flung onto the bench inside out, but the stains were small, on the inner layer, easy to remove.

So she was too optimistic. Her throat burned. The water ran red down her legs when she sponged them clean.

Three days. They would die in three days, all four of them. Sanaki took a deep, shaking breath and stepped into the water, sinking down on the lowest tier so the water covered her shoulders and lapped at her chin.

Three days.

*

Court was adjourned for the rest of the week; Sanaki spent her first day of rest with her pegasus knights at a base south of Sienne, built near a sandy cliff overlooking a difficult part of the beach. The coast was rocky and brown, the rocks jagged instead of smooth and sharp enough to draw blood when one slipped and scraped one's feet. They were pounded to gravel where the path wound downward over slopes slippery with sand, anchored in places with tall yellow grass and tangles of strawberry vines. She picked a handful when they landed outside the barracks and had one of the younger recruits wash and cut them into heart-shaped slices.

Juniper and acacia trees crowded the stone buildings and blocked Sanaki's view of the ocean, though she heard the surf break on the rocks and pull back out to sea, a dull roar to underpin the beat of pegasus wings and shouts from the sandy practice yard to the south, calls to run, take off, strike, and two dozen responses scattered on the wind. The smell of baking seaweed, too, reached her nose with gusts of wind, sometimes faint, sometimes bitter as vinegar.

She sat on a hard wooden bench beneath a stone overhang on the northern side of the building Sigrun and Tanith stayed in when they came to train their subordinates - the veterans slept there, ate there, separated from the younger students by a short path canopied with tangled tree branches that wound and turned so it appeared to be longer. Winged shadows cycled over the yard. Her knights were in the air with Lady Gaddos, who rode Shula's mount and carried a silver bow and a quiver of blunted arrows, and targets were arranged at points in the practice yard: one in each corner, where the fence cast its shadow and obstructed her line of sight, and several of different sizes placed on the white gravel grid laid on the flaky black dirt. Marcia remained at her side with Eirene. The others were inside, two were pacing the perimeter, and the stable was full.

Sanaki's hadn't flown in months; her mount was too round about the edges. Her legs hurt. Sitting made her thighs ache, but standing would stretch other muscles in ways she didn't think they should pull. Crossing her leg over her knee twinged, and her riding pants were tight enough to pull and crease against her skin.

"That," Marcia said when the lady's arrow struck the edge of a target and glanced off, "is not going to bring down any of the Daein generals I know about." The metal disc, vibrating after the hit, slowly stilled. "She's pretty good, though."

"She's better than any of us," Eirene said in her little girl voice. She was younger than Marcia, though not by much, and she looked like a child with her blunt-cut bangs and the curl of her blonde hair around her chin. Her eyebrows were hidden in her hair. "It's no good for armor, but she'll hit soldiers. If we need her to do precision work, it'll be on the ground."

Marcia breathed a long sigh, tapped the haft of her spear on her shoulder - or maybe her gloves were reinforced, Sanaki couldn't tell without facing her. "She's having trouble with Verdi, though. They're not going to have much time to get used to each other."

"Yeah."

Sanaki watched Lady Gaddos wheel her pegasus around and raise her bow again. Her shadow passed out of range, behind the overhang, and then Astrid was lost to her sight. Another arrow streaked silver from the sky and clanged onto a target.

"Better."

"It's still not going to kill anyone."

"She started two hours ago, Marcia."

Sanaki pinched the bottom of her leg where it twinged and straightened her posture. "Explain to me why shooting from a pegasus is so difficult."

Marcia's response was a drawn out uhhhh, well-- and Eirene said, "The biggest problem is not being able to hold on. That's okay on a horse, but there you only move two directions if everything is going right. At least, I think so."

"The wind from the wings," Marcia said. "A bigger distance for the arrow to travel, a strange angle for most archers-- but I wouldn't really know. Javelins are hard too, but they're shorter range."

Sanaki let her head drop back, heard her braid thump against the other side of the bench back. The top rubbed against her shoulder blades. She asked Eirene to go inside for some mint tea, and the knight murmured something about bringing bread too, though Sanaki told them earlier she wasn't hungry. The flight from Sienne was only two hours, and she attempted to eat before they left, only to get sick and delay their departure over an hour. The sun was already descending. They'd arrived at noon, and she promised Shirin and the others they would return at the close of the second day. Not long, as they said, for Astrid to accustom herself to a pegasus - and Verdi belonged to Shula a week ago.

Did a pegasus require time to mourn? He appeared to accept his new rider, but when Shula neglected to return to him, would he rebel? Would he lose his fighting spirit? They couldn't explain her absence to him the way they would to a human being, and the knights were close to their mounts; half of Sigrun's off time, Sanaki had been told, was spent riding, or visiting Verdandi in the stables at the edge of the palace grounds. She had no reason not to assume Tanith, Marcia, and the others did the same thing - that Shula must have spent her free time with Verdi, given him corn and apples, celery, sugar cakes.

"As long as she can fly," she said when the three fliers appeared again, followed by their shadows. "This is temporary. Both of you are to watch her closely. I won't trust her at my back, no matter how unwilling she was to marry Lekain."

Another arrow streaked down, another, and another after that, three in quick succession, though only two hit. The third struck the gravel, scattered rocks, and dust tickled Sanaki's nose. Behind her the door opened and Eirene's footfalls approached her chair; ice clinked against her glass, and the tray rattled when her knight knelt to hold it at the appropriate height. There was no sugar, she said, but she brought a pot of honey from the kitchen. No mint leaves. Sanaki shook her head and took the glass, sipped, and waved the rest away.

