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runicloreBlessing
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Theme: 21 - violence; pillage/plunder; extortion
Words: 6799 (4977 + 1828 extra)
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: I'm not so sure this is a good idea. It's also probably sloppier than the other installments, because Nano is running me into the ground.
... so, I guess it'll have to be more than five parts. This chapter is... it just exploded. When I outlined it, I thought for sure I'd need more after the last scene to round it out, and then it turned out that no, it was more than enough, and I had to cut it in half so as not to break the character limit.
What are you talking about? This isn't long at all.
... what.
Previous Installments:
1. Judgment
2. Initiation
.......................................
"The bird tribes have refused Lehran's call," Sanaki said. "They haven't declared their intentions. He thinks they will try to maintain their independence, and urged me to emphasize they aren't in open rebellion yet."
Ashera's gaze had a heat to it very much like the breath of desert wind her aura summoned to mind. Standing before her was like standing beside a banked fire that might flare to life at any moment. "Their refusal is rebellion enough. Where are they gathering?"
"He didn't say." The misty glow around their feet was no longer prone to fading as it was in the beginning, when Sanaki often found the goddess stepping out of shadows and patches of shade. Proof, she said to Sigrun once, that Ashera is the dark goddess they used to dread awakening. Does she look like a 'goddess of dawn?' Obviously not. "There are herons with them. Two males and a female, he said." She traced her nails with a fingertip. "And the remnants of the wolf tribe."
The goddess did not respond. Sanaki listened to the draw and release of her breath, turning her face away to look at the arched window. Nightfall was close, the patch of sky dark lavender and purple; Lehran and Dheginsea had been waiting for over an hour, but Ashera hadn't deigned to speak with her until now. She presumably had other matters to attend to, though Sanaki had never seen Ashera do anything but stand at the center of her chamber and listen to her reports. The day she walked the streets of Sienne turning her stone subjects to dust was the first and last time she witnessed power in the goddess beyond the stifling glow.
She'd tried to leave once, while waiting for Ashera to respond - just like this. The only thing worse than standing in the silence of the tower for hours was listening to her senators, and the degrees of boredom were not far removed.
Never again. If Ashera was quick and decisive in nothing else, her punishments were always timely.
"It would be a shame to destroy them," she said, voice low.
Sanaki clenched her hands together. The situation couldn't possibly be as black-and-white as the goddess made it seem. "They can be negotiated with--"
"You said Kilvas was bound to your country by a blood pact."
She turned back to the goddess and hoped Ashera said that just to draw her attention. It was rude not face forward when spoken to, but she'd never bothered with the traditional courtesies before. "That is correct. One of my senators held the document." Sanaki didn't know which one, but their crimes were interchangeable. "I don't know what happened to it. Whoever carried it would have kept it close."
Ashera blinked slowly, the tilt of her eyebrows knitting down. "Find it."
"Surely you don't mean--"
"Yune."
Sanaki's teeth clicked shut. She pulled her hands apart and held them still at her sides, rolling her shoulders back to relax them, taking a deep breath. "He looked everywhere." The air around her grew warm and still, humid and hard to breathe. "He can't hear her as he used to-- that's what he told me."
The red gaze narrowed. Sanaki stood her ground. She still had to look up to meet the goddess's eyes, but she kept her chin high, ignoring the sweat beating at her temples. How much longer until she matched Ashera's height, how long until she could stare her down on equal footing? Would the goddess make her kneel, then, to dispel the illusion of equality? It had been suggested Sanaki's arguments and requests were denied because she was just a child - an unreasonable, disobedient child who must be bribed to follow her sovereign's commands.
Unlikely. She was older now, and Ashera afforded her no further respect. "It isn't his fault. He tried." All he ever did was strive to obey his goddess. Why, she could not fathom. It was true, what Catalena said when she lectured Sanaki on her refusal to kneel - she wouldn't stand here, obey, or keep silent if not for the threat to withdraw her access to Lehran. Why deny it? She'd never sought to hide her feelings. "Please forgive him. Assign someone else in his place. If we negotiate with the bird tribes, maybe one of their herons will find her."
Ashera's head bowed, and her headdress chimed. Her hair stirred in a breeze Sanaki couldn't feel, but she watched the aura shift like swirls of sparkling dust kicked up in a whirlwind, her shadow and the goddess's shifting on the walls, fading, and bleeding dark again. The air cooled and chilled her hands, the skin at her hairline where perspiration had gathered.
