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runicloreInitiation
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Theme: 03 - jolt!
Words: 6192
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: ... so. This got a little longer than I planned.
Previous Installments:
1. Judgment
.......................................
Sanaki didn't go down to see Lehran leave, though she would rather he go with the image of her frown engraved on his memory instead of her tears. What remained of her people in the palace - the maids, the secretaries, the senators, even their children - was dissolved into dust by Ashera's own hand, and before he left he made Sanaki follow her and watch her caress each one as though giving a benediction, though Sigrun and Tanith protested. She didn't know very many of them, and couldn't imagine them alive and moving. They could have been statues, very detailed perhaps, but nothing more than marble or rock, and then dust the color of ash.
It was the senior senators that made her turn her face into his chest, though she didn't care that they were dead-- or whatever state they were in, it didn't matter. Their faces were familiar. She'd spent every morning for the last year listening to them talk, seeing them try to undermine Sephiran's authority. They found Lekain looking out the window. Had he enough sense of his goddess that he felt her wake? Or was he simply waxing sentimental at that fateful moment, caught gazing at the stars?
Lehran left after that, and it seemed the goddess went with him. Sanaki wanted to be happy when Marcia told her she accompanied him past the gates of the city, but Lehran had spoken as if Ashera would be staying. Dheginsea would be his companion on this journey, he said. And your duty, my lady, lies in serving the goddess in my place.
Sienne was too quiet. The lights had burned out, and the nights were darker than she'd ever known them in the capitol.
By the time Ashera returned, Sanaki's knights had found others in the capitol, people who had survived the judgment and joined them in the palace pale, shaking, and jumping at every hint of movement. There was a lady knight from House Damiell, and the two children she was found with - a girl Marcia's age, and a younger boy. Then two acolytes from the lower temple, a lieutenant from the cathedral guard. Catalena brought news of more in the desert to the northeast, though she did not approach them. Word reached Mainal of Zelgius and Levail, but Sigrun crumbled the note and threw it into the fireplace before Sanaki could take it and read what they said for herself.
Traitor, Sigrun muttered, and Sanaki drew her knees up to her chest and watched the missive curl in the flames.
Ashera did not announce herself as Sephiran usually did. She was simply present one evening, when the sky was still streaked with magenta in the west, her figure a shadow against the darkening glass of the balcony doors. Sanaki lifted her hand to a lamp on the wall by her bedroom door and lit the wick with a tap to the fluted glass cover. Her guest's red gaze wasn't as unnerving when it was just a reflection in the window.
She shifted on her feet. Lehran made her kneel, but she didn't want to bend knee to this apparition. This wasn't what she grew up praying to. That was a lie.
The goddess's eyes lidded and closed. "I was led to believe you were an obedient child."
Serve her in my place, he said. She would rather grovel before Lekain.
Sephiran-- no, Lehran, he always asked nicely. His smile took the sting out of his demands to sign here and tell the Minister of Finance that raising taxes is unacceptable. The hardships of commoners and laguz were at the forefront of his thoughts. His task, which became hers because he wrote the papers and she merely signed them, was to improve their lot. Whose situation had been improved by this judgment? Not even Ashera's.
Everyone deserves happiness, my lady, even a slave.
How could he say that, and tell Tanith the judgment was just?
Sanaki hid her hands in her sleeves and lowered her head, though she didn't lower her gaze. Instead of light, the goddess drew the shadows about her like a cloak, and she wondered what happened to the aura that gave her such a headache the first night. "What do you want me to do?"
Ashera faced her, the long length of fiery hair swirling. The air stirred and grew chill. "We will go to Serenes."
Sanaki bit her lip. She didn't want to go to Serenes. He told her what it was like there. The sun had abandoned it, the grass refused to grow. "Why?"
The goddess looked at her, tilted her head slightly. The charms on her headdress chimed. Sanaki's hands curled into fists, and she locked her knees so her legs wouldn't betray her and take a step back, into her room, where she could run. There were stories about Ashera's power, both in the scriptures and without; she'd seen the judgment, but there were also songs about healing and miracles where people were brought back to life. Her blessing made the smallest, most insignificant object unbreakable. She could raise the dead, form moving things from clay, and bless the living with everlasting life.
Was it true? Really? She couldn't even maintain her aura--
"True?" the goddess echoed, soft.
Sanaki jumped and stumbled back. Her head cracked against the door frame. She clutched the wood until pain shot through her fingers.
Ashera left the window. Her skirt, and the feathered silk train, made a soft, slithering sound like a bow drawn the wrong way on the strings of a violin, and her metal adornments tinkled. Not all of it was gold; some of it had the duller tone of brass and bronze. "Do you want everlasting life, little empress?"
He didn't tell her Ashera could do that. Why didn't he tell her? "I want Lehran. Why did you send him away?" Sanaki dug her nails into the polished wood, pressing into the corner of the frame when the goddess came closer. She wouldn't run, she wouldn't-- "He's mine! I want him back!" She had to bend her head back to look Ashera in the eye. No one dared look down their noses at her in Sienne, but the goddess did, as if she were an insect making too much noise. "He's mine."
A line appeared between the perfect arch of Ashera's brows, but her expression didn't move very much. She smelled thick, resinous, like incense. Her hand was heavy as lead and just as cold, so far as Sanaki remembered it. Her forehead was still sore at the center, her skin still sensitive, like there was a bruise.
"You truly are Altina's child," the goddess said. "Though she knew better which battles to fight."
So Altina surrendered and served this dark goddess because she knew resistance was useless? Perhaps they sealed the wrong one during their war, and were unable to fix their mistake. It must be very hard to seal a god in the first place - they must have been tired.
Sanaki made herself stare into Ashera's red eyes, making sure her thoughts on the matter were very concise, and as loud as possible, if such a thing could be said of the mind. Sephi-- Lehran had never punished her for having her own opinion, no matter how unreasonable or arrogant he thought it was. She'd never disobeyed him before, but if Ashera would not allow that, Sanaki would rather be turned to stone.
The goddess came closer, until Sanaki would have had to step away from the wall to look all the way up, but Ashera sank down to one knee and grasped her chin between thumb and forefinger, turning Sanaki's face to hers. Her skin didn't feel real - like it was actually silk. No texture, no roughness, too soft, and the weight of her hand made the grip pinch. The flame of her hair slithered over the folds of her dress and onto the floor. "If you disobey me," Ashera said, lips hardly moving, "I will make sure Lehran does not return in your lifetime."
Sanaki pulled her chin free and threw herself against the opposite side of the door frame, clinging to the wood. Her chin stung, frozen, throbbing like her skin had been pinched by snow. She wanted to rub it away. Her fingers were frozen like claws over the molding.
Ashera straightened, chiming, and her hair fell into place at her back. "Think what you like. I expect my servants to carry out my commands."
I hate you. Sanaki bit her lip until she tasted blood. I hate you, I hate you--
"Dress formally." Ashera turned her back and walked across the room, returning to her place by the window. "You will accompany me to the Archives."