Unsweetened, it tasted like dirty water, the aftertaste cool and fresh. It made her throat constrict until she thought she would throw up.

"It'll get worse if you don't eat something, your majesty." Eirene's lashes lowered, so bright and gold they really veiled her eyes. "The honey will help."

Sanaki slammed her glass back onto the tray harder than she intended. The knight's face turned away. She sighed. "I know." Half the pain spread around her middle must be hunger. It was never this bad; never before had the cramping and sickness of her cycle incapacitated her as it did then. It was stress, Sigrun said, but if that were all, wouldn't Sanaki have suffered the effect before now? And the knight had given her a look, a very straightforward, narrow-eyed look, and told her they would sit her down at the table and feed her if she intended to be a child about it.

"We can go get some--"

"No. This will be fine." Sanaki took the long-handled silver spoon on its white napkin, dipped it into the honey pot, stirred it into her tea. She took more at Eirene's prompting. The tea was easier to swallow, the honey a resinous undertone swirled in every sip. She kept the spoon and let the girl take the rest away. It clanked and scraped against the glass when she stirred, and the ice rattled. The scent of mint and sugar overwhelmed the dust.

The door closed behind them. Marcia stepped up, stood at her arm. "You think Astrid will betray you?"

Sanaki watched the light sparkle on her ice, heard another arrow strike a target, but didn't look up. "Who can say? A strong arm says nothing of her will or loyalties. She bends under the slightest pressure."

"Her grandmother is a tyrant."

She looked up. "You know the family?"

Marcia's mouth curled down, and she shifted her lance to her other arm, leaned it on her other shoulder. "Not that well. Everyone who means anything attends at least one fete at the Damiell mansion, that's all. I met Astrid during the archery contest, and she wiped the board, of course, and her grandmother had this frown carved on her face..."

However important they were, the Damiell family had never been good enough to merit Sanaki's attention. It was when they formed their alliance with Gaddos - when they sent their youngest daughter to marry - that Sephiran thought them worth mentioning. Their influence was great, yes; it might be dangerous with such direct influence on a high-standing senator. He said that was his reason for refusing their offer, though she knew other concerns must have presented themselves - the risk of producing marked children, for example.

"And they gave her to Lekain. Her grandmother wanted a bargaining chip, I suppose, not an accomplished warrior?" Sanaki sipped her tea, then gulped a mouthful, and felt it trickle down to her empty stomach. "We'll remedy that soon enough."

"And then who will they try to marry her off to?" Marcia snorted and pushed her fingers through her hair, It fanned back into place, damp and stringy at the front, and her forehead sparkled with sweat. "I heard they tried to give her to Sephiran. Bet he feels like a heel now."

"Hmmm." Sanaki stirred her tea again and heard Sigrun shout something. The words were warped beyond comprehension by the time they echoed to the ground. "Just watch her."

"Yes, your majesty."

*

Sanaki followed the others to the stables later and rubbed the smooth white hair on Leona's nose while Sigrun and Tanith took care of their mounts, then instructed Lady Gaddos on the differences between war horses and pegasi. They weren't just winged horses; they had special nutritional needs, the feathers needed care, their teeth were more delicate, their eyes more prone to infection, and so on. Sanaki retrieved a bunch of greens for her pegasus, the leaves edged with red and purple pigment; Leona at from her hands and nudged her face, nickering. They hadn't seen each other in ages. She hadn't remembered what it was like to fly until they left the city and its haze of woodsmoke behind. Though she didn't notice any salt on the air when they reached the coast, as novelists were wont to describe the breeze, it was fresh - tart, sandy, not a hint of wood or char, or coal.

They took a light afternoon meal of brown rice in small bowls and three slices of seared, unseasoned tuna laid on top, which she removed and gave to Tanith. The mess hall - also the meeting area, the reading room, the recreation area, whatever it was needed for - was a rectangular space twenty paces long and fourteen wide, with four round tables at the far end and chairs and short shelves lining the walls on the other, divided by threadbare rugs that were colorful once, the backgrounds faded red and the scrolls in colors dulled mostly gray by dust and use. The silverware was steel, the plates white glass. Sigrun apologized, said they hadn't notified anyone the empress would be present for security reasons, and Sanaki told her not to worry. She didn't care that she had to share Sigrun's room, though she regretted pushing Tanith out; she didn't mind the bad light, the unscented oil, or plain linens. Dinner was heavier, meat - again given to Tanith, and split among the others - and yams drowned in butter, sprinkled with parsley and bits of red pepper, and she managed to eat half of it before pushing the warm plate away and retiring.

She didn't have any of her paperwork. One of Sephiran's older books, penned with spells she'd already mastered, waited in her messenger bag with a half-written letter addressed to her which she hadn't brought herself to read yet, folded between a single change of clothes. Sanaki considered pulling it out and turning through the pages.

He would have been against this vacation. The execution would be waiting for her attention when they went back. That, she thought, would clean the situation up, ease the tension - perhaps it would unnerve the rest of the senate, and if so, good. They should be off-balance. They should be inclined to mercy, in the event she could not halt the next trial in its tracks on the matter of principle. They should bend their necks as Shirin and Leveque did, as Amelia finally did when Sanaki declared her trip a non-negotiable luxury. If the empire ground to a halt after a few days of absence--

She didn't know. Sanaki didn't know what would happen without Sephiran there to handle her meetings, without the senior council to handle their own provincial matters. She didn't know what would happen if she decided not to replace them.

