[Fire Emblem 11] On Barbarism
Apr. 9th, 2010 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreTitle: On Barbarism
Author: Amber Michelle
Challenge: #004: temper
Game: 11: Shadow Dragon / 3: Mystery of the Emblem
Word Count: 1284
Pairings/Characters: Minerva, Michalis
Warnings: this is a first draft! (Yes, again. Maybe we should just assume from now on.)
Notes: Okay, so-- this is an excerpt of a longer story, which I'm pretty sure I won't finish in time for the deadline. It's over five thousand words anyway, and still going, so instead I'm giving you a scene relevant to the prompt. I tried so hard, but... but. ;_;
Same complaints as usual apply.
.................................................................
"How do you define barbarism?" came her brother's voice from behind. "I wonder."
The question sent a thrill from the core Minerva's chest to her empty stomach. She hadn't heard the library door open or latch again, and without his cape there was no telltale hiss of dragonhide or silk to catch her attention. "Uncivilized," Minerva said, placing a leather marker between the pages of The Twelve Paragons and turning in her chair. "The absence of modern systems such as fiefdom, slavery, coinage, agriculture."
"You do a passable imitation of a textbook," Michalis said, unbuttoning his blue coat, shedding it over the back of his usual chair, the round one that appeared all one piece. The silver chasing on his cuffs and collar gleamed in the light from the window. Dust motes danced in each shaft of light as he passed through them. "Do you know what any of that means?"
"Of course I do." She pulled her legs up and sat on them, the chair hard against her shins. Pine and ambergris teased her nose when he passed by. "Who keeps pressing me into this chair to listen to lectures on kingship? Leon talked at me for three entire hours about the irrigation channels up north and how many barbarians we have to kill to keep them in one piece."
"That word again." Her brother turned his back to her, pushing both hands into his hair. It fell long and heavy and silky to the point just between his shoulder-blades, the auburn especially bright against his black shirt. "You're like a parrot."
Minerva's lips tightened in an attempt not to frown. "You're obnoxious today." Parrot? Of course, asking would mean being told to look it up.
Michalis spared her a short glance over the high ruffle of his shirt, pausing by the window and leaning slightly, pushing it open with a screech that had Minerva grinding her teeth together and hunching behind the hardwood back of her chair. A million wings flapped and fluttered outside. Black shapes streaked past the slim rectangle of glass she could see past the bookcase, their caw caw cawcaws drowning out the scrape of the other window panel across the casement. "It's a talking bird from a mysterious land across the ocean, apparently, possessed of feathers of improbable colors like green, turquoise, azure, yellow," he said, turning back to her with a flourish, "and it followed some shipwreck here from abroad before settling on a nameless island far to the south of Talys. Or-- so our guest from Pales would have me believe."
"Oh." Minerva watched his eyes glitter across the room. "So that's why you're being such an ass."
He laughed, his mouth stretching wide in imitation of a real smile, and leaned against the corner of the bookcase. "His Excellency the Earl of Mora in Leafcandy - Phillip, to be precise - would like to express his regret that he was not introduced to the eminent lady of the realm-- that would be you, I think, though his visions of what being a 'lady' here entails are a bit optimistic. I suppose Maria was too young for him." Minerva tried not to wince, but Michalis must have seen the twitch and curl of her lip because he chuckled in a way that made her want to shrug and press her back to something solid. "Father wouldn't let me punch him where it hurt."
"He should have," she muttered. "Why aren't you yelling at him then? That idiot doesn't have anything to do with me."
"Oh, there was talk about marriage-- and dukes, and the relative worth of Macedonian royalty compared to an Archanean duchy. They're apparently of the same calibre." Michalis crossed the room - it was only ten steps from the window to the table, hardly a library at all - and he braced his hands on the back of her chair. It creaked under his weight. His shadow engulfed her. "And you let me take care of it all myself, little traitor."
"Father told me to study!" Minerva slammed her book closed and got up so he couldn't loom over her. He wasn't that much taller, maybe a finger or two, and that was only because he was so many years older. "Besides, I don't want to see what's-his-name from Leafcandy--"
"I don't want to meet with the vermin either." He shoved the chair in, but only, it seemed, so he could lean back against it and cross his arms, and look mad. He heaved a loud, sharp sigh, yet didn't relax. "I hope he's ambushed on the road and the crows eat his corpse."
Minerva stared down at her coat, adjusted the folds of its skirt. Her toes twinged, still pinched by a new pair of boots - black like her brother's, shined, carefully stitched with gold and red. "So he's gone now?"