Sanaki ran back into her room and slammed the door as hard as she could. If Lehran came back - no, when he came back - she would never get mad at him again. Never, no matter what he lied about. Never.
.
The Archive building was dark and deserted. Sanaki had to light the lamps herself. They hung from the ceiling on brass chains, bowls of oil full, prepared for the next day by the staff before they'd been frozen and then turned to dust. Throwing the sparks that high required a precision she didn't have, but they were lucky; her aim wasn't so bad she set anything on fire, but Tanith had to lift Sanaki to her shoulders so she could see the wicks to ignite them.
They spent the rest of the night sitting in the librarian's office while she recited what she knew of history in Begnion since Altina, while Tanith hovered at her back. Sigrun left to retrieve records when Sanaki reached the parts she didn't know much about. The Apostles, for instance - she didn't know what they did when the senate oppressed the laguz, only what they didn't do, what they should have done. She knew the Serenes tracts by heart. See what leads to genocide-- She could almost hear Lehran's voice in her ear when she told the goddess her herons refused to acknowledge the empire's power. He told her over and over again. Look. They refused to believe in the senate's figurehead. Look-- they never paid tribute. With what would they pay? And to whom - the senate, when it was the goddess they should revere?
Sigrun carried her back to her rooms when her voice began cracking and her eyelids felt heavy. The clock told her it was past three, and her knight helped her undress, tucked her in, and smoothed her hair back. You did well. Don't let her intimidate you. She listened very carefully.
But why couldn't the goddess do her own reading? Why did Sanaki have to do it?
Maybe she can't read, Tanith suggested, after days had passed like that. Do gods even need to read?
Sanaki unbuckled her sandals and kicked them off. They rolled over the rug and smacked into the wall by her bedroom door. This one needs to learn, she said, and threw her mantle onto the divan.
Ashera disappeared during the daylight hours, and if she were needed, Sanaki would have had to climb all the way to the top of the tower. She did once, to ask the goddess how long she would insist on this schedule of reading, and how she was supposed to get anything done when she slept all day. Ashera lifted her infuriating eyebrow and told her a competent empress should have the ability to administer one hundred citizens in the space of half a day - she was competent, was she not? The qualities of a ruler were not peculiar to her, after all. If Sanaki could have thrown something at her and gotten away with it--
--but the thought was good enough. Ashera's eyes narrowed, and Sanaki left with her chin held high.
Three weeks passed before they reached Misaha's reign in their nighttime readings. As they marched forward in time with each Apostle, there were more notes, letters, and records to sort through, different perspectives to read. Her grandmother exchanged many letters with Goldoa during the latter years of her reign, and there were several from an unnamed prince of Serenes, then with his family, and Sanaki gathered he disappeared. The correspondence was in an official envelope; it was used in the official investigation after the forest was burned, but she found no papers to indicate they'd ever completed it.
There was no mention of Lehran, but the goddess told her what she saw in his thoughts. Sanaki wished he were there to tell her himself.
Two months to the date he left, the first refugees passed the gates of Sienne. They were commoners, farmers and simple townspeople, and a merchant caravan, a dozen adults and thrice as many children her own age or younger. Their wagons were packed with food and materials - tools, fabric, pots - and Sanaki's stomach dropped.
What were they going to do about food? When the stores in the palace ran out, when the larders of the capitol were thoroughly looted and these people consumed what they brought with them, where would they find more?
She turned and ran with no care for imperial dignity. She hurried up the stairs of the tower, running until she collapsed on a landing to catch her breath and her legs throbbed, her hands and knees smarting from the impact. This time she reached the top of the tower and met Ashera on her knees because her calves had cramped and she couldn't stand. Sanaki wasn't there as a supplicant, and she wasn't begging for the goddess's help, merely demanding her guidance in a matter she was obligated to offer her divine assistance in. With the country turned to stone there was no one to till the fields or harvest what was already planted. There was no one to gather it, buy it, transport it to Sienne where it could be sold again.
Separate the farmers from the skilled laborers, the goddess said. I will help them begin their work elsewhere.
There was a long list of instructions. Sanaki committed them to memory and returned to the cathedral with Ashera's help; her legs still trembled when she tried to stand, and she spent the rest of the night in bed once she passed on the goddess's commands. Sigrun stayed with her all night, applying warm compresses to Sanaki's legs and massaging the muscles. She slept with her face buried in the crook of her knight's arm.
Catalena took care of the refugees, and she told Sanaki they were sent by Lehran. One of their priests brought a letter addressed to her.
Lady Sanaki--
His handwriting blurred. Sanaki folded the letter closed, thanked her knight, and made it to her room before the tears wet her cheeks. How pathetic. She didn't know if she was still angry, or if she just wanted him to come home.
Ashera has charged me with finding survivors. This may take some time. This group was gathered from the areas surrounding the capitol. By the time you receive this, we will be in Asmin. There should be more survivors as he traveled farther from the capitol, he said; Ashera had only just awakened when she cast her spell. That made Sanaki frown - he was talking about a goddess. How could she be tired?
Shouldn't she be the one walking from town to town, turning her subjects to dust?
The real task, I suspect, will be to find Yune. One of my companions will travel to the capitol with news of our progress on occasion, and you will take it to Ashera.
Sanaki threw the letter into the night table drawer and slammed it shut. Why her? Why did she have to carry the goddess's commands? Wasn't it clear Ashera didn't value her, that she could be replaced at any time because a fool on the street could be obedient and carry messages, which was all being the goddess's servant seemed to entail? A noble or merchant could read the histories. Why not conjure a librarian from the ether?
She took Lehran's message to the goddess because he asked her to. Ashera didn't appear to be surprised - or interested, or grateful - and Sanaki was glad to see her go. She worked with Catalena to organize the refugees and assign them homes and property. It was like handling a small company of soldiers, or trainees, her knight said. There were so few to care for, and their needs were simple: food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and a place to gather.
All of her knights served in the general army at some time or another. They knew so much more about this than she did. You're young, they said, it will come to you in time; you were only ruling for a year. An empress wasn't supposed to handle such details. Her job was to guide the senate, pass or defeat laws, and uphold justice. But without a senate to argue with, when the number of her subjects shrank to almost nothing - what was an empress supposed to do then?
Learn - anything, everything. Whatever you want. Don't neglect your magic studies.
Of course she wouldn't. When he came back, she would at least singe his hair to teach him a lesson. It would serve him right to have to cut off the crisped ends.
Your talent should bring joy to any teacher. You will not have trouble finding one among the refugees.
But she didn't want just any teacher.
She folded the letter carefully and placed it in a polished wood box with the feather she found in her room the day after he left.
Be safe.
.