Maybe it would all fall apart. Sienne would break into a thousand pieces, and when she returned, she would put it together again in a way that suited her better - and yet did not suit her at all, because she could not save the person who mattered. Duty demanded she let him go. He said as much, on the fourth line from the bottom of the second page, the only words to catch her eye before she folded the letter and tucked it between the pages of his book before her knights caught a glimpse of it and questioned her. It wasn't the law forcing her hand, when the previous Apostle's judgment declared the enslavement of Ashera's children blasphemy no matter their race, nor was her reputation a concern - how could it get worse? It was his voice in her memory saying his position didn't matter as long as she benefited from his surrendering of it.

The night was long. Sanaki stretched on her back in a thin slip, using the narrow bed Sigrun would have slept in had she come alone or with one of the others, and kicked the sheets off. The door was thin. Light seeped around the edges, bright as sunlight once she blew the lamp out, and beyond she heard their voices: Tanith saying something about swords with ranged attacks, a murmur that might have been Sigrun. Lady Gaddos spoke to them without the reservation she displayed for Sanaki and Sephiran; she laughed at something Marcia said, answered Tanith's queries, most of which did not survive the passage through the door to Sanaki's ears, though she gathered Astrid was good enough with a sword she would not have to rely on archery when riding.

Good. The fewer arrows pointed at Sanaki's back the better. She would have ordered the surrender of the woman's bow if Eirene hadn't convinced her of what an asset it might be - say, if they decided to send a detachment to support General Zelgius.

Did Zelgius know what happened to his employer? Sanaki meant to send a message. It must have slipped her mind.

Sigrun came in late, and the sound of a pegasus knight undressing - unbuckling belts, knives, the soft leather plates they wore beneath their coats, gloves - it was unfamiliar and loud to Sanaki's ear. She knew silk and cotton, and how they whispered, and the clink of gold fastenings - then the sound of a comb running through long hair, loose hair. Sigrun unbraided hers, and in the faint light Sanaki realized, staring at her back through a veil of her own hair, how long it was, how wavy and thick. It reached her knight's waist, the color like jade. How was she to know when it was always bound?

She closed her eyes when Sigrun turned around, but the tiny flame she lit was blown out a moment later, and the bed springs creaked. Sanaki heard her breath deepen into a sleepy rhythm, watched the light in the common room fade. She listened, and had to close her eyes again when they felt wet.

Morning came while she watched, though she must have slept - the room lightened in what seemed the blink of an eye, and Sigrun was up with the sun, out in the common room, while others stirred, their voices and movement faintly audible through the walls. She smelled the flat bread her knights favored, and the rosemary decorating the loaf, warming in the oven. Sanaki turned to face the wall and tried to nap, but the voices grew louder, boots stalked down the hallway, four pairs of them, and it was Marcia who finally came in to touch her shoulder and wake her. Was she well? Did she still feel sick? Someone went to town for some willow bark, and she would make a tea if Sanaki needed it. She refused.

"We have pears and apricots in from the market," Marcia said, helping her up and pinching Sanaki's neck, rubbing hard to ease the stiffness. "They're great with the foccacia. You must be hungry by now-- aren't you?"

Sanaki tried to laugh, but she couldn't maintain the smile. Her face was tired and sore. "Sigrun threatened to have me fed if I didn't start eating on my own."

"She's worried." Marcia let go, helped her up. "You've been getting thinner. She's afraid you're sick."

Only of the senate. Sanaki sent her out with the assurance she would eat as soon as she dressed. The knight said there was a letter from the city waiting with a black seal - urgent - and she spent as much time combing her hair as possible, then on washing her face and rubbing cream into her skin. She wasn't that thin; maybe her elbows were sharper, but Sephiran would have said something. He always did.

Wedges of pear, apricot, and slices of strawberry waited in a bowl for her when she went out, and a fat slice of bread was pushed over to her on a round plate. The top crust was crisp and melted in her mouth with a sudden flare of rosemary. She speared her slices of fruit with a fork and ate in incremental bites, knowing from a glance Sigrun was watching from beneath her lashes while she talked to Tanith, her hair braided and coiled at the nape of her neck so it looked short and neat. Sanaki wished she would let it flow free.

"The message arrived before sunrise," Marcia said at her ear, and she started, chair scraping. The knight whispered I'm sorry, and slid the envelope onto the table, beneath the lip of Sanaki's plate. The black seal was a big, ugly inkblot. "It came by dragonback."

She frowned at the sigil imprinted on the wax. It wasn't official - the triple cherry blossom was Amelia's, a personal seal, and she most certainly didn't have access to black unless one of the others, Shirin maybe, took advantage of their access to the senior council offices.

Sanaki snapped it open with her thumbnail and unfolded the paper.

Lord Sephiran and the Prince have disappeared. You must return immediately.

...................................................................

Anticipated changes:
+ Lekain's dialogue
+ timing/pacing of certain events, which will involve minor edits to several chapters. I screwed myself over - or should I say I surprised myself instead? That sounds a little better.

Pacing, pacing. I blasted through this chapter. At this point, I figure I'll have to edit anyway, no matter how well I do at the beginning. Right now getting it done is the most important thing, or it's going to die.

[Twelve Kingdoms] A Dream of Finery

2009-05-31T00:39:58Z

A Dream of Finery
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: regalia
Character(s): Shoukei
Words: 645

For: canis_m (original request post is here)

......................................................

Light rain pattered on the leaves outside Shoukei's window and jeweled the hydrangea blossoms until they sparkled like hairpins in the silver light. She'd already dressed and her hair was combed and pinned in a swirled knot, the bottom half flowing free over her back. Three of Youko's hairpins sat in a flat drawer two hand-spans wide, lined with red silk, and she couldn't decide which would best compliment her robes. The gold fork with opal settings? The emerald butterfly and faceted gold dangles?