"Phillip of Mora? No, I'm afraid father will have to speak with him personally. I don't have the authority to sign anything."
"But--" She looked up, bit her lip at the way his eyes seemed fixed on the opposite wall, as if he was waiting for the door to open and reveal their father. Even more unlucky an arrival would be Maria. She always flinched when Michalis yelled. "Well, he did say Archanea wanted some kind of trade agreement - using wyverns to cross the shoals instead of making detours, right? Why on earth wasn't he there?"
Michalis shifted his eyes to her, his face turning slightly. "Perhaps he wants to appear more important by making the man wait."
"Michalis, that's-- don't say that."
"'Adhere to Truth, though it bring misfortune to the individual,'" he quoted.
"'Never disparage the person or character of the monarch,'" she said, a hand on her hip.
"What of the monarch's son and heir?"
"What about his daughter?"
"Well, I don't know about that-- apparently women aren't fit to hold a crown, much less a spear or an axe." Michalis gave up on his staring contest with the door and turned his head fully to look at her, his hair swaying and sliding over his shoulder. "In a civilized nation, that is."
She knew where this was going. Minerva had heard the rant before - that Archanea's claim to civilizing the entire world was a lie. There were history books, and letters, though none of them were in Macedon's vaults. They weren't a nation of scholars or lords, or even knights. She'd heard Princess Nyna had never opened a book like The Twelve Paragons of Kingship, but Minerva knew it back to front, and she would learn many more, even if she never held the throne. When Michalis was king, she would be beside him, and if he ever flew off to battle, she would be up there with him. "He'll have to accustom himself to an exception. And if they want to be rid of those raiders off the coast--"
"Silly little Minerva." She glared, and Michalis smiled, leaned toward her, as if he meant to tell her a secret. "We are the barbarians. Remember?"
Minerva made sure her mouth was set in as thin a line as possible. "No, we're not."
He lifted a finger to his lips, as if to shush her. "What is barbarism?" Michalis straightened slightly. "What makes a barbarian?"
Minerva tried not to shift on her feet, and wished she knew what he wanted - how to answer.
*
Author: Amber Michelle
Challenge: #004: temper
Game: 11: Shadow Dragon / 3: Mystery of the Emblem
Word Count: 1284
Pairings/Characters: Minerva, Michalis
Warnings: this is a first draft! (Yes, again. Maybe we should just assume from now on.)
Notes: Okay, so-- this is an excerpt of a longer story, which I'm pretty sure I won't finish in time for the deadline. It's over five thousand words anyway, and still going, so instead I'm giving you a scene relevant to the prompt. I tried so hard, but... but. ;_;
Same complaints as usual apply.
.................................................................
"How do you define barbarism?" came her brother's voice from behind. "I wonder."
The question sent a thrill from the core Minerva's chest to her empty stomach. She hadn't heard the library door open or latch again, and without his cape there was no telltale hiss of dragonhide or silk to catch her attention. "Uncivilized," Minerva said, placing a leather marker between the pages of The Twelve Paragons and turning in her chair. "The absence of modern systems such as fiefdom, slavery, coinage, agriculture."
"You do a passable imitation of a textbook," Michalis said, unbuttoning his blue coat, shedding it over the back of his usual chair, the round one that appeared all one piece. The silver chasing on his cuffs and collar gleamed in the light from the window. Dust motes danced in each shaft of light as he passed through them. "Do you know what any of that means?"
"Of course I do." She pulled her legs up and sat on them, the chair hard against her shins. Pine and ambergris teased her nose when he passed by. "Who keeps pressing me into this chair to listen to lectures on kingship? Leon talked at me for three entire hours about the irrigation channels up north and how many barbarians we have to kill to keep them in one piece."
"That word again." Her brother turned his back to her, pushing both hands into his hair. It fell long and heavy and silky to the point just between his shoulder-blades, the auburn especially bright against his black shirt. "You're like a parrot."
Minerva's lips tightened in an attempt not to frown. "You're obnoxious today." Parrot? Of course, asking would mean being told to look it up.
Michalis spared her a short glance over the high ruffle of his shirt, pausing by the window and leaning slightly, pushing it open with a screech that had Minerva grinding her teeth together and hunching behind the hardwood back of her chair. A million wings flapped and fluttered outside. Black shapes streaked past the slim rectangle of glass she could see past the bookcase, their caw caw cawcaws drowning out the scrape of the other window panel across the casement. "It's a talking bird from a mysterious land across the ocean, apparently, possessed of feathers of improbable colors like green, turquoise, azure, yellow," he said, turning back to her with a flourish, "and it followed some shipwreck here from abroad before settling on a nameless island far to the south of Talys. Or-- so our guest from Pales would have me believe."