It didn't take months as Sanaki speculated - it took years. Maybe he'll return for the solstice, she thought when she received that letter. Maybe he'll bring me a present from beyond the border - like one of the famed tapestries said to hang in Daein Keep, or some beautiful silverwork from Crimea, or tea from the provinces. She might forgive him more quickly after a gesture like that. He always brought her gifts when he made her angry. Last time it was chocolates with candied cherries inside, and before that flaky, buttery pastries filled with light cream.
The goddess instructed her to hold audience every morning at two hours past dawn; her advisers were to be the two priests from the first company of refugees, whom Ashera deemed loyal. The ill were brought for healing, and domestic grievances for her judgment, and at the end of the day Sanaki would take the record of the meeting to the top of the tower and review it for the goddess. There were things she couldn't fix - a plague of locusts on the land to the southwest, where a portion of the immigrants had been resettled to feed the capitol - and it was her job to ask for assistance.
Sanaki hated that part. Ashera wasn't her subordinate; she wasn't even human, and sometimes her response to the concerns in the reports left her baffled. It never occurred to her to simply take matters into her own hands, no - she had to be asked, begged. She heard their prayers, because how could she not after all, when everyone was so close to her, and yet she waited for Sanaki to appear with her folder of paper.
That is the way of things, the goddess said. You did not jump at your subjects' bidding when they prayed to you.
But I'm not a goddess, Sanaki said. I don't have the power to avert disaster. I can't turn locusts to dust with a wave of my hand, and not also burn the crop to ash.
The goddess didn't listen to her, of course. Ashera never answered her prayers - why heed her arguments?
New survivors trickled in from Asmin, then from Persis, then the other provinces. Sanaki's days grew busier. The next letter came tied to a parcel wrapped in oiled paper, and Lehran's first formal report. She sent the dragon messenger away when he asked if she wished to send anything.
The dates were marked a month ago. Sanaki stared at the numbers.
A year had passed since his last letter. He was gone a year and a half. How had she not noticed?
She tore the wrapping open and found a red-bound tome, unnamed, the pages lined with his hand, the marks and embellishments precise, beautiful. The opening invocation to fire sounded like a song when she read it aloud, but she stumbled over vocabulary on the third line.
We cross the border into Daein tomorrow, he said in the letter. We will start with Talrega.
The summer was closing into autumn. Talrega was several weeks' travel from the border, and winter started early in Daein. He spent a year searching Begnion with Ashera's guidance, but neither Lehran nor the goddess were familiar with the northern country. Where were the hidden villages, the forts, the secret outposts? Sanaki's knights told her Ashnard's people were very good at hunting down Begnion spies, and none sent into his domain ever returned. He was a match for an entire troop of pegasus knights armed only with a sword, Tanith said, and Sigrun told her he was popular among his people because he assigned rank and favor according to one's merit - though he was also known for being capricious in his response to failure.
He must make an impressive statue, Sanaki thought. Where did the light find him - seated on his throne, every inch the awful king, or perhaps standing on a balcony to observe his keep? Perhaps he was on the battlefield - why not? they must have rebellions in Daein too - and he was frozen mid-swing.
Lehran didn't write to her again for a long time. Winter left, spring came. Sanaki considered kneeling to Ashera, begging her to check on him, search for him, whatever could be done-- then finally, a letter. Sanaki snatched it from the messenger's hand and ran to her room.
Ashnard is alive, it said, first thing.
So he wasn't stone. She stared at his handwriting, wondering if it was trying to trick her. What kind of judgment did Ashera pass, if it wasn't enough to nullify the worst threats to peace?
There aren't many left to answer his call for resistance, but the few remaining have fled our approach to gather in the capitol.
She dropped the letter and left her rooms, running down the hallway until she could see the dragon's back receding near the end of the fourth floor corridor. Sanaki commanded him to halt. He stopped, allowed her to catch up.
"Your majesty." He bowed, wavy hair slithering over his shoulder. "Have you considered a response after all?"
She let him wait, tried to catch her breath. It was the same messenger; she recognized his pale hair, and the leather bands crossed over his forehead. "Lehran," she said, still breathy, and took a deep breath. "He isn't fighting Ashnard, is he? He couldn't possibly. He--"
"General Zelgius joined us in Gaddos," the dragon replied, his thin lips turning up. "Lehran knows better than to challenge a human warrior by himself."
Sanaki's shoulders slumped. Zelgius. Sigrun never told her what his message said - only that he and Levail were alive. Alive and, it seemed, making clear where their loyalties lay. "Then he's safe?"
"Of course. He does not engage in pointless battle. The general fights for him." The messenger bent to one knee and reached for her left hand. "I am Nasir, servant to King Dheginsea. Lehran and I have known each other since the flood." She opened her mouth to respond, and he held his free hand up to stop her. "Consider responding to him next time. He worries about you. I'll be ambushed before I land in Daein with questions about what you look like and whether you're healthy or not--"
She started to laugh before she caught herself and turned her face away. It was true she could have responded to his other letters, but what would she say? She didn't like Ashera, and she'd done most of her studying by herself, only asking for an instructor when she reached the limit of what she could understand without more experience to guide her. Sigrun and Tanith kept insisting she not respond, not encourage him, refuse to see him when he came back, if he came back--
Nasir released her hand and rose to his full height. "I will remain until you bring Lady Ashera's commands down from the tower. Consider it," he said, bowing and taking his leave.
They didn't bother to hide their preferences in the matter, her knights; if Lehran didn't return, so much the better. She heard Tanith say it one night, when they thought she was asleep. Let him die for his goddess if serving her means more than Lady Sanaki.
She went back to her rooms and sat on the bed with his letter spread open on the coverlet, the report laid out next to it. One of the dragons had plotted a map of the areas they visited in southern Daein, with the note they'd not gotten any farther because of weather and resistance from those remaining. It will be easier to herd them to Nevassa, his report said, and take care of the sum in one place. Once they see their king fall, the rebels will capitulate. But the weather was difficult. Talrega had proven disastrous. They were only just leaving the area when he sent the report.
Months had passed since he said they would go to Talrega. How long was this going to take?
Ashera ordered her to release Altina's twin swords, and to bring two staves to her for blessing. Sanaki didn't know them, but they were stored in long cedar chests at the bottom of the tower, light enough she could carry them to the top herself. Matrona the healer, Aveta the guardian, both for Lehran to use. He was often targeted in past wars, the goddess told her, and his staves would break when he tried to defend himself. She would not have him die in this fashion and neglect her plans.
Sanaki lingered in the antechamber once she left the altar. Nasir waited outside for her to transmit Ashera's instructions, and he would leave after that. How long would she wait for the next message? What if he was unlucky - injured, or killed?
She didn't have any paper, so she descended with the staves, one in each hand, and met Nasir at the door. Her knights had the swords, as ordered. "These will also be given into your keeping," she said, holding them out lengthwise.
Nasir took the staves, holding them against his shoulder. "Do you have a response prepared?"
Sanaki crossed her arms. She considered what to tell him from the fourth floor downward, but there wasn't much to say. "Tell him this is taking too long. He must return as soon as possible."