A long time ago she'd worried about this every day. Was it ten years? No-- less, but so much had happened since her parents were killed it felt like forever. She'd lived an eternity already, without jewels, without fine silks and embroidered slippers, and when she picked up the butterfly pin and slid the tines between two overlapping loops of hair - like the deep blue of the cloud sea during the winter, one maid said, when you look down through the many facets of water and see more water down below, and ice, and snow - it felt heavy and she thought it would slide out. She tried again, worked it behind some scalp hair, and it felt more secure.

The gleam of green in Shoukei's hair reflected the green embroidery of her sleeves. The silk was a warm, burnished red, like sandstone. The Royal Han would appreciate the complimentary nature of the colors, and that was her concern - not the weight of the jewelry, or the airy flutter of the sleeves when she was accustomed to heavier fabric. He would like it. If he told her to change one more time she would-- she'd yank his hair out with his comb. How is he even alive? she'd said the night before, while she re-poured Youko's tea and cleaned up the spill from her last attempt. How is it that Han stays afloat when its king is a capricious, lazy, perfectionist-- and did she have any idea how many clothes he cycled through in a single day?

Yes. Yes, Youko did know, and she laughed.

Nothing was funny anymore. Youko's smiles were strained lately, and Shoukei only laughed to deride someone. Kei was run by idiots, she sometimes said, idiots they just couldn't get rid of yet. Not until they had two full harvests and a few more reliable students taking the exam, and-- she wasn't sure. What had her father done? Should his example be followed at all, even in small parts, considering the result?

Jewels weren't meant for Shoukei - not anymore. They weighed her hair down when she stood up to leave, go meet the servants in the palace given over to the Royal Han, until it pulled at her scalp near the temple. He told her to dress up, that her elegance was wasted in plain robes, that it wasn't the sort of simplicity that would highlight the best in her, but there was something about Youko's blunt honesty that had come to reflect itself in her own appearance. Shoukei's earliest memories were of finery: candied rose petals, gossamer silk scraped so thin it was transparent. Myrrh in the brazier. Glazed walnuts and dragonfruit on a china plate she saw the shadow of her fingers through in good light, and a go board with legs carved into dragons.

She wore a robe and sash from Han on the day of her father's coronation, and for years they were the most beautiful things she owned. She remembered the shade of indigo, and the opalescent glow of pearls, and he remembered too, because he was there - but that princess was dead. The jewel of Hou died with her family.

Really, she was never alive at all.

.

[Fire Emblem 9/10] Never Let Go

2009-05-28T00:20:56Z

Never Let Go
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: querulous
Character(s): young!Sanaki (and Sephiran)
Words: 943

For: measuringlife (original request post is here)

......................................................

As with most outings involving his young empress, their tour of the Five Mountain Vineyard ended with Sephiran carrying her in both arms - like a princess, she said, stretching her arms around his neck. She was small for six years, light and thin, but he wasn't beorc; his arms weren't solid or muscled, and he wished for the better part of an hour for Zelgius to appear, though Sephiran knew it was unlikely. Even if Lady Sanaki allowed someone else to carry her - and he knew from experience she wouldn't, not even Sigrun or Tanith - it wasn't a risk he could take.

It was still afternoon when they approached the public pavilion from the back path, led by the resident manager, through a copse of cottonwood trees with leaves fluttering in the wind, light and dark green, and the vineyard stretched at his back in neatly covered rows a mile long and four paces apart, exactly. The hills from which the place took its name were mostly yellow and patched with golden brown, their edges indistinct some dozen leagues farther north near the border between Persis and Culbert. The wind smelled like dust and grass, and wet stone. Sanaki leaned her head on his hair and said again, I'm hungry, Sephiran, and he told her they were almost back - there would surely be a feast waiting for them.

"Can't I go to sleep for a little while?"

He tried to see her expression in his peripheral vision, but it was a blur, and shielded by her hair. "If there is enough time left, certainly."

"But--" Even though her voice was a soft breath on his ear, he couldn't help wondering if their guide overheard. She walked five paces ahead, her long gait and the sway of her hips reminding him of the dragon princess he was once acquainted with. She held her head high, shoulders thrown back. Sanaki had hidden behind his leg when she greeted them, and even now her arms tightened around his neck when he saw her face turn to look at the woman. The tail of her skirt slid over the cobbled walk, a shimmering green like peacock feathers. "You said I wasn't allowed to taste--"

"You're allowed to eat. Don't be silly." Sephiran shifted more of her weight onto his right arm and took the steps up to the building quickly before he risked looking at her. Blue-liveried attendants swung the glass doors open to admit them, the wash of air smelling of baking bread and spices. "It's the wine you can't have, and you didn't like it last time anyway."

She wrinkled her nose. "Ew."

"Exactly."

"But why can't we eat in our rooms?"

Sephiran sighed. He'd explained it to her twice already. She hadn't yet told him what the real question was, and before he could ask their guide had to be dealt with; was he pleased with the state of his property, did he have any questions? Did they want to peruse the menu before the banquet hall was opened, would the empress mind if the local gentry was invited, seeing as they'd already arrived? He answered for the empress because she'd turned her face away, into his hair, and she pulled until his scalp twinged when the female swung her black hair back and asked if he would join her in the tea room to discuss the impact of recent business decisions on his finances. He said no. Tomorrow morning, perhaps, once he and the empress were rested.