"Please--"
"Very well."
Sanaki's heart pounded against her chest. Her hand flew up to press over it. "You'll... you will allow it?"
Ashera lifted her gaze, expression smoothing. "You."
Sanaki took a step back. Her knees almost gave out. "Me?" Are you insane? The goddess's brow lifted sharply and she swallowed. "That isn't possible. I don't have--"
The goddess waved her hand, and Sanaki wasn't sure if her voice caught or if Ashera silenced her. "I will give you the means to find her if you believe Lehran unequal to the task."
"I said no such thing!" She flinched when her voice echoed from the walls and rang in her ears. "Why must you punish him at all? He obeyed every one of your commands!" He killed the innocents resisting in Daein, he manipulated Crimea into folding without a fight, he faced a dragon prince in Nevassa she had every reason to believe he cared for, and Ashera refused to credit him for his loyalty.
What an ungrateful goddess. She wouldn't even speak with him. Even Sanaki forgave him, and his deceptions were more harmful than a failure to find this mysterious Yune. Whoever it was, whatever she was imprisoned for, the world was not significantly impacted by her presence. Why all this fuss over a peaceful opponent?
"Your service or his," Ashera said.
Sanaki swallowed her sigh. "How am I supposed to do what he can't?"
Ashera lifted her left hand and beckoned. "Give me your hands."
Sanaki's fingers twitched and she leaned back, gaze resting on the pale white shape offered to her. It looked so small and slender, mere centimeters longer than her own. The fingernails were perfect white crescents. It would be heavy and cold like marble if she touched it.
What a stupid, disobedient child she'd been. She gave Ashera the advantage of knowing her weakness the very first day of their acquaintance.
Sanaki stepped forward and offered her hands. Her service for his.
.
Gallia's laguz were slow to return to Begnion. Their memories were long; their nation formed three hundred years before her birth, and there were individuals among them old enough to remember it and young enough to have their wits about them. They remembered the injustices, or they heard the stories practically from the womb, and Sanaki knew the laws banning slavery and declaring laguz citizens equal to beorc were ignored in the provinces before the judgment struck. There were rings of smugglers and slavers, nobles willing to buy, rich enough to hide it. No wonder they didn't want to come back.
She didn't want to admit complicity in the breaking of her own laws, but her citizens were the responsible parties. Would it help to issue a formal apology? Would they listen when she promised them equal status? Would Ashera let her? The goddess was always right, after all. She was a perfect being, she did not make mistakes, and her servants, therefore, did not make mistakes either. An apology for the deeds of Sanaki's predecessors would irritate her at best. She was the 'priestess of dawn' after all, 'Ashera's chosen,' the 'mouthpiece of the goddess,' and so on and so forth, a nearly perfect being - perfection being reserved for Ashera herself - and not to confuse her duty with petty mortal obligations.
Was it the branding Ashera left on her wrists that made it so, or her refusal to be intimidated? Or maybe it was her ability to walk up all of those stairs without breaking a sweat. That was a hard-earned skill. Not even her knights were capable of it.
Sanaki joined her knights at the bottom of the tower and went straight to her room after her dismissal to change. The heat of the goddess's aura left her silks clammy and clinging to her skin like they'd been drenched. She shed the formal robes, washed quickly, and rubbed oil into her skin while Tanith searched her drawers and chests for a pair of gloves and a dress to match them. The floral scent calmed her, but it was cool and blue, and reminded her of the sheen of the tiles she stood on in Ashera's chamber while she waited for the goddess to notice her - a sea of glass, or marble, or crystal. It was never the same when it caught her eye, yet the stone was plain and opaque when she looked down to examine it more closely.
The marks weren't as aggressively red after she oiled them. She listened to Tanith open another wooden chest, let the top slide to the floor, listened to her open boxes and the jewelry rattle.
If she'd known-- the goddess's blessing was something to be coveted in the legends, which Lehran assured her were somewhat true. Ashera rarely bestowed her favor on a single person. She blessed objects, gave gifts, summoned gold from the ground - but her gifts were impersonal. Sanaki looked at her wrists, and saw the same image branded on the twin swords.
Objects. Let the common faithful fight amongst themselves for that honor.