The dragon's lips twitched up. "As you command."
.
The resistance in Daein was defeated late in 643. The letter that came to Sanaki was long, that time, accompanied by a journal she knew belonged to Lehran because the pages were cut perfectly even and smooth, the binding heavy blue cloth instead of leather. A yellow flower was pressed between the first two pages; the name he gave it was yamabuki, the mountain rose, plentiful on the western slopes at the Serenes border and around the mountains in south Daein. There was a sketch, details on the environment and its blooming pattern, and the promise of seeds when he could manage. He gave her other flowers and other names, in ancient and modern dialects, drawings of the great wall at the northern Begnion border, of Talrega, of Nevassa. She was up reading all night, stopping only to allow Sigrun to measure her for new clothes.
Nasir brought the seeds and material Lehran promised her when spring came the next year. They were moving on to Crimea, and the youngest of Dheginsea's sons was assigned to lead refugees from Daein - the cooperative ones - south to Sienne.
"Crimea should be easy," he said before he left, when she gave him a letter to carry. "The royal family still acknowledges your authority, but word will have carried from Daein. We can't be sure."
Sanaki thanked him for that reassuring information and used her fitting appointment as an excuse to stalk away instead of bidding him a proper farewell. Should she send a letter to Melior? Should she send one of her knights to assure the survivors of her sincerity? Were there any survivors to worry about?
Lehran's letter did not express anxiety about Crimea, but Gallia. They will have abandoned their keeps and retreated to the forest. Such is the natural response within the beast tribes. With Goldoa empty they will see themselves alone. A cat backed into a corner became violent. Sanaki folded the paper and pressed it into its box with the others.
With Daein's former citizens, the number under her rule wouldn't break beyond ten thousand. Perhaps with Crimea--
"Isn't it kind of a relief?" It was Marcia who finally voiced the thought at the end of a meeting, after Tanith left with the evening's orders. "You don't need a bunch of fat senators to control a few thousand people. There's nobody to steal your authority or make bad decisions."
"Except me." Sanaki studied the lines on her hands, below the lip of the table. Her job was easier, of course, but she'd have liked her reforms to come under different circumstances. "Wasn't your brother among the judged?"
Marcia ran her fingers over the gauze curtain until she found the part and pulled one panel aside to look out. The sky was plain gray, darkening to black. "I'll never really know." She let the curtain fall, pushed her hair back. It had grown long enough to brush her shoulders and earn Tanith's rebukes: keep it back or cut it off. "Just trying to look at the bright side, your majesty. It's too late to change anything now."
Sanaki stared at her reflection in the polished surface of the table. She hadn't lost anyone in the judgment - not permanently. Lehran would come back some day, because she'd been careful not to disobey Ashera's commands, and the goddess did not seem the type to renege on a promise. That wouldn't be just, or orderly, or even honest.
In 645, Crimea was dissolved and her people sent on their way. Then they descended into Gallia, and it was two years before she heard news again. Ashera would disappear on occasion, return without a word or warning, refusing to offer any comfort aside from a few inadequate words: he's alive, child. Now stop crying.
She hated tears. They always annoyed her. When Ashera descended from the top of the tower to walk among her people, she always returned stiff-backed, her lips turned down, even more stubborn than usual. Sanaki gathered she didn't like prayers or supplication either, but then, what did she like? Was there anything in her world she appreciated? Lehran told her Ashera wasn't always like this, that she used to smile and cry like everyone else. Where do you think we learned our emotional responses? he asked her, as if Sanaki could provide any other answer. She wasn't there at the beginning.
She was tending to the kerria rose in her personal garden when Marcia came to relieve Tanith of her post. Her knight jogged up, footsteps crunching in the gravel, and knelt beside her in the dirt plot.
"He's back."
Sanaki dropped her clippers. "What?" She bit the inside of her cheek. "Who--"
"Who do you think?" Marcia had the nerve to roll her eyes. "He just came in the gate. They probably told him you're out here--" Sanaki gripped her knight's shoulder to pull herself to her feet, but Marcia jumped up and held her back. "Wait wait-- he's probably coming this way. You don't want to miss him, do you?"
Sanaki let herself be drawn back and stared at her hands. Dirt caked her fingernails and darkened the creases in her skin. She tried to brush it off, and to wipe her knees clean. Useless. Couldn't he have sent a message sooner, from the city wall, maybe, and given her time to clean up? "I look like a peasant."
Marcia laughed, choked it into a cough. "Maybe he likes peasants?"
Sanaki rolled her shoulders back. "If you value your job," she said, and the knight whispered uh oh, "you will fetch a basin of water and a towel." She pointed to the storage area. "Run."
Marcia ran. Sanaki tried to pick the dirt from her nails. Lehran was taking his time, but if that allowed her to make herself presentable she would forgive him. He must be tired. He didn't tell her very much about Gallia - even his handwriting was stiff. Was he injured? The letter said he wasn't, but would he really tell her?
If Zelgius was half as good as everyone said he was, even Ashnard shouldn't have touched Lehran. If she heard otherwise, her knights should be able to devise a fitting punishment for the general.
He appeared before Marcia, pausing to say a word to the pegasus knight stationed at the door, and Sanaki lowered her hands when he strode forward, still wrapped in his brown travel cloak, gray robes peeking from beneath. Her memory of him must have dimmed over the years; although her mind told her he looked the same, her eyes tried to convince her he was completely different. Was his hair that long and lustrous? Were his wings that shade between black and dark gray? Wasn't he a little taller, maybe a little older?
No, he didn't look very old at all. He looked tired, and his steps slowed when he neared, his head lowered. She extended a hand, and he took it. "My lady." He bent knee and rested his forehead on her fingers. "I apologize for the wait. My task was more complicated than expected."
Sanaki brushed his hair with her free hand. So soft. She stroked the arch of a wing and let her fingertips drift over the pattern of feathers. "Forgiven."
He lifted his head, then looked at her hand and raised his eyebrows. "Your majesty--"
She yanked it from his grip and clasped her hands at her back. "I was gardening," she said, biting her lips closed. Heat crept into her face. Lehran laughed, stood up, and Sanaki felt the heat spread to her neck, her chest, her hands, and had to look away.
"I missed you."
As easily as that, he drew her gaze back. "Of course you did." She shifted, hands clenching. "I--" I was mad at you. So mad at you-- She couldn't say it now because she just forgave him, but--
He combed his fingers into her hair and bent to kiss the top of her head as he used to. Her eyes felt hot, and she squeezed them shut against his chest, working her arms into his cloak to circle them around his waist. His embrace was so tight Sanaki could hardly breathe.
Seven years. She would have to lecture him on his timing later.
........................................................................
Some of this was written on NyQuil, and I'm not allowed to edit until December. Sorry. :D
I kind of wanted to end it after a certain point, because it should only stretch so far.