He felt Sanaki's frown against his neck while they were led down a wide, brown-tiled hallway, one wall solid white plaster, the other broken by windows at such short intervals it must have been mostly glass. She reached for a creeping tendril of jasmine curling out of a basket suspended on the wall between glass panels, but then they were led into the tea room, and the overseer excused herself. The empress refused to let go when he tried to put her down, so Sephiran sat down on one side of a cream colored sofa and leaned back against the rigid arm to look at her.

Sanaki picked at the back of his collar with her nails. "You talked to her all day."

He watched her lips roll in and go thin and white. "She runs the business here, my lady. There is no one else I can talk to about it."

She kicked the sofa arm. The metal buckle of her sandal snapped loudly on the gilded wood. "I know what 'business' really means."

He smiled, but made sure his mouth didn't curve too widely. "You're too young for that, your majesty." Ten years too young to be jealous-- at the least. Who was she learning this from? "And I'm not interested. Haven't I told you that?"

Her fingers curled in his hair. "You smiled at her so much."

"Only to be polite." Sephiran reached back to loosen her grip and brought her hands down. "Only when she was looking at us. Didn't you see?"

Sanaki sighed through her nose, her frown still plumping her bottom lip. "I'm going with you tomorrow."

He laughed, stroking the back of her hands. "Of course."

"You aren't allowed to go anywhere without me."

He kissed her temple, rubbed his cheek on her hair, and wondered if she would forget about this when she got older, or if she would hold on to him just as tightly. "As you wish."

.

[Fire Emblem 9/10] Unfinished Business

2009-05-26T21:06:43Z

Unfinished Business
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: languid
Character(s): Naesala (and Sanaki)
Words: 787

For: misheard (original request post is here)

......................................................

"Are you sure about this?" Naesala turned his coat out across the pillows and squinted at the seams in the dim gold lamplight, chin propped on his hands and his elbows digging into the mattress. He'd heard something snap when the empress tried to yank it over his head. Normally he would blame it on her beorc habits - he had wings, and they complicated things when one wanted to undress, and he couldn't shed them whenever he liked as Lehran could; but she hadn't seemed to care his arms were still in his sleeves either. "We still have plenty of time."

"I'm sure I want to appear before my councilors dressed, yes," Sanaki said, voice muffled slightly. He heard her silk robe slither over her skin and saw it flip over the top of the screen in his peripheral vision. "You should do the same. I won't be held responsible if Sigrun tries to spit you on her lance when they come in for their rounds. I'm sure you deserve it."

"Probably." There. Naesala pinched the seam between his fingers. It was in the sleeve, just as he'd thought. He heard the empress shimmy into a petticoat behind the screen, heard her yank on the drawstrings and knot them. His feet hung over the end of her bed, and the posts hardly left room for his wings to move; he stretched them to either side, felt the muscles in his back twinge, and decided he would take her somewhere else next time they had a meeting like this - or at least to a room with a bigger bed. "Do you have a needle and thread?"

There was a pause, a stretch of several seconds which he wasn't sure had anything to do with whatever she was dressing in. Then Sanaki leaned out, curling her pale hand around the edge of the screen. Her hair fanned down like a purple curtain. "You're asking me?" Her eyes drifted, following his bare arms to his back, to the spread of his wings over her mattress, and lifted an eyebrow. "I thought that nonsense about men lazing around afterward was in jest."

Naesala pushed up, pulled his legs up, and tried to fold his wings without smacking the bedposts. "You ripped my coat, your majesty." He swept it up and tossed it at the screen. She disappeared with a squeak that shouldn't have been adorable in the slightest. "I've got my pants on. What more do you want?"

Sanaki appeared again, stepping over his coat, arms twisted behind her to button the dress. It was plain, white, and draped across her hips, gathered so the folds made his eyes linger there to follow the curves. "Ask when Sigrun comes in, and she'll find some thread for you."

He looked up-- at her face. "Need some help?"

Sanaki smiled, the line of her mouth slanted. "I need to keep it on, Naesala."

He compressed his wings against his back and used her arms as leverage to stand. "I can do that." He reached around her shoulders and brushed her hands away, pulled her hair over her shoulder. The buttons were tiny pearls of glass, probably also white, and the closures were tiny loops of silk cord. Her dress left bare an expanse of flesh wider than his hand. "Give them a piece of my mind for dragging you out at this time of night, will you?"

"Naturally." Her fingers worked on his arm, her nails a slight bite to the skin. "You'll still be here when I return, I hope?"

"I was planning on it." Naesala let her go when she stepped back and watched her twist her long hair into one of those beorc styles that looked twice as complicated as it actually was. She should leave it loose; it was silky, thick, shiny - it should be shown off. Tangles were nothing. He'd take care of that. "We're not finished yet, remember?"

Sanaki walked away, bent over her dressing table with one hand holding her hair up, found a pin for it, and looked at him in the mirror. "Twenty minutes."

"I give it ten before you start yelling."

Sanaki snorted and strode to the door. "It's so hard to find good help these days."

Yeah, it was. He wondered how long it would be before she called the old hands back and made all of this impossible.

She'd never forget her heron, but it worked out alright for him - he wouldn't forget about his either.

.

[Final Fantasy Tactics] To the Ends of the Earth

2009-05-26T21:04:32Z

To the Ends of the Earth
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: snarl
Character(s): Ovelia and Agrias
Words: 689

For: reynardfox (original request post is here)

......................................................

Ovelia watched a star twinkle just above the sharp tops of the pines, their edges still in shadow and darker than the evening sky where they weren't dyed brown and orange by the light of their campfire. Her hair tugged, her scalp twinged, and she heard Agrias mutter something under her breath and a click when her knight put the comb down on a rock. Like a bloody fisherman's knot, she said, and Ovelia wove her fingers together over her knee.

