[Fire Emblem 6] Blood and Green
Dec. 25th, 2009 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreBlood and Green
By: Amber Michelle //![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
myaru
Game: Fire Emblem 6
Characters: Lugh, Chad
Rating: K
Words: 2193
For:lucathia_rykatu
Notes: I've er, never written these characters before, so I hope it works out okay. Also, let's just say there was a holiday crunch and... and. >_>
................................................................................
Lugh thought he knew the meaning of cold. Winter came to Araphen, and the orphanage he grew up in, with a fluffy blanket of white ice incarnate, and the revelation of splits in the wooden walls, holes under the roof tiles, and gaps between window frames and glass that let drafts inside to fight with the warmth of their small fire. Those with good shoes would accompany Father up the mountain slope with hatchets borrowed from their neighbors and cut their own wood because they couldn't afford the seasoned bundles that came round the town in wagons. He remembered coming back with frost-bitten toes once, when his shoes hadn't been as good as he thought they were; talk about cold. He never thought he'd be warm again. How old was he-- eight? Nine?
Now he marched in the service of the Lycian Alliance Army, and the Western Isles were colder in the middle of spring than most winter days in Araphen. Bare spots in his cloak let the chill in to numb the back of his legs. His breath clouded while he paced around the bundle of canvas and folding wood poles that would be their tent, whenever Chad showed up to help him put it together, and cold island air flowed in to settle at the pit of his stomach every time he inhaled. They'd left Port Calach two days ago, crossed a river, and set up camp on a plain beneath a mountain range that reminded him of home. Snow capped the peaks, haze obscured their distant cousins to the northwest and turned the sky a dingy shade of gray that hid the stars and made the moon look like a ghost at night.
Camping with the army was almost like living in a mobile town - people talked and shouted, bumped into each other, flowing around his little plot. Wagons rattled past, fires were laid, the smell of burning wood, horses, and dusty canvas, lay on the air thick as the fog. Lugh rubbed his hands together through his mittens. The leader of the circle he and Chad set up in every night called for help to build the fire, and he joined in. There was wood left over in their wagon; adults had been sent for more, but carrying the pieces from the supply bed to the pit was enough to make his blood pump and fight off the cold. When he got back Chad was unrolling the tent canvas, the stakes and poles already arranged, the rope untangled. His pack had been thrown into the grass next to Lugh's, and it looked fatter than before - which might be the light playing tricks. Maybe.
He pulled his mittens off. "What took so long?"
Chad threw the end of the canvas at him. "Scouting. We had to go all the way to those hills." He pointed with a bare hand, but fog made the sky above the trees a uniform wall of pink and darkening blue. "Master Roy got reports of a bandit hideout that were really exaggerated."
Lugh pulled the canvas open. "Did you have to fight?"
"Nah, there were only three of them."
He decided not to ask what happened, what Chad took, instead held the poles up straight while his friend stretched the canvas and tied the ropes; they unfolded their own cots, and went outside to find rocks to heat by the fire and stuff under their blankets, so their feet wouldn't freeze overnight. Dinner was a potato baked under the ash at their fire and a ration of bacon, water from the river, and then bed, because it was warmer than sitting outside - or even inside.
That night, like every night since their close call at Ostia, Lugh dreamed of Father's beautiful long hair, like gold in the sunlight, and splashes of bright, bright red. He still saw it the next day - red in everything: the sky to the south, the Ostian banner, one for every cohort. Chad pulled a new cloak seemingly out of thin air, and threw it across the tent when they were packing up. I don't need it, he said, and wouldn't take it back when Lugh protested.
Lugh stared at the rusty brown and wished it didn't look so much like it was soaked in blood. It kept drifting into his field of vision once they'd packed up and started marching, bright against the dull browns and dirty yellow of the plain, the dead trees, the rocks.
He'd seen it all now, hadn't he? Blood soaking the earth - the faces of the dead, both precious and strange, and fire from his own hands melting crimson Bernese armor. He was tired of seeing their dragon spawn staining the sky. He was tired of finding bits of armor and spearheads rusted and gunked up, stuck in the mud and revealed by the wash of rain, or turned up by the army's march. They weren't barbed Bernese spearheads, but it didn't matter - they'd probably spilled innocent blood.