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Theme: 03 - jolt!
Words: 6192
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: ... so. This got a little longer than I planned.
Previous Installments:
1. Judgment
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Sanaki didn't go down to see Lehran leave, though she would rather he go with the image of her frown engraved on his memory instead of her tears. What remained of her people in the palace - the maids, the secretaries, the senators, even their children - was dissolved into dust by Ashera's own hand, and before he left he made Sanaki follow her and watch her caress each one as though giving a benediction, though Sigrun and Tanith protested. She didn't know very many of them, and couldn't imagine them alive and moving. They could have been statues, very detailed perhaps, but nothing more than marble or rock, and then dust the color of ash.
It was the senior senators that made her turn her face into his chest, though she didn't care that they were dead-- or whatever state they were in, it didn't matter. Their faces were familiar. She'd spent every morning for the last year listening to them talk, seeing them try to undermine Sephiran's authority. They found Lekain looking out the window. Had he enough sense of his goddess that he felt her wake? Or was he simply waxing sentimental at that fateful moment, caught gazing at the stars?
Lehran left after that, and it seemed the goddess went with him. Sanaki wanted to be happy when Marcia told her she accompanied him past the gates of the city, but Lehran had spoken as if Ashera would be staying. Dheginsea would be his companion on this journey, he said. And your duty, my lady, lies in serving the goddess in my place.
Sienne was too quiet. The lights had burned out, and the nights were darker than she'd ever known them in the capitol.
By the time Ashera returned, Sanaki's knights had found others in the capitol, people who had survived the judgment and joined them in the palace pale, shaking, and jumping at every hint of movement. There was a lady knight from House Damiell, and the two children she was found with - a girl Marcia's age, and a younger boy. Then two acolytes from the lower temple, a lieutenant from the cathedral guard. Catalena brought news of more in the desert to the northeast, though she did not approach them. Word reached Mainal of Zelgius and Levail, but Sigrun crumbled the note and threw it into the fireplace before Sanaki could take it and read what they said for herself.
Traitor, Sigrun muttered, and Sanaki drew her knees up to her chest and watched the missive curl in the flames.
Ashera did not announce herself as Sephiran usually did. She was simply present one evening, when the sky was still streaked with magenta in the west, her figure a shadow against the darkening glass of the balcony doors. Sanaki lifted her hand to a lamp on the wall by her bedroom door and lit the wick with a tap to the fluted glass cover. Her guest's red gaze wasn't as unnerving when it was just a reflection in the window.
She shifted on her feet. Lehran made her kneel, but she didn't want to bend knee to this apparition. This wasn't what she grew up praying to. That was a lie.
The goddess's eyes lidded and closed. "I was led to believe you were an obedient child."
Serve her in my place, he said. She would rather grovel before Lekain.
Sephiran-- no, Lehran, he always asked nicely. His smile took the sting out of his demands to sign here and tell the Minister of Finance that raising taxes is unacceptable. The hardships of commoners and laguz were at the forefront of his thoughts. His task, which became hers because he wrote the papers and she merely signed them, was to improve their lot. Whose situation had been improved by this judgment? Not even Ashera's.
Everyone deserves happiness, my lady, even a slave.
How could he say that, and tell Tanith the judgment was just?
Sanaki hid her hands in her sleeves and lowered her head, though she didn't lower her gaze. Instead of light, the goddess drew the shadows about her like a cloak, and she wondered what happened to the aura that gave her such a headache the first night. "What do you want me to do?"
Ashera faced her, the long length of fiery hair swirling. The air stirred and grew chill. "We will go to Serenes."
Sanaki bit her lip. She didn't want to go to Serenes. He told her what it was like there. The sun had abandoned it, the grass refused to grow. "Why?"
The goddess looked at her, tilted her head slightly. The charms on her headdress chimed. Sanaki's hands curled into fists, and she locked her knees so her legs wouldn't betray her and take a step back, into her room, where she could run. There were stories about Ashera's power, both in the scriptures and without; she'd seen the judgment, but there were also songs about healing and miracles where people were brought back to life. Her blessing made the smallest, most insignificant object unbreakable. She could raise the dead, form moving things from clay, and bless the living with everlasting life.
Was it true? Really? She couldn't even maintain her aura--
"True?" the goddess echoed, soft.
Sanaki jumped and stumbled back. Her head cracked against the door frame. She clutched the wood until pain shot through her fingers.
Ashera left the window. Her skirt, and the feathered silk train, made a soft, slithering sound like a bow drawn the wrong way on the strings of a violin, and her metal adornments tinkled. Not all of it was gold; some of it had the duller tone of brass and bronze. "Do you want everlasting life, little empress?"
He didn't tell her Ashera could do that. Why didn't he tell her? "I want Lehran. Why did you send him away?" Sanaki dug her nails into the polished wood, pressing into the corner of the frame when the goddess came closer. She wouldn't run, she wouldn't-- "He's mine! I want him back!" She had to bend her head back to look Ashera in the eye. No one dared look down their noses at her in Sienne, but the goddess did, as if she were an insect making too much noise. "He's mine."
A line appeared between the perfect arch of Ashera's brows, but her expression didn't move very much. She smelled thick, resinous, like incense. Her hand was heavy as lead and just as cold, so far as Sanaki remembered it. Her forehead was still sore at the center, her skin still sensitive, like there was a bruise.
"You truly are Altina's child," the goddess said. "Though she knew better which battles to fight."
So Altina surrendered and served this dark goddess because she knew resistance was useless? Perhaps they sealed the wrong one during their war, and were unable to fix their mistake. It must be very hard to seal a god in the first place - they must have been tired.
Sanaki made herself stare into Ashera's red eyes, making sure her thoughts on the matter were very concise, and as loud as possible, if such a thing could be said of the mind. Sephi-- Lehran had never punished her for having her own opinion, no matter how unreasonable or arrogant he thought it was. She'd never disobeyed him before, but if Ashera would not allow that, Sanaki would rather be turned to stone.
The goddess came closer, until Sanaki would have had to step away from the wall to look all the way up, but Ashera sank down to one knee and grasped her chin between thumb and forefinger, turning Sanaki's face to hers. Her skin didn't feel real - like it was actually silk. No texture, no roughness, too soft, and the weight of her hand made the grip pinch. The flame of her hair slithered over the folds of her dress and onto the floor. "If you disobey me," Ashera said, lips hardly moving, "I will make sure Lehran does not return in your lifetime."
Sanaki pulled her chin free and threw herself against the opposite side of the door frame, clinging to the wood. Her chin stung, frozen, throbbing like her skin had been pinched by snow. She wanted to rub it away. Her fingers were frozen like claws over the molding.
Ashera straightened, chiming, and her hair fell into place at her back. "Think what you like. I expect my servants to carry out my commands."
I hate you. Sanaki bit her lip until she tasted blood. I hate you, I hate you--
"Dress formally." Ashera turned her back and walked across the room, returning to her place by the window. "You will accompany me to the Archives."