They'd left the falls soaking wet, and Ovelia did not have a change of clothes. Her hair had dried somewhat as they rode south, flicked by the wind and the chocobo's tail, but it was still cold to the touch and matted like the pelt of a mangy dog, only the braids over her ears relatively smooth and undamaged. She wore Lavian's clothes while her dress and underlayers hung from a tree to dry. The heavy shirt was proof against the dampness of her hair, but loose enough the sleeves fluttered around her arms when there was a breeze. The comb Agrias used was her own, carved from some kind of bone - horn perhaps, by the swirls discoloring the white - and the tines were carved close together, nearly useless for the job they put it to.

"He could have kept you out of the water," Agrias said. There was a snap, and she murmured an apology.

"It wasn't his fault." Ovelia wondered if her mother would be appalled, should she return with her hair cut to her chin. It wouldn't be the first time she'd considered cutting it off. "That sellsword grabbed me, and I overcompensated when I pulled away."

Agrias did not reply, but laid a handful of hair over Ovelia's shoulder. The nick nick of the comb resumed. The fire snapped. They could have been alone among these trees; she heard voices if she concentrated, and the clank of armor, pans, rocks, several meters to her left. Other campfires glimmered between the trees when she looked.

She couldn't remember the last time she had enjoyed real solitude without the proximity of others to intrude upon her silence; the chants of the monks, the strikes of a hatchet on wood, the hiss of knives being sharpened or steam rattling the top of a black iron pot nearly half her height. Ramza and his party were not here to share her camp, Agrias said, but to protect it, and though Ovelia preferred the privacy they allowed her for the task of making herself presentable, she wondered if they would consent to share her fire even if she offered.

Agrias draped another ream of hair over Ovelia's shoulder, and the princess gathered it between her hands and smoothed it down between her breasts, twirling the ends around her fingers. "Thank you for coming after me, Agrias." It might have been fine after all if they had not - if this Delita person could be trusted. His acquaintance with Ramza said something for his credentials, though if one could judge merely by association, she supposed both would be as untrustworthy as that dark knight. Agrias might be suspect, for that matter, for serving the queen.

"There's no need for that, highness," Agrias said. Her comb caught on a snarl and she released the rest of Ovelia's hair to pick at it with the tines. "I will follow you to the ends of the earth-- even if you command otherwise."

Ovelia smiled at the line of trees beyond the fire. "I would never ask you to abandon your responsibilities." She watched a branch crumble into ash and sparks within the light of their campfire. If only she could command such loyalty without her position to demand it for her. "But I will thank you anyway - for combing my hair, which must be a task above and beyond the call of duty."

Agrias could have smiled; her voice warmed. "I'll not argue with that."

"Agrias!"

Her knight laughed, and it seemed the night's breezes weren't so cold after all.

.

[Suikoden Tierkreis] White Noise

2009-05-24T18:54:18Z

White Noise
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: preparation
Character(s): Chrodechild
Words: 677

For: seta_suzume (original request post is here)

......................................................

It was a rule of armies, in Chrodechild's experience, to make enough noise to wake the dead before an important battle, yet be simultaneously quiet. Meruvis was the only man speaking in the barracks; he murmured something to Roberto, whose answers were short, and the scrape of several swords being sharpened drowned the words. Someone leapt onto the sleeping platform with a thump, ran across. She didn't even hear the waterfall outside any longer unless she tried, though it made the details outside blur into a runny green tapestry of the forest through the sheet of water. It had kept her up many nights when they first moved the Blades to this castle, but she'd slept well since then-- until the night before.

Her swords were sharpened; her boots were polished, the tear in her coat was mended and the belt replaced with one of Fredegund's own, because she wouldn't have the forge spare a bit of leather for her when there were more important objects to craft for an attack on Cynas - armor, weapons. She'd nearly laughed to hear a pair of metal fans were made with slim blades of metal sharp enough to slide through skin like butter and painted - painted! - with a sunset landscape, a monochrome of reds, some brown, some yellow. But it was Yula who mentioned it over yesterday's afternoon meal, her plate decorated with a small dome of white sticky rice and thin slices of pink tuna brought from the waters of the Porpos-kin. Many an enemy has laughed when confronted by such a weapon, she said, holding her fork as Chrodechild remembered her sister doing as a child - like a shovel. A true warrior will make a weapon of anything. This fork, perhaps, if he so chose.

Yes. It was true, what Yula said; anything might be a weapon, and anyone, but Chrodechild did not think it the province of warriors to do so. With a few years that man had made a mockery of her sister and twisted the purpose of the Divine Edge, yet he was no warrior. He was nothing. He ran away from the justice of her blade, and what was his name-- Beardsley. Fredegund would not speak it aloud, even to remind her. Chrodechild wanted to ask what really happened while she was gone, but always stopped herself when her sister's hand curled at her throat, when her shoulders hunched as if she expected some blow.

So his name, if she chose, might be a weapon. She was glad the others had not noticed.

Fredegund cried last night. Chrodechild had lain still, stared at the stone ceiling, and watched the shift of light as the waterfall warped the shape of the moon. The day was overcast but hot, and the same play of light glimmered in the black mirror of her arm guards where they waited on the sill to be strapped on. She picked one up, pressed it to her arm and curled her fingers to hold it by a strap so she could turn it over and buckle, but it slipped from her hands and clattered onto the floor, and it felt as if the entire room watched her bend to pick it up.