Tanith found a pair of long white gloves sewn with seed pearls, part of some ensemble she'd never had the opportunity to wear, and a simple, high-waisted dress that had fit her a month ago. The lines on her skin had faded from crimson to pink, and she hoped they would hide themselves altogether to save her the trouble of trying to do it herself. Her knight buttoned the gloves to Sanaki's elbows, muttering about how fast she was growing. Her mouth tightened when she looked at the marks, but she didn't ask. Later, her gaze said. Sanaki knew the look. Don't think you're getting out of it.
"If anyone tells him," she said before they left, "it will be me. Understood?"
The knight's frown deepened, but that was fine - she didn't have to like it, as long as she obeyed the order.
The search party had been back all of a day. Lehran's eyes lingered on the gloves when she went to see him, but when she told him what Ashera wanted he paid them no mind at all.
"But we searched their property," he said, rising from his chair and fanning his wing, maybe stretching it. They'd looked cramped, the way he was sitting. "There was no sign of the pact. It would have been useful in negotiating with the bird tribes, but--" He spread his hands.
"Who had it?" Sanaki pressed the seams between her fingers, picking at one that tickled her with a loose thread. "Tanas? I know he had dealings with Kilvas..."
"Lekain. And he wouldn't have filed it away in some archive. He must have had it with him."
Sanaki wove her fingers together and looked down at her hands. Her skin still itched and tingled where the curving, calligraphic mark blazed when Ashera uttered her blessing. For a moment she thought they showed through the white fabric, but staring revealed shadows cast by the lamps, folds in the silk, and nothing else.
What chance the pact was destroyed along with Lekain's body? The safest place to hide such valuable documents would be on his own person. The very thought of touching him was revolting, and she couldn't imagine anybody felt differently. "I'll have the palace searched, and the vaults in the cathedral. If we don't find it, I'll tell her it was destroyed."
Lehran's hand brushed her shoulder and she flinched, then reached up to grab it when he withdrew. "Did she really tell you to use it?"
She clasped his hand and held it to her throat. It was warm and soft, alive. Her skin prickled when his nails grazed the skin. "That was the implication."
His hand trembled, then gripped hers tightly. I see. Then more loudly, "I hope it remains lost."
That could be arranged, if Sanaki chose the correct search party. She smiled, and his gaze slanted in the direction of the tower, though the drapes were closed. Was he finally beginning to see?
.
The cathedral was searched; Sanaki helped her agents leaf through the documents in the Archives with her own hands, and Lehran took Sigrun with him to unpack the boxes of paper and belongings salvaged from the senators' manors in the city and their apartments in the palace. He checked each wall and piece of furniture for hidden compartments he didn't know about, for passages, and though he found several there was no sign of the Kilvas pact. The treasury benefited from their hidden stores of money and jewels.
"It'll take another month to complete the search of the Archives," she said, fingering a ruby filigree pendant that allegedy belonged to her grandmother. I saw her wear it, Lehran told her, but what was it doing in Numida's rooms - how did he get it when Misaha's letters implied she'd thought him the dregs of humanity? "I don't think it's there, but I told her they would continue to look."
Lehran's rooms were refurnished upon his return; the chair he leaned back in was shaped with low arms and a slender back for his wings. Most bird laguz stood or sat on stools when they visited beorc colonies, he said, but in his time as Begnion's prime minister he'd grown accustomed to real chairs. "They're trustworthy, I hope. The information there should be kept confidential."
"They were your servants-- before you left." Her thumb left a print on the oval ruby. The chain slithered over her fingers to her lap when she lowered the pendant. "Your orders, they said."
He looked down, to the side-- at nothing. The carpet, or the fringe of another chair. "Yes." A wing fanned open slightly, the longer feathers dragging on the floor. "You're still angry."
Sanaki shifted on the sofa, pulled her legs up, and rested the pendant on the cushion. Her feet were bare and frozen, even after she wrapped them in the folds of her skirt. He didn't keep his rooms as warm as he used to. Maybe he didn't need a fire with his wings to insulate him from the chill, or maybe laguz simply didn't feel it the same way she did. He had yet to explain the differences. What allowed them to transform? Did the special abilities - the ability to hear or smell, or see - did they remain with the individual in this human form?
What was it about inter-racial breeding that snuffed that ability out? Ashera didn't know. She didn't say so, of course, but Sanaki had learned to decipher the meanings behind her various responses. That matter is not for you to know sometimes meant she overstepped the bounds of her relationship with the goddess, but usually it meant there was no answer.