Sanaki ran back into her room and slammed the door as hard as she could. If Lehran came back - no, when he came back - she would never get mad at him again. Never, no matter what he lied about. Never.
.
The Archive building was dark and deserted. Sanaki had to light the lamps herself. They hung from the ceiling on brass chains, bowls of oil full, prepared for the next day by the staff before they'd been frozen and then turned to dust. Throwing the sparks that high required a precision she didn't have, but they were lucky; her aim wasn't so bad she set anything on fire, but Tanith had to lift Sanaki to her shoulders so she could see the wicks to ignite them.
They spent the rest of the night sitting in the librarian's office while she recited what she knew of history in Begnion since Altina, while Tanith hovered at her back. Sigrun left to retrieve records when Sanaki reached the parts she didn't know much about. The Apostles, for instance - she didn't know what they did when the senate oppressed the laguz, only what they didn't do, what they should have done. She knew the Serenes tracts by heart. See what leads to genocide-- She could almost hear Lehran's voice in her ear when she told the goddess her herons refused to acknowledge the empire's power. He told her over and over again. Look. They refused to believe in the senate's figurehead. Look-- they never paid tribute. With what would they pay? And to whom - the senate, when it was the goddess they should revere?
Sigrun carried her back to her rooms when her voice began cracking and her eyelids felt heavy. The clock told her it was past three, and her knight helped her undress, tucked her in, and smoothed her hair back. You did well. Don't let her intimidate you. She listened very carefully.
But why couldn't the goddess do her own reading? Why did Sanaki have to do it?
Maybe she can't read, Tanith suggested, after days had passed like that. Do gods even need to read?
Sanaki unbuckled her sandals and kicked them off. They rolled over the rug and smacked into the wall by her bedroom door. This one needs to learn, she said, and threw her mantle onto the divan.
Ashera disappeared during the daylight hours, and if she were needed, Sanaki would have had to climb all the way to the top of the tower. She did once, to ask the goddess how long she would insist on this schedule of reading, and how she was supposed to get anything done when she slept all day. Ashera lifted her infuriating eyebrow and told her a competent empress should have the ability to administer one hundred citizens in the space of half a day - she was competent, was she not? The qualities of a ruler were not peculiar to her, after all. If Sanaki could have thrown something at her and gotten away with it--
--but the thought was good enough. Ashera's eyes narrowed, and Sanaki left with her chin held high.
Three weeks passed before they reached Misaha's reign in their nighttime readings. As they marched forward in time with each Apostle, there were more notes, letters, and records to sort through, different perspectives to read. Her grandmother exchanged many letters with Goldoa during the latter years of her reign, and there were several from an unnamed prince of Serenes, then with his family, and Sanaki gathered he disappeared. The correspondence was in an official envelope; it was used in the official investigation after the forest was burned, but she found no papers to indicate they'd ever completed it.
There was no mention of Lehran, but the goddess told her what she saw in his thoughts. Sanaki wished he were there to tell her himself.
Two months to the date he left, the first refugees passed the gates of Sienne. They were commoners, farmers and simple townspeople, and a merchant caravan, a dozen adults and thrice as many children her own age or younger. Their wagons were packed with food and materials - tools, fabric, pots - and Sanaki's stomach dropped.
What were they going to do about food? When the stores in the palace ran out, when the larders of the capitol were thoroughly looted and these people consumed what they brought with them, where would they find more?
She turned and ran with no care for imperial dignity. She hurried up the stairs of the tower, running until she collapsed on a landing to catch her breath and her legs throbbed, her hands and knees smarting from the impact. This time she reached the top of the tower and met Ashera on her knees because her calves had cramped and she couldn't stand. Sanaki wasn't there as a supplicant, and she wasn't begging for the goddess's help, merely demanding her guidance in a matter she was obligated to offer her divine assistance in. With the country turned to stone there was no one to till the fields or harvest what was already planted. There was no one to gather it, buy it, transport it to Sienne where it could be sold again.
Separate the farmers from the skilled laborers, the goddess said. I will help them begin their work elsewhere.
There was a long list of instructions. Sanaki committed them to memory and returned to the cathedral with Ashera's help; her legs still trembled when she tried to stand, and she spent the rest of the night in bed once she passed on the goddess's commands. Sigrun stayed with her all night, applying warm compresses to Sanaki's legs and massaging the muscles. She slept with her face buried in the crook of her knight's arm.
Catalena took care of the refugees, and she told Sanaki they were sent by Lehran. One of their priests brought a letter addressed to her.
Lady Sanaki--
His handwriting blurred. Sanaki folded the letter closed, thanked her knight, and made it to her room before the tears wet her cheeks. How pathetic. She didn't know if she was still angry, or if she just wanted him to come home.
Ashera has charged me with finding survivors. This may take some time. This group was gathered from the areas surrounding the capitol. By the time you receive this, we will be in Asmin. There should be more survivors as he traveled farther from the capitol, he said; Ashera had only just awakened when she cast her spell. That made Sanaki frown - he was talking about a goddess. How could she be tired?
Shouldn't she be the one walking from town to town, turning her subjects to dust?
The real task, I suspect, will be to find Yune. One of my companions will travel to the capitol with news of our progress on occasion, and you will take it to Ashera.
Sanaki threw the letter into the night table drawer and slammed it shut. Why her? Why did she have to carry the goddess's commands? Wasn't it clear Ashera didn't value her, that she could be replaced at any time because a fool on the street could be obedient and carry messages, which was all being the goddess's servant seemed to entail? A noble or merchant could read the histories. Why not conjure a librarian from the ether?
She took Lehran's message to the goddess because he asked her to. Ashera didn't appear to be surprised - or interested, or grateful - and Sanaki was glad to see her go. She worked with Catalena to organize the refugees and assign them homes and property. It was like handling a small company of soldiers, or trainees, her knight said. There were so few to care for, and their needs were simple: food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and a place to gather.
All of her knights served in the general army at some time or another. They knew so much more about this than she did. You're young, they said, it will come to you in time; you were only ruling for a year. An empress wasn't supposed to handle such details. Her job was to guide the senate, pass or defeat laws, and uphold justice. But without a senate to argue with, when the number of her subjects shrank to almost nothing - what was an empress supposed to do then?
Learn - anything, everything. Whatever you want. Don't neglect your magic studies.
Of course she wouldn't. When he came back, she would at least singe his hair to teach him a lesson. It would serve him right to have to cut off the crisped ends.
Your talent should bring joy to any teacher. You will not have trouble finding one among the refugees.
But she didn't want just any teacher.
She folded the letter carefully and placed it in a polished wood box with the feather she found in her room the day after he left.
Be safe.
.