Only Yula was watching when she straightened, her glance sidelong, while she appeared to face the window. It seemed sometimes that she carried nothing - that being ready, for this princess of the North Star, simply meant she must be awake. And it seemed she was always awake, though she must sleep some time. She'd lain with the rest of them, on Chrodechild's left, while her sister slept to the right, and she entertained dreams, some more elaborate than others, which involved running Beardsley through, striking his head from his shoulders in one blow, or worse.

She would kill that man if she did nothing else on this mission. She hoped the others would understand.

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[Final Fantasy Tactics] Where War Dwells

2009-05-24T05:38:50Z

Where War Dwells
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: jilted
Character(s): Ovelia
Words: 598

For: kytha (original request post is here)

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The candle on Ovelia's dressing table burns steadily, a high flame as long as a finger and black at the end where it cools and becomes smoke. The edges of the mirror are dark after many such nights; it belonged to her mother, and the silver is tarnished at the top where the frame curves to a point at the center, like the end of a hand-dipped candle. Maybe her mother waited like this too, arranging her golden pins on their trays, then the silver, before pushing them back into the jewelry box and starting on the clips and filigree combs, which she would never wear because she wasn't queen and the court did not care if her presence graced their parties or salons.

Delita is still on campaign, and the woman Ovelia might call an acquaintance - not a friend, there are none of that type in the royal capitol - had not shown her face at the door after all. She doesn't mind very much. It would have been nice to hear music, but she remembers listening to the orchestra play for her wedding banquet and wishing for the unadorned chants that echoed between rooms at the monastery while she chopped vegetables according to their pace and mended vestments that had been fine once, when Orbonne was more prosperous.

Before the war, Brother Simon said. Everything was so much better before it blighted Ivalice.

But which war? If Ovelia is to be honest, they sometimes run together like ink splashed with water.

She can't tell if she wishes for Delita's presence or not. Sometimes he holds her, by the arms, by the waist, and in the way he looks down at her she thinks he might love her. He has never said so. He doesn't say much of consequence to her; he wants her to read poetry and tell him what discussions her tutors walked her through on the rare occasions she learned skills not practical. She might read a popular play, and he will heap sarcastic criticism upon its portrayal of commoners, make her laugh, tell her what it's really like for a man below the peerage when the days are good - as they must be if a farmer has time to sit a hero down and regale him with local stories.

Then she'll ask about the lions, and Delita will fall silent. He might make a non-committal answer, or direct her to the chamberlain, because he has thought about the war all day and simply wants to rest. He'll lay his head in her lap, and she can remember the cool strands of his dark hair sliding between her fingers. His scalp is slightly oily. He'd scrubbed it mercilessly on washing days until Ovelia took the soap from him and explained that only made the condition worse. She should know - look at her own hair. It hangs heavy over her back right now, still damp all the way through, and a fire blazes in the hearth so she won't catch a chill, and imparts a strong maple scent with its heat.

Ovelia wouldn't have considered attending a salon tonight if he were here. She would have pressed him into the copper tub by the shoulders, massaged soap into his hair, and climbed in to soak with him until the water cooled. He liked it scalding hot, and she couldn't bear it before then.

Yes. She would have liked that. It is her misfortune war dwells more in his thoughts than she does.

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[Fire Emblem 10] Silver-Plated Whore

2009-05-23T02:16:29Z

Silver-Plated Whore
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: zealot
Character(s): Jared
Words: 552

For: runespoor7 (original request post is here)

Jared is, uh... colorful in his narration. Just a warning. :D

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They called her a miracle worker, the Maiden of Dawn, though Jared had other terms he used to reference her when absolutely necessary; rebel leader and zealot priestess in formal reports - and no, he didn't know her origin, though she claimed to be a native of Daein, nor did he care. In private, usually to Avery, she was scum, sometimes that silver-plated whore - too beautiful, too good to be true, the type that should be bled, arrested, put through her paces until she collapsed, good for nothing.

Your excuses pile up, Numida's last letter said in cramped, bold handwriting. We placed you in Daein for results. If you value your rank--

Jared had valued his rank, once. He'd maintained a perfect record in Seliora's provincial army, and when his forehead hit the glass ceiling, he killed two men to break past it, blackmailed another, and saved a senator's worthless life. Begnion's ranking system was horseshit; you were born with prestige, or you slept your way up, like their fop of a prime minister. He'd speculate the man manipulated his way into the imperial bedchamber if the empress weren't so young. Give it time, he'd said to Avery. Twenty gold says she'll hold the reins when it happens. Little spitfire.

Silver-haired Micaiah, on the other hand, was born to be bent over a desk - or a table, or a prison cot, he wasn't picky. What was she, but street scum in the right place at the right time? The natives would believe in anything shiny enough, pretty enough - it was the hair, and he wondered, was it coarse or fine? - as long as they heard what they wanted to hear. She told them they had a king, they cheered. She told the king he would have a country if he bled gold for her, and he threw Daein at her feet.

What they'd forgotten, and what Jared intended to remind them of when he slit her pale throat, was the passing of the deed into Begnion's hands, and therefore his own. Daein was his. The senate didn't care how he achieved results as long as they got what they wanted. They weren't much better than commoners. He should know.

If he returned, defeated, to Begnion, there would be no ladder to climb. He would grub dirt like his ancestors beside sub-human filth, eek out a living between winters by breaking his back in the fields - cotton, wheat, corn, the Parsian vineyards and Culbert's orchards.