"She commissioned a priest to compose a song about your marriage to Altina." His wings moved back, pressed together, spreading, and Sanaki spread her hands on her lap, pretending not to see. "He was made a saint for his work."
"There are no records of that time to worry about," he said. He didn't look up.
Sanaki rubbed her feet through the fabric. "Nothing in that building can be as disturbing a revelation."
Lehran remained silent on the matter, refusing to speak until she changed the subject. She'd thought eight centuries would be enough, but-- maybe it was, maybe the past didn't bother him unless someone dredged it from the bottom of his memories and forced him to relive it for details. She didn't understand that aspect of laguz psychology either - how they maintained such long memories, how they avoided forgetting.
Or did they?
She apologized, and didn't bring it up again. He told her not to concern herself with it, as always, and the slant of light from the window, yellow as the sun descended, gilded his hair and eyelashes. His feathers glinted other colors - green and magenta, and blue, so many different shades of it - and remained dark at heart, shadows against his back. She wanted to touch them again.
"I'm sorry for leaving," he said, inclining his head, almost bowing in his chair. "If I'd known..."
Sanaki stood, let the pendant slip and slant into the space between the cushions, and crossed the rug to his side. His hair was slick and soft, cool, a finer adornment than gold and ruby. "What do you plan to do about it?"
He looked up, reaching for her arms. His hands were warm. "I'll never leave your side again. Nothing will be as important to me as you are."
Not even Ashera?
What about Altina?
When the search was completed, Sanaki told Ashera the contract was destroyed with Lekain. There was no other reasonable answer; only the senior senators and Kilvas himself knew of its existence. The goddess was displeased, but Sanaki bore the heat of her aura in silence. She didn't know Kilvas very well, but she knew the misfortune such a contract brought.
Anyone who needed such a tool to control their subjects was a fool - a coward. Sanaki would accept his loyalty if given freely, or not at all.
*
Cats, lions, and the beorc that made their homes in Gallia were still trickling over the border and into the city in 651, in fives or tens, and never together. Sanaki met each group personally to assure them their rights would remain intact and to pass on the commands Ashera wished them to live by: do not raise your hand to others in violence, obey the law of the land, honor your neighbor. There were a dozen, all very practical. She'd given the speech so many times she knew the most effective nuances by heart. Feline laguz responded favorably to a soft intonation, beorc - especially the Daein-born - wanted a ringing command, the sort that traveled across a parade ground. Children wanted her stern, disliked it when she tried to smile.
Yune was not among them. The goddess assured her she would know immediately - there would be no mistaking the signs. Sanaki felt nothing when they took their turns kneeling at the foot of the dais to promise their compliance. She noted their expressions - did they look at her, cast their eyes down, avert them to the side? - and their body language. Several refused to bend knee. She motioned her knights to stay their anger each time and let them file past her.
What did she care for Gallian loyalty? She'd as soon let them stay within their own borders if they preferred, but Ashera was insistent: laguz and beorc would begin again in the same place.
Tellius is the oldest of the five lands, Lehran told her one night when she returned from her nightly trip to the tower. The birth of civilization is traditionally located here, between Serenes Forest and the eastern range. This is where she first awakened, so it is sacred. Ashera was trying to recreate the genesis of their two races, and this area was the natural choice. The true cradle of civilization as they knew it was on the other side of the ocean, probably dust, and not a viable option. The flood swallowed the other continents and came over the mountains. It stopped at the deserts bordering Daein and Persis. When the waters receded, the salt rendered the land uninhabitable. All of it, as far as I knew.
I don't know how the wolves survived, he said. Where could they have fled?
Sanaki wanted to know as well, but Hatari's survivors had taken refuge with the bird tribes, and she could not leave the capitol to seek them out. Even her speculation Yune hid among them would not convince Ashera to allow it. If that is the case, the goddess said, I will find her when the time comes.
No, Sanaki was not allowed to end her search. Yes, she must descend to walk with the commoners and interrogate them personally if the task required that effort-- and she was not to sully the reputation of her office while she was at it.
Just once, she wished the goddess would make a request rather than a command or, if such miracles were possible - Ashera was a goddess after all - ask for Sanaki's opinion on the practicality of her wishes. Gods couldn't die as far as she knew, so it wouldn't kill her. The ideals they were supposed to live by, the commandments passed down to each group of refugees, were sensible and desirable ends. Sanaki didn't think any of the subjects she watched kneel would object to a world in which their families were safe from the threats of slavery or murder.