It didn't take months as Sanaki speculated - it took years. Maybe he'll return for the solstice, she thought when she received that letter. Maybe he'll bring me a present from beyond the border - like one of the famed tapestries said to hang in Daein Keep, or some beautiful silverwork from Crimea, or tea from the provinces. She might forgive him more quickly after a gesture like that. He always brought her gifts when he made her angry. Last time it was chocolates with candied cherries inside, and before that flaky, buttery pastries filled with light cream.
The goddess instructed her to hold audience every morning at two hours past dawn; her advisers were to be the two priests from the first company of refugees, whom Ashera deemed loyal. The ill were brought for healing, and domestic grievances for her judgment, and at the end of the day Sanaki would take the record of the meeting to the top of the tower and review it for the goddess. There were things she couldn't fix - a plague of locusts on the land to the southwest, where a portion of the immigrants had been resettled to feed the capitol - and it was her job to ask for assistance.
Sanaki hated that part. Ashera wasn't her subordinate; she wasn't even human, and sometimes her response to the concerns in the reports left her baffled. It never occurred to her to simply take matters into her own hands, no - she had to be asked, begged. She heard their prayers, because how could she not after all, when everyone was so close to her, and yet she waited for Sanaki to appear with her folder of paper.
That is the way of things, the goddess said. You did not jump at your subjects' bidding when they prayed to you.
But I'm not a goddess, Sanaki said. I don't have the power to avert disaster. I can't turn locusts to dust with a wave of my hand, and not also burn the crop to ash.
The goddess didn't listen to her, of course. Ashera never answered her prayers - why heed her arguments?
New survivors trickled in from Asmin, then from Persis, then the other provinces. Sanaki's days grew busier. The next letter came tied to a parcel wrapped in oiled paper, and Lehran's first formal report. She sent the dragon messenger away when he asked if she wished to send anything.
The dates were marked a month ago. Sanaki stared at the numbers.
A year had passed since his last letter. He was gone a year and a half. How had she not noticed?
She tore the wrapping open and found a red-bound tome, unnamed, the pages lined with his hand, the marks and embellishments precise, beautiful. The opening invocation to fire sounded like a song when she read it aloud, but she stumbled over vocabulary on the third line.
We cross the border into Daein tomorrow, he said in the letter. We will start with Talrega.
The summer was closing into autumn. Talrega was several weeks' travel from the border, and winter started early in Daein. He spent a year searching Begnion with Ashera's guidance, but neither Lehran nor the goddess were familiar with the northern country. Where were the hidden villages, the forts, the secret outposts? Sanaki's knights told her Ashnard's people were very good at hunting down Begnion spies, and none sent into his domain ever returned. He was a match for an entire troop of pegasus knights armed only with a sword, Tanith said, and Sigrun told her he was popular among his people because he assigned rank and favor according to one's merit - though he was also known for being capricious in his response to failure.
He must make an impressive statue, Sanaki thought. Where did the light find him - seated on his throne, every inch the awful king, or perhaps standing on a balcony to observe his keep? Perhaps he was on the battlefield - why not? they must have rebellions in Daein too - and he was frozen mid-swing.
Lehran didn't write to her again for a long time. Winter left, spring came. Sanaki considered kneeling to Ashera, begging her to check on him, search for him, whatever could be done-- then finally, a letter. Sanaki snatched it from the messenger's hand and ran to her room.
Ashnard is alive, it said, first thing.
So he wasn't stone. She stared at his handwriting, wondering if it was trying to trick her. What kind of judgment did Ashera pass, if it wasn't enough to nullify the worst threats to peace?
There aren't many left to answer his call for resistance, but the few remaining have fled our approach to gather in the capitol.
She dropped the letter and left her rooms, running down the hallway until she could see the dragon's back receding near the end of the fourth floor corridor. Sanaki commanded him to halt. He stopped, allowed her to catch up.
"Your majesty." He bowed, wavy hair slithering over his shoulder. "Have you considered a response after all?"
She let him wait, tried to catch her breath. It was the same messenger; she recognized his pale hair, and the leather bands crossed over his forehead. "Lehran," she said, still breathy, and took a deep breath. "He isn't fighting Ashnard, is he? He couldn't possibly. He--"
"General Zelgius joined us in Gaddos," the dragon replied, his thin lips turning up. "Lehran knows better than to challenge a human warrior by himself."
Sanaki's shoulders slumped. Zelgius. Sigrun never told her what his message said - only that he and Levail were alive. Alive and, it seemed, making clear where their loyalties lay. "Then he's safe?"
"Of course. He does not engage in pointless battle. The general fights for him." The messenger bent to one knee and reached for her left hand. "I am Nasir, servant to King Dheginsea. Lehran and I have known each other since the flood." She opened her mouth to respond, and he held his free hand up to stop her. "Consider responding to him next time. He worries about you. I'll be ambushed before I land in Daein with questions about what you look like and whether you're healthy or not--"
She started to laugh before she caught herself and turned her face away. It was true she could have responded to his other letters, but what would she say? She didn't like Ashera, and she'd done most of her studying by herself, only asking for an instructor when she reached the limit of what she could understand without more experience to guide her. Sigrun and Tanith kept insisting she not respond, not encourage him, refuse to see him when he came back, if he came back--
Nasir released her hand and rose to his full height. "I will remain until you bring Lady Ashera's commands down from the tower. Consider it," he said, bowing and taking his leave.
They didn't bother to hide their preferences in the matter, her knights; if Lehran didn't return, so much the better. She heard Tanith say it one night, when they thought she was asleep. Let him die for his goddess if serving her means more than Lady Sanaki.
She went back to her rooms and sat on the bed with his letter spread open on the coverlet, the report laid out next to it. One of the dragons had plotted a map of the areas they visited in southern Daein, with the note they'd not gotten any farther because of weather and resistance from those remaining. It will be easier to herd them to Nevassa, his report said, and take care of the sum in one place. Once they see their king fall, the rebels will capitulate. But the weather was difficult. Talrega had proven disastrous. They were only just leaving the area when he sent the report.
Months had passed since he said they would go to Talrega. How long was this going to take?
Ashera ordered her to release Altina's twin swords, and to bring two staves to her for blessing. Sanaki didn't know them, but they were stored in long cedar chests at the bottom of the tower, light enough she could carry them to the top herself. Matrona the healer, Aveta the guardian, both for Lehran to use. He was often targeted in past wars, the goddess told her, and his staves would break when he tried to defend himself. She would not have him die in this fashion and neglect her plans.
Sanaki lingered in the antechamber once she left the altar. Nasir waited outside for her to transmit Ashera's instructions, and he would leave after that. How long would she wait for the next message? What if he was unlucky - injured, or killed?
She didn't have any paper, so she descended with the staves, one in each hand, and met Nasir at the door. Her knights had the swords, as ordered. "These will also be given into your keeping," she said, holding them out lengthwise.
Nasir took the staves, holding them against his shoulder. "Do you have a response prepared?"
Sanaki crossed her arms. She considered what to tell him from the fourth floor downward, but there wasn't much to say. "Tell him this is taking too long. He must return as soon as possible."