"I'll trade you this scarf for a tart."
Lugh looked over. It wasn't red, at least, but green, bright and clean. He crowded Chad closer to the wagon when someone behind them shouted to make way, wrinkling his nose at the sharp smell of axle grease, and a pair of horses pushed past. Lugh jerked back when it swept its tail, rubbed his stinging cheek, glaring at the horse and then at Chad. "I don't have any."
Chad folded the scarf in half over his hands, then half again. "I saw you filch them from Dame Elanore--"
"But she gave--!" Lugh gritted his teeth. Stupid. He crossed his arms and looked away. "I was gonna give you one anyway, geez."
"So I thought I'd beat you to it. Have a problem with that?"
Lugh opened his mouth to retort, and stumbled when Chad threw the scarf into his face and stuck a hand into his pack to rifle around for the paper-wrapped tarts. "Hey!" Lugh grabbed it before it fell, stepped on the end, almost tripped. Chad was five steps ahead by the time he'd righted himself, nibbling the crinkled edge of the crust. Lugh almost shouted that's mine! but after what he said earlier-- You could've put it back nicely, he muttered, shoving the scarf into his pack and re-wrapping his tart. Chad's fingerprints indented the yellow custard top.
That was his day: a horsetail to the face, fingerprints on his custard, a mix-up in rations that left him with an armful of hard tack and some dried apple slices that he pointedly did not share with Chad, even though they sat on the same huge oak root during break to eat lunch. The sun stayed hidden behind the haze, and the air was cold enough Lugh thought it should be snowing. He stepped in a puddle between tree roots and heard thin ice crack; when he breathed it felt like the air iced everything over inside. It's like breathing mint, his friend said later while they dragged their feet, in the dust, having finally found a proper road to march on, though it wasn't paved like the ones in Etruria. Hey, remember when Father made that mint soup? Mint and strawberries and--
It was red, red as blood, flecked with bruised bits of leaves.
Your brother slurped what, three bowls? and said it was okay--
Ray always says that, Lugh said. But his brother always ate what Father cooked. Always.
What happened to Ray? Was he safe? Did Bern get him?
I hope he stays out of the way, wherever he is, Chad said, his face turned up to the gray sky. Those bastards aren't gonna take his bull, you know. We're the only ones who do that.
Yeah. Yeah, they did put up with a lot - but Ray knew better than to mouth off to a guy like Narshen. At least, Lugh thought he did.
Didn't he?
They walked until sunset. The army straggled to a stop, clattering, kicking up dust, the command to halt filtered shout by shout from the front where Pherae's triangle banner undulated in the breeze, bright blue like the sky should have been. Chad wandered off once their tent was up, and Lugh sat on the cold dirt by the fire, as close to the ring of rocks as he could be without feeling the snaps and sparks of the wood burn on his cheeks. He'd worn the old cloak under the new one, and it bunched around his shoulders, too small to bring the ends around to meet in front, bare, faded, dirty. His brother had given it to him one year - everyone had, really, Father and Chad too, and the little ones, some of too young to even know what a Yule present was, never mind how expensive it was, and how many meals it cost. The bright yellow had turned beige after dozens of washes; and it was a foot too short for him now, but he'd worn it anyway, even when his pay from serving under Roy meant he could afford a new one if he wanted.
Lugh pulled his knees to his chest and folded the old cloak around so he could look at the faded wool, the stains, the threadbare spots; there was a patch over his hand, a square cut from an old clerical robe and dyed yellow with mignonette leaves collected from the hills. Father's lesson on colors repeated in his dreams often now: how to make a dye bath, which plants made what, and which colors were complimentary and opposite. Blue and orange, yellow and purple - green and red.
Chad dropped onto the dirt beside him and let a lapfull of apricots roll into the ash-flecked dust. "Found a tree," he said, and waved off to the left. He rubbed one off with his sleeve and took a bite. "What's up?"