But they were all individuals with needs and desires, and with so many together in one place, those desires were fated to clash. Ashera did not understand it. She dismissed Sanaki when the matter tried her patience, and that was the end - until some crime cropped up in her morning reports and they had the discussion all over again.
Inevitable. She knew it, and the goddess refused to see. The argument was reflexive.
"Tell me," Sanaki said one night when she returned from the tower and found Lehran waiting for her. He'd lit her lamps and brought a folder of papers and forms she supposed he would advise her on, just as he used to when she was a child. She glanced at it, at him, and he motioned for her to ignore it. "Has she always been this unreasonable? Does she ever consider the capabilities of her servants when she makes her demands?"
He rose from the edge of her divan, where the back sank low enough to accommodate his wings. "What is it she wants?"
"The same thing. Find Yune. Find her, hurry, why do you continue to report failure--" Sanaki threw her hands up. "If this goddess is intelligent at all she will have fled my influence. Am I supposed to find her by thought alone, or should I invest in a crystal ball to divine her location? It might be more effective--"
"Shh, calm down." Lehran grabbed one of her hands and seized the other when she reached to pry away from him. "You've served her ten years now, and still haven't accustomed yourself to taking commands? An imperial order from you is much the same, my lady. She--"
"Are you saying I'm just as--"
"No." He tugged on her wrists and she tensed. The silk of her half-gloves gathered around his fingers, but they didn't move enough to show anything. "Listen. You've passed these orders on to your knights, and they probably feel as you do." He let her go when her hands went limp, and she rested them on his shoulders, fingers spread. "They don't know what failure will mean, they don't want to be punished, and they don't want to disappoint you."
Sanaki pursed her lips, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "I don't care if she's disappointed."
He sighed, stirring the hair draped over her ear. "What happened to inspire such strong animosity between you?"
The top of her head was level with his chin at best, but at least she didn't have to crane her neck back to look up at him anymore. "What does it matter?" Ashera hadn't made any other threats; there was just the one, hanging between them when Sanaki spoke to her, and telling Lehran about it would only pain him. "It's done. Even Ashera can't create a miracle dazzling enough to make me like her."
He rolled his eyes, mouth turning slightly in a frown, and she laughed at him, picking at the clasp of his collar with a nail and listening to it click. He pulled her hand away and spread her fingers on his chest, over his heart, twisting the ring that kept the silk in place over her hand. "You should have more made in this style," he said. It left her fingers bare, and her palm, and his hand was warm when it closed over her own and his thumb rubbed over her knuckles. "I like it better."
Hmm. She flicked his hair with her fingers. "I'll think about it."
When he left for the night and Sanaki told Sigrun what she wanted done for morning, she ordered the old style packed and sold, and the new style to be commissioned at the earliest convenience. She didn't want to be seen without some kind of covering - what if they became visible while they worked, what if she did something to activate them? - but if Lehran liked one style better than the other, why not indulge him?
She liked his hands. They were nicely shaped, the fingers long and delicate. They looked small, maybe even feminine until she held her hand pressed to his and realized they were still larger than her own. His wrists were wider, his palm didn't curve out as much. His nails never seemed to break. He didn't bite them or pick at the cuticles, and he kept covering her hands or pulling them away from her mouth when she tried until Sanaki broke the habit out of exasperation. He lectured her on how those habits would weaken them, and tapped his own nail on the solid oak of her desk to demonstrate its strength. The sound her nails made was thin and soft in comparison.
She told him how irritating he was, and Lehran simply laughed. His lips were just full enough that she wanted to look at them, and his smile gave her gaze enough reason to linger. He used to smile and laugh with her every day, but since his return it came more slowly, as if he had to remember which muscles to move for the correct effect.
He wouldn't say very much about what happened. It would bore you he said - as if he didn't know very well Sanaki was interested in everything outside of Sienne, everything she would never see with her own eyes. Eventually he told her Dheginsea didn't want him to speak of it and she stopped asking, though her desire to know didn't fade. He wouldn't give her any details about his time in Daein. The road through Gallia, he said, was spent searching every tree, keep, village, and crevasse to find Caineghis and his people. The rains were bad, and their supplies were damaged - that was why she didn't receive any letters.