The dragon's lips twitched up. "As you command."
.
The resistance in Daein was defeated late in 643. The letter that came to Sanaki was long, that time, accompanied by a journal she knew belonged to Lehran because the pages were cut perfectly even and smooth, the binding heavy blue cloth instead of leather. A yellow flower was pressed between the first two pages; the name he gave it was yamabuki, the mountain rose, plentiful on the western slopes at the Serenes border and around the mountains in south Daein. There was a sketch, details on the environment and its blooming pattern, and the promise of seeds when he could manage. He gave her other flowers and other names, in ancient and modern dialects, drawings of the great wall at the northern Begnion border, of Talrega, of Nevassa. She was up reading all night, stopping only to allow Sigrun to measure her for new clothes.
Nasir brought the seeds and material Lehran promised her when spring came the next year. They were moving on to Crimea, and the youngest of Dheginsea's sons was assigned to lead refugees from Daein - the cooperative ones - south to Sienne.
"Crimea should be easy," he said before he left, when she gave him a letter to carry. "The royal family still acknowledges your authority, but word will have carried from Daein. We can't be sure."
Sanaki thanked him for that reassuring information and used her fitting appointment as an excuse to stalk away instead of bidding him a proper farewell. Should she send a letter to Melior? Should she send one of her knights to assure the survivors of her sincerity? Were there any survivors to worry about?
Lehran's letter did not express anxiety about Crimea, but Gallia. They will have abandoned their keeps and retreated to the forest. Such is the natural response within the beast tribes. With Goldoa empty they will see themselves alone. A cat backed into a corner became violent. Sanaki folded the paper and pressed it into its box with the others.
With Daein's former citizens, the number under her rule wouldn't break beyond ten thousand. Perhaps with Crimea--
"Isn't it kind of a relief?" It was Marcia who finally voiced the thought at the end of a meeting, after Tanith left with the evening's orders. "You don't need a bunch of fat senators to control a few thousand people. There's nobody to steal your authority or make bad decisions."
"Except me." Sanaki studied the lines on her hands, below the lip of the table. Her job was easier, of course, but she'd have liked her reforms to come under different circumstances. "Wasn't your brother among the judged?"
Marcia ran her fingers over the gauze curtain until she found the part and pulled one panel aside to look out. The sky was plain gray, darkening to black. "I'll never really know." She let the curtain fall, pushed her hair back. It had grown long enough to brush her shoulders and earn Tanith's rebukes: keep it back or cut it off. "Just trying to look at the bright side, your majesty. It's too late to change anything now."
Sanaki stared at her reflection in the polished surface of the table. She hadn't lost anyone in the judgment - not permanently. Lehran would come back some day, because she'd been careful not to disobey Ashera's commands, and the goddess did not seem the type to renege on a promise. That wouldn't be just, or orderly, or even honest.
In 645, Crimea was dissolved and her people sent on their way. Then they descended into Gallia, and it was two years before she heard news again. Ashera would disappear on occasion, return without a word or warning, refusing to offer any comfort aside from a few inadequate words: he's alive, child. Now stop crying.
She hated tears. They always annoyed her. When Ashera descended from the top of the tower to walk among her people, she always returned stiff-backed, her lips turned down, even more stubborn than usual. Sanaki gathered she didn't like prayers or supplication either, but then, what did she like? Was there anything in her world she appreciated? Lehran told her Ashera wasn't always like this, that she used to smile and cry like everyone else. Where do you think we learned our emotional responses? he asked her, as if Sanaki could provide any other answer. She wasn't there at the beginning.
She was tending to the kerria rose in her personal garden when Marcia came to relieve Tanith of her post. Her knight jogged up, footsteps crunching in the gravel, and knelt beside her in the dirt plot.
"He's back."
Sanaki dropped her clippers. "What?" She bit the inside of her cheek. "Who--"
"Who do you think?" Marcia had the nerve to roll her eyes. "He just came in the gate. They probably told him you're out here--" Sanaki gripped her knight's shoulder to pull herself to her feet, but Marcia jumped up and held her back. "Wait wait-- he's probably coming this way. You don't want to miss him, do you?"
Sanaki let herself be drawn back and stared at her hands. Dirt caked her fingernails and darkened the creases in her skin. She tried to brush it off, and to wipe her knees clean. Useless. Couldn't he have sent a message sooner, from the city wall, maybe, and given her time to clean up? "I look like a peasant."
Marcia laughed, choked it into a cough. "Maybe he likes peasants?"
Sanaki rolled her shoulders back. "If you value your job," she said, and the knight whispered uh oh, "you will fetch a basin of water and a towel." She pointed to the storage area. "Run."
Marcia ran. Sanaki tried to pick the dirt from her nails. Lehran was taking his time, but if that allowed her to make herself presentable she would forgive him. He must be tired. He didn't tell her very much about Gallia - even his handwriting was stiff. Was he injured? The letter said he wasn't, but would he really tell her?
If Zelgius was half as good as everyone said he was, even Ashnard shouldn't have touched Lehran. If she heard otherwise, her knights should be able to devise a fitting punishment for the general.
He appeared before Marcia, pausing to say a word to the pegasus knight stationed at the door, and Sanaki lowered her hands when he strode forward, still wrapped in his brown travel cloak, gray robes peeking from beneath. Her memory of him must have dimmed over the years; although her mind told her he looked the same, her eyes tried to convince her he was completely different. Was his hair that long and lustrous? Were his wings that shade between black and dark gray? Wasn't he a little taller, maybe a little older?
No, he didn't look very old at all. He looked tired, and his steps slowed when he neared, his head lowered. She extended a hand, and he took it. "My lady." He bent knee and rested his forehead on her fingers. "I apologize for the wait. My task was more complicated than expected."
Sanaki brushed his hair with her free hand. So soft. She stroked the arch of a wing and let her fingertips drift over the pattern of feathers. "Forgiven."
He lifted his head, then looked at her hand and raised his eyebrows. "Your majesty--"
She yanked it from his grip and clasped her hands at her back. "I was gardening," she said, biting her lips closed. Heat crept into her face. Lehran laughed, stood up, and Sanaki felt the heat spread to her neck, her chest, her hands, and had to look away.
"I missed you."
As easily as that, he drew her gaze back. "Of course you did." She shifted, hands clenching. "I--" I was mad at you. So mad at you-- She couldn't say it now because she just forgave him, but--
He combed his fingers into her hair and bent to kiss the top of her head as he used to. Her eyes felt hot, and she squeezed them shut against his chest, working her arms into his cloak to circle them around his waist. His embrace was so tight Sanaki could hardly breathe.
Seven years. She would have to lecture him on his timing later.
........................................................................
Some of this was written on NyQuil, and I'm not allowed to edit until December. Sorry. :D
I kind of wanted to end it after a certain point, because it should only stretch so far.
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Date: 2008-11-16 07:22 pm (UTC)