Lugh took an apricot and turned it around in his hand. The skin was soft, the flesh gave just a little beneath his fingers - it was perfect. Just like the ones at home. "I'm worried about Ray."
Droplets of juice glittered at the corners of Chad's mouth while he chewed. He finished his apricot and threw the pit into the fire before he answered: "He's smart. He'll take a job with Bern."
It felt like his stomach dropped into the dirt. "No he won't!" Lugh gritted his teeth. Juice seeped onto his hands - he'd squeezed too hard. "He would never-- he's a good person, not like them at all."
Chad brushed another one off and held it to his mouth, but didn't take a bite. "Huh." He bit, chewed. The fire popped and the flare of light lit his eyes brighter for a second. "That's why he'd do it - to keep himself alive, right? You don't learn deep dark secrets when you're dead. Not the kind he wants to learn, anyway."
"Yeah." Lugh stared at his bruised apricot. There were nine on the ground - that meant he got four more, at least, but he wasn't hungry. He saw Ray in a bright, red Bernese cloak, thought at least the colors would fit, and wanted to throw up. "I guess."
"He'll turn up."
Dead? "He wouldn't fight us."
Chad tossed another pit into the fire. "Then stop having nightmares about it."
Lugh considered throwing fruit at him. "Shut up. I... I don't need--"
"I'm just saying-- it's hard to sleep when you toss and turn, so stop it already, okay? He'll be fine." Chad got up and slapped dirt from his pants. "Keep the rest. I ate a bunch before I came back."
Right. Sure he did. Lugh listened to him walk away and rolled an apricot across the dirt. Ray was the one who really loved these. Lugh had pocketed extras on the good years, when there were some left over on the very top branches of the trees around town, in places only children dared to climb. Then he gave them to his brother. Funny that Chad didn't know that, when it seemed that he saw everything. But it was nice of him - really nice. He was a good person too, just like Ray.
Lugh took a bite of his apricot and let the juice roll down his throat, sweet and tart. He'd found Chad again, so he'd find Ray again too. Father told them to stay together, and Lugh was going to do it - he'd find his brother, and they would send Bern straight to hell. Together.
.
Cross-posted at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fe_exchange.
By: Amber Michelle //
myaruGame: Fire Emblem 6
Characters: Lugh, Chad
Rating: K
Words: 2193
For:
lucathia_rykatuNotes: I've er, never written these characters before, so I hope it works out okay. Also, let's just say there was a holiday crunch and... and. >_>
................................................................................
Lugh thought he knew the meaning of cold. Winter came to Araphen, and the orphanage he grew up in, with a fluffy blanket of white ice incarnate, and the revelation of splits in the wooden walls, holes under the roof tiles, and gaps between window frames and glass that let drafts inside to fight with the warmth of their small fire. Those with good shoes would accompany Father up the mountain slope with hatchets borrowed from their neighbors and cut their own wood because they couldn't afford the seasoned bundles that came round the town in wagons. He remembered coming back with frost-bitten toes once, when his shoes hadn't been as good as he thought they were; talk about cold. He never thought he'd be warm again. How old was he-- eight? Nine?
Now he marched in the service of the Lycian Alliance Army, and the Western Isles were colder in the middle of spring than most winter days in Araphen. Bare spots in his cloak let the chill in to numb the back of his legs. His breath clouded while he paced around the bundle of canvas and folding wood poles that would be their tent, whenever Chad showed up to help him put it together, and cold island air flowed in to settle at the pit of his stomach every time he inhaled. They'd left Port Calach two days ago, crossed a river, and set up camp on a plain beneath a mountain range that reminded him of home. Snow capped the peaks, haze obscured their distant cousins to the northwest and turned the sky a dingy shade of gray that hid the stars and made the moon look like a ghost at night.
Camping with the army was almost like living in a mobile town - people talked and shouted, bumped into each other, flowing around his little plot. Wagons rattled past, fires were laid, the smell of burning wood, horses, and dusty canvas, lay on the air thick as the fog. Lugh rubbed his hands together through his mittens. The leader of the circle he and Chad set up in every night called for help to build the fire, and he joined in. There was wood left over in their wagon; adults had been sent for more, but carrying the pieces from the supply bed to the pit was enough to make his blood pump and fight off the cold. When he got back Chad was unrolling the tent canvas, the stakes and poles already arranged, the rope untangled. His pack had been thrown into the grass next to Lugh's, and it looked fatter than before - which might be the light playing tricks. Maybe.