The lion king had yet to arrive. Lehran assured her he would, but Sanaki had her doubts. Crimea's royal family, what was left of them, had long acknowledged Begnion authority and didn't put up a fight when she asked them to give up their hereditary rights as sovereigns. They were the only leaders to survive and answer Ashera's call to date. The birds continued to refuse, and the dragons bent their necks to Ashera without being asked.
The Crimeans assured her Caineghis was a reasonable man, but Elincia hesitated when asked if she thought he would bow to the goddess and Begnion. He's a good king, she said. He'll do what is best for them.
How very reassuring. Sanaki didn't want to have two rebellions on her hands. Her empire now consisted of eleven thousand people, and none of them were trained in the art of war. They were forbidden from forging weapons and practicing violent sports. If the goddess ever decided to take care of the bird tribes they would have to depend on the laguz to fight - another problem in the making. They didn't want money, they didn't want glory - what did they want?
I know it's horrible she told Lehran, but I'm so glad there aren't any other laguz clans. They're all so different, and I don't know how to deal with them. He was combing her hair after a wash, dividing it into small parts, detangling, and resting the smoothed strands over her shoulder while the others draped over the chair back to wait for his attention. It's almost a blessing the birds decided not to follow.
There were others, he said. Once, a long time ago. I barely remember them. Different varieties of canine tribes, a race of gazelles, even other types of dragons - the ones he met looked like serpents, and their scales were bright green, their manes gold or silver. There was a water serpent beneath the sea, another kind of dragon, and the only one of his kind; the goddess destroyed his mate when she became violent, and the great leviathan had no children. He may yet live. Lehran rested a handful of hair over her shoulder. Perhaps he went mad in the long silence since the flood.
Ashera did not emerge unscathed. He didn't say it, but Sanaki knew it was true. There were times the goddess stared at her, and her eyes were so flat, so dark, they didn't mirror her aura or the lights, or Sanaki's own image. She would lift a perfect eyebrow and ask why the little empress thought such-and-such was a concern that merited her attention, and Sanaki would be left blinking at her back as it retreated behind the silver curtains.
Why was morale a concern fit for a goddess?
Why should Ashera raise her perfect hand to raise a broken temple from the ground so her subjects would have a place to worship her - a reason? Evidence of her power?
Idiot goddess. Lehran tugged on her hair, and she kicked her chair. "She made me read to her every night for three years. I don't want to hear it." After the histories, Sanaki read philosophy, and then social theory, and then scientific discoveries since the founding of Begnion. She read enough racial rhetoric from both sides to get sick at the mere mention of the topic. Ashera must have a perfect memory to match her perfect will, but her use of the knowledge was less than stellar if she thought asking laguz to till the same fields as beorc would lead to anything but trouble.
"It is your job to govern," he told her. "You are the earthly authority. That is why Ashera has spent so much time cultivating the image of the throne as the seat of her high priestess. She wants your descendants to create a strong dynasty in her name."
"When am I supposed to have these descendants if I'm running back and forth between the palace and the tower all the time?" She played with the folds of her robe and the end of the silk sash. "And with whom, pray tell?"
The sound of the comb ceased for a moment. Then her hair pulled again, and she felt it run through the length of the part he was working on, gathering hidden tangles around the tines. Lehran laid it on the curtain of hair draped over her shoulder and gathered the last handful, combing carefully behind her ear.
"I don't know what her preferences would be in that matter," he finally said. "If she has any at all."
Sanaki gathered her hair and wrung the ends out over the carpet so they wouldn't drip on her feet. "And you? What is your preference?"
The comb snagged and she flinched, hand flying to press the sore spot on her scalp. He apologized and placed the comb on the table. In the window, his reflection picked at the knot he'd found by hand. There were no stars past the glass - the sky was dark and covered by clouds, but at least the city was lit up again like it was during her childhood.
"I'd rather no one touch you," he said, smoothing the ends of her hair over his hand.
Sanaki turned around, folded her arms on the back of the chair, and drew her knees up onto the seat. It wasn't as comfortable a position as it used to be. Her legs were too long. Her knees knocked against the wooden back. "You want me to be the pure temple maiden after all?"
He spoke to the rope of hair he wrapped around his hand, not looking at her. "No."
She curled her finger around the length and pulled until he looked up. His wings arched in the back like a halo around his head - one bent, perhaps, tilted. They were always painted that way on walls or in storybooks, stylized until they looked more like sails than wings. They were warm when he curved them around her shoulders, though such occasions were rare. She wouldn't mind if they cloaked her more often.