"Oh." Minerva watched his eyes glitter across the room. "So that's why you're being such an ass."
He laughed, his mouth stretching wide in imitation of a real smile, and leaned against the corner of the bookcase. "His Excellency the Earl of Mora in Leafcandy - Phillip, to be precise - would like to express his regret that he was not introduced to the eminent lady of the realm-- that would be you, I think, though his visions of what being a 'lady' here entails are a bit optimistic. I suppose Maria was too young for him." Minerva tried not to wince, but Michalis must have seen the twitch and curl of her lip because he chuckled in a way that made her want to shrug and press her back to something solid. "Father wouldn't let me punch him where it hurt."
"He should have," she muttered. "Why aren't you yelling at him then? That idiot doesn't have anything to do with me."
"Oh, there was talk about marriage-- and dukes, and the relative worth of Macedonian royalty compared to an Archanean duchy. They're apparently of the same calibre." Michalis crossed the room - it was only ten steps from the window to the table, hardly a library at all - and he braced his hands on the back of her chair. It creaked under his weight. His shadow engulfed her. "And you let me take care of it all myself, little traitor."
"Father told me to study!" Minerva slammed her book closed and got up so he couldn't loom over her. He wasn't that much taller, maybe a finger or two, and that was only because he was so many years older. "Besides, I don't want to see what's-his-name from Leafcandy--"
"I don't want to meet with the vermin either." He shoved the chair in, but only, it seemed, so he could lean back against it and cross his arms, and look mad. He heaved a loud, sharp sigh, yet didn't relax. "I hope he's ambushed on the road and the crows eat his corpse."
Minerva stared down at her coat, adjusted the folds of its skirt. Her toes twinged, still pinched by a new pair of boots - black like her brother's, shined, carefully stitched with gold and red. "So he's gone now?"
"Phillip of Mora? No, I'm afraid father will have to speak with him personally. I don't have the authority to sign anything."
"But--" She looked up, bit her lip at the way his eyes seemed fixed on the opposite wall, as if he was waiting for the door to open and reveal their father. Even more unlucky an arrival would be Maria. She always flinched when Michalis yelled. "Well, he did say Archanea wanted some kind of trade agreement - using wyverns to cross the shoals instead of making detours, right? Why on earth wasn't he there?"
Michalis shifted his eyes to her, his face turning slightly. "Perhaps he wants to appear more important by making the man wait."
"Michalis, that's-- don't say that."
"'Adhere to Truth, though it bring misfortune to the individual,'" he quoted.
"'Never disparage the person or character of the monarch,'" she said, a hand on her hip.
"What of the monarch's son and heir?"
"What about his daughter?"
"Well, I don't know about that-- apparently women aren't fit to hold a crown, much less a spear or an axe." Michalis gave up on his staring contest with the door and turned his head fully to look at her, his hair swaying and sliding over his shoulder. "In a civilized nation, that is."
She knew where this was going. Minerva had heard the rant before - that Archanea's claim to civilizing the entire world was a lie. There were history books, and letters, though none of them were in Macedon's vaults. They weren't a nation of scholars or lords, or even knights. She'd heard Princess Nyna had never opened a book like The Twelve Paragons of Kingship, but Minerva knew it back to front, and she would learn many more, even if she never held the throne. When Michalis was king, she would be beside him, and if he ever flew off to battle, she would be up there with him. "He'll have to accustom himself to an exception. And if they want to be rid of those raiders off the coast--"
"Silly little Minerva." She glared, and Michalis smiled, leaned toward her, as if he meant to tell her a secret. "We are the barbarians. Remember?"
Minerva made sure her mouth was set in as thin a line as possible. "No, we're not."
He lifted a finger to his lips, as if to shush her. "What is barbarism?" Michalis straightened slightly. "What makes a barbarian?"
Minerva tried not to shift on her feet, and wished she knew what he wanted - how to answer.
*
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 09:49 pm (UTC)The scene IS about him, more than Minerva - or rather, her memory of him. The bulk of the fic is about her, from her POV, but when Michalis shows up in the past, it's all about what he's doing, because that's what concerns her so much in the present. Whether that WORKS or not is up in the air at the moment.
Thank you!