Some time, some place, the Silver Maiden would leave her friends and render herself vulnerable. His agents assured him this was a habit of hers, that she sought solitude after waving and smiling to her adoring subjects and flinched away from close company same as she did when confronted by a sword or an axe, or the back of a hand. The liberation army would celebrate their apparent victory, she would walk apart from them, and Jared-- he would tarnish her pretty hair with rust and blood. He would take the silver whore down with him.

Daein could have its victory - but they'd have it without their silver goddess. She was his.

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[Xenogears] A Lost Cause

2009-05-23T01:19:11Z

A Lost Cause
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: exhaustion
Character(s): Yui
Words: 510

For: reynardfox (original request post is here)

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Though her husband was the one to make trips down the mountain to Lahan on most days, it was Yui who caught the cold making its rounds among the villagers. It was the exercise, she suspected, that saved Hyuga and Fei; they sparred most days on the lawn out back, between the house and the workshop, and Fei worked the fields with Chief Lee's family during the day, while Hyuga made trips to outlying farms and camps to check on old patients and find new ones. At least three a month had to be treated for tetanus, he told her. Someone would step on a nail, or a tool lying forgotten in a field since last summer, and was now rusted and dangerous.

The land dwellers here used to die as a result of such simple mishaps. If it was not tetanus to take them, it would be a bacterial infection, gangrene, loss of blood. Their family was accepted here because Hyuga put a stop to that nonsense. If they were merely migrant farmers, rather than a doctor and his family, Yui didn't think the reception would have been as warm.

Hyuga was, however, helpless in an environment which did not center on some form of technology. He repaired cameras, gears, automatic levelers and plows, even the town's chainsaw (where on earth did they get this - Bledavik? someone might lose a hand), but he could not feed himself to save his own life once the fruit bowl was empty and the pantry empty of bread. The pot of cholent she made the day before her throat went raw was almost gone. Three days into her cold, when it seemed her eyes were swollen shut and her throat clogged with mucus, Yui decided he should be able to find sustenance until she was well enough to make a new loaf of bread.

Four days into her cold, she spent a sleepless night nursing him through a case of food poisoning.

On the fifth day, she got out of bed and went to the kitchen to make a pot of rice and two sheets of crackers, which she'd need once her appetite progressed past the 'liquid only' stage. If she left it to him the bread sheets would come out charcoal black, no matter the detail of her directions.

Yui cut wedges of tomatoes, sliced three kinds of mushrooms and a handful of shallots, and mixed them into the simmering rice. Would explaining a process like this in scientific terms flip the proverbial switch in his mind, allow him to understand the relationships between ingredients, and how those substances reacted to heat, versus cold, versus rapid motions such as mixing?

She thought it might. The endeavor would involve hours of research, possibly a trip back to Shevat for the right literature. Yui covered the pan, slumped into a chair, and folded her arms on the table so she could rest her head. Later. She would think about it later.

Much later.

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*****

Sorry for the spam, everyone. There will be frequent updates for the next few days as I fill the meme requests, but then I'll go back to my regularly-scheduled laziness.

[Saiunkoku] Melodrama

2009-05-22T23:58:24Z

Melodrama
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: vicious
Character(s): Reishin
Words: 587

For: imanewme (original request post is here)

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Lights still blazed in the Civil Administration office two hours past sundown, and Reishin sat back in his chair when the next watch was called, watching his reflection in the window tap the desk with his fan. There was an argument in the far corner, near the door, about whether some document or other merited his attention - it didn't, and they must be new to even consider speaking to him - and Kouyuu muttered at the next desk over, bent almost double over his letter. His inkstone clinked against the sides of its ceramic dish when he pushed it around with the brush. Everyone at court was talking about the emperor's proposal to allow women to take the civil service exam, and the office was flooded with petitions as a result.

All these people knew how to do was whine. He was stuck here well after the evening meal to sign and seal documents while the slugs in his employ took their sweet time writing them up, all because someone else's underlings - Justice and Public Works, though he wouldn't name names - couldn't hold it in until their respective department meetings. They had to leave their posts in protest and make dramatic exits. They had to waste perfectly good paper and ink writing letters to him when they should know Reishin didn't care about anything that concerned them.

Maybe he should fire them, all of them, and give them something important to complain about. If only his authority extended far enough to fire their incompetent emperor, Reishin would be a happier man.

Someone poured tea into a ceramic cup at the corner of his desk, and the sweet, grassy scent overwhelmed the must of paper and ink for a few moments, curling and fading with the steam. He reached for it, sipped, wishing for something calming to color the air - sandalwood incense, or lavender, or slender branches of cherry blossoms freshly-cut and smelling of both perfume and green wood.

Reishin was still sitting with his chair facing the window, tea in one hand, the yellow slats of his fan spread in the other to show their carvings, when a shadow darkened the polished finish of his desk and he looked up to see one of his palace agents. The man bowed, held out a message; the paper was folded six times, the calligraphy in cheap brown ink and perfect enough to be a stamp, rather than hand-written.

Our agents around the imperial villa are in place. When shall we extinguish the lights?

He looked up, past the unadorned green robe worn by his agent, to the stacks of paper on each desk waiting to be read, responded to, and filed. If his underlings continued to work at their current speed--

In two hours, Reishin scrawled at the bottom of the page with a brush offered by his agent. One of Kouyuu's, by the quality of the bristles. Writing implements were one of the few areas his son had a smattering of taste in. "Be sure to report on the results," he said, waving the paper to dry the ink. "Every detail, no matter its importance."

His agent bowed, took the paper, refolded it. Reishin waved him away and spread his fan again, this time to cover his smile. Let the emperor labor in the dark with the rest of them.

He leaned back, reached for his tea, and waited for the panic to set in.

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