He pulled his mittens off. "What took so long?"
Chad threw the end of the canvas at him. "Scouting. We had to go all the way to those hills." He pointed with a bare hand, but fog made the sky above the trees a uniform wall of pink and darkening blue. "Master Roy got reports of a bandit hideout that were really exaggerated."
Lugh pulled the canvas open. "Did you have to fight?"
"Nah, there were only three of them."
He decided not to ask what happened, what Chad took, instead held the poles up straight while his friend stretched the canvas and tied the ropes; they unfolded their own cots, and went outside to find rocks to heat by the fire and stuff under their blankets, so their feet wouldn't freeze overnight. Dinner was a potato baked under the ash at their fire and a ration of bacon, water from the river, and then bed, because it was warmer than sitting outside - or even inside.
That night, like every night since their close call at Ostia, Lugh dreamed of Father's beautiful long hair, like gold in the sunlight, and splashes of bright, bright red. He still saw it the next day - red in everything: the sky to the south, the Ostian banner, one for every cohort. Chad pulled a new cloak seemingly out of thin air, and threw it across the tent when they were packing up. I don't need it, he said, and wouldn't take it back when Lugh protested.
Lugh stared at the rusty brown and wished it didn't look so much like it was soaked in blood. It kept drifting into his field of vision once they'd packed up and started marching, bright against the dull browns and dirty yellow of the plain, the dead trees, the rocks.
He'd seen it all now, hadn't he? Blood soaking the earth - the faces of the dead, both precious and strange, and fire from his own hands melting crimson Bernese armor. He was tired of seeing their dragon spawn staining the sky. He was tired of finding bits of armor and spearheads rusted and gunked up, stuck in the mud and revealed by the wash of rain, or turned up by the army's march. They weren't barbed Bernese spearheads, but it didn't matter - they'd probably spilled innocent blood.
"I'll trade you this scarf for a tart."
Lugh looked over. It wasn't red, at least, but green, bright and clean. He crowded Chad closer to the wagon when someone behind them shouted to make way, wrinkling his nose at the sharp smell of axle grease, and a pair of horses pushed past. Lugh jerked back when it swept its tail, rubbed his stinging cheek, glaring at the horse and then at Chad. "I don't have any."
Chad folded the scarf in half over his hands, then half again. "I saw you filch them from Dame Elanore--"
"But she gave--!" Lugh gritted his teeth. Stupid. He crossed his arms and looked away. "I was gonna give you one anyway, geez."
"So I thought I'd beat you to it. Have a problem with that?"
Lugh opened his mouth to retort, and stumbled when Chad threw the scarf into his face and stuck a hand into his pack to rifle around for the paper-wrapped tarts. "Hey!" Lugh grabbed it before it fell, stepped on the end, almost tripped. Chad was five steps ahead by the time he'd righted himself, nibbling the crinkled edge of the crust. Lugh almost shouted that's mine! but after what he said earlier-- You could've put it back nicely, he muttered, shoving the scarf into his pack and re-wrapping his tart. Chad's fingerprints indented the yellow custard top.
That was his day: a horsetail to the face, fingerprints on his custard, a mix-up in rations that left him with an armful of hard tack and some dried apple slices that he pointedly did not share with Chad, even though they sat on the same huge oak root during break to eat lunch. The sun stayed hidden behind the haze, and the air was cold enough Lugh thought it should be snowing. He stepped in a puddle between tree roots and heard thin ice crack; when he breathed it felt like the air iced everything over inside. It's like breathing mint, his friend said later while they dragged their feet, in the dust, having finally found a proper road to march on, though it wasn't paved like the ones in Etruria. Hey, remember when Father made that mint soup? Mint and strawberries and--
It was red, red as blood, flecked with bruised bits of leaves.
Your brother slurped what, three bowls? and said it was okay--
Ray always says that, Lugh said. But his brother always ate what Father cooked. Always.
What happened to Ray? Was he safe? Did Bern get him?
I hope he stays out of the way, wherever he is, Chad said, his face turned up to the gray sky. Those bastards aren't gonna take his bull, you know. We're the only ones who do that.
Yeah. Yeah, they did put up with a lot - but Ray knew better than to mouth off to a guy like Narshen. At least, Lugh thought he did.
Didn't he?
They walked until sunset. The army straggled to a stop, clattering, kicking up dust, the command to halt filtered shout by shout from the front where Pherae's triangle banner undulated in the breeze, bright blue like the sky should have been. Chad wandered off once their tent was up, and Lugh sat on the cold dirt by the fire, as close to the ring of rocks as he could be without feeling the snaps and sparks of the wood burn on his cheeks. He'd worn the old cloak under the new one, and it bunched around his shoulders, too small to bring the ends around to meet in front, bare, faded, dirty. His brother had given it to him one year - everyone had, really, Father and Chad too, and the little ones, some of too young to even know what a Yule present was, never mind how expensive it was, and how many meals it cost. The bright yellow had turned beige after dozens of washes; and it was a foot too short for him now, but he'd worn it anyway, even when his pay from serving under Roy meant he could afford a new one if he wanted.
Lugh pulled his knees to his chest and folded the old cloak around so he could look at the faded wool, the stains, the threadbare spots; there was a patch over his hand, a square cut from an old clerical robe and dyed yellow with mignonette leaves collected from the hills. Father's lesson on colors repeated in his dreams often now: how to make a dye bath, which plants made what, and which colors were complimentary and opposite. Blue and orange, yellow and purple - green and red.
Chad dropped onto the dirt beside him and let a lapfull of apricots roll into the ash-flecked dust. "Found a tree," he said, and waved off to the left. He rubbed one off with his sleeve and took a bite. "What's up?"
Lugh took an apricot and turned it around in his hand. The skin was soft, the flesh gave just a little beneath his fingers - it was perfect. Just like the ones at home. "I'm worried about Ray."
Droplets of juice glittered at the corners of Chad's mouth while he chewed. He finished his apricot and threw the pit into the fire before he answered: "He's smart. He'll take a job with Bern."
It felt like his stomach dropped into the dirt. "No he won't!" Lugh gritted his teeth. Juice seeped onto his hands - he'd squeezed too hard. "He would never-- he's a good person, not like them at all."
Chad brushed another one off and held it to his mouth, but didn't take a bite. "Huh." He bit, chewed. The fire popped and the flare of light lit his eyes brighter for a second. "That's why he'd do it - to keep himself alive, right? You don't learn deep dark secrets when you're dead. Not the kind he wants to learn, anyway."
"Yeah." Lugh stared at his bruised apricot. There were nine on the ground - that meant he got four more, at least, but he wasn't hungry. He saw Ray in a bright, red Bernese cloak, thought at least the colors would fit, and wanted to throw up. "I guess."
"He'll turn up."
Dead? "He wouldn't fight us."
Chad tossed another pit into the fire. "Then stop having nightmares about it."
Lugh considered throwing fruit at him. "Shut up. I... I don't need--"
"I'm just saying-- it's hard to sleep when you toss and turn, so stop it already, okay? He'll be fine." Chad got up and slapped dirt from his pants. "Keep the rest. I ate a bunch before I came back."
Right. Sure he did. Lugh listened to him walk away and rolled an apricot across the dirt. Ray was the one who really loved these. Lugh had pocketed extras on the good years, when there were some left over on the very top branches of the trees around town, in places only children dared to climb. Then he gave them to his brother. Funny that Chad didn't know that, when it seemed that he saw everything. But it was nice of him - really nice. He was a good person too, just like Ray.
Lugh took a bite of his apricot and let the juice roll down his throat, sweet and tart. He'd found Chad again, so he'd find Ray again too. Father told them to stay together, and Lugh was going to do it - he'd find his brother, and they would send Bern straight to hell. Together.
.
Cross-posted at
fe_exchange.