Just the wings, nothing else.
"Good," Sanaki said. Her hair slipped from between his fingers. "I'm not saintly enough to meet that standard."
"Really."
Sanaki pushed her hair over her shoulder and stood up, reaching for his hand. "Why don't you come over here and see for yourself."
Lehran's hand froze, halfway to her own. He blinked slowly. "Are you-- you're--"
Heat rushed to her face. "Yes Lehran, I'm propositioning you." She pulled her hand back, put it on her hip, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. "And if you say no, you'll have to give me a few hours to piece my dignity back together."
"That isn't what I was asking." He drew his hand back, resting it on his chest. "I didn't expect this from you."
She lowered her chin. At least she wasn't the only one turning pink. "I suppose you didn't notice the time passing."
His gaze flicked down a moment, up again. "I noticed. I was trying not to--" She turned her back on him, the ends of her hair flicking water onto the chair, the curtains, the back of her legs. He caught her elbow before she made two steps. "Wait, Sanaki." His grip tightened when she moved and his sharp sigh chilled her neck. "You're so impatient. Stop and listen."
The heat spread to her neck and shoulders. Her ears must be pink. She couldn't even escape his scrutiny with her back turned. "If it bothers you," she said, turning her head slightly to see his other hand curve around her shoulder, "I won't ask again. I just--"
"That wasn't a refusal."
Sanaki faced forward again. She would have liked to change into something dry and warm, but it seemed the perfect time to ask if she was going to take everything off again. "Then what is it?"
"Why me?" His grip slackened, but he didn't let go. "Why not someone else - Zelgius, or that priest, Rhys. They're both trustworthy and loyal, and attractive. I am not your only option."
Should it be expected she choose someone she didn't care about - even though circumstances gave her a choice? "I didn't wait seven years for Rhys so I could listen to his voice while I went to sleep." Her eyes prickled and she blinked before they could mist. She felt for his hand on her shoulder and pulled it around to look at the perfect white crescents of his nails, and the network of blue veins over the back, beneath his wrist. These were the only hands she'd ever known - the only ones she wanted to know. "If I give my children to Ashera, they will be yours as well - or she can find another pawn to do her bidding."
She heard the shiff shiff of his feathers. "Your reasoning being... what?"
Sanaki pressed a nail between her fingers, watched it bleed white, then pink again when she released his finger. Her heart beat violently of a sudden, stealing her breath. "You'll always be there to help them." There was a beat of silence. He tried to pull his hand away, and when she wouldn't let him go, wove his fingers with hers and squeezed so hard it actually hurt. She gritted her teeth and returned the pressure. "Seven years - you left me alone with her for seven years. Do you know what that's like? I will not sacrifice my children on her altar!"
"So it comes back to that." His wings moved, the air brushed chilled the cold, wet spots of her robe. "How many times can I apologize--"
She shook her head sharply, prying her fingers loose to turn around, drop his hand in favor of pressing her face into his throat and wrapping her arms around his chest tightly enough he stopped speaking. "I didn't mean it like that." His wing curved and brushed her fingers. If she moved her hands a few inches she would feel the down at the base. "I want you to talk me to sleep." He lifted the wet blanket of her hair, his arm pressing to the small of her back. "I want you to wake me in the morning and help me dress." She stretched her fingers to brush his wing, graze her nails on the skin where it met his back, and heard his sharp intake of breath. "I don't care about descendants, I just want you with me every day. Every free moment you have - I want it to be mine."
His soft, short laugh tickled her temple. "You don't ask for very much."
"I know." Sanaki worked her fingers into the soft feathers, feeling the warm skin, the hard, bony arch of his wing. "I should ask for every waking moment, but I decided to be conservative."
Lehran's shoulders shook, the laughter muffled in her hair, warming her ear. No one else made him laugh like that; even her knights had commented on how solemn he was since his return. He was warm, his heartbeat loud and steady. When he finally spoke, he tilted his head to say softly in her ear. "I've no intention of refusing. Your request is... difficult."
"It isn't a condition." She tugged on the short feathers, careful not to pull any out, and felt his skin prickle with gooseflesh. "I'd as soon ignore what she wants."
He reached back to seize her hand. "Do you want to talk it over or not?"
Sanaki tilted her head back to look at him. "Maybe."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Maybe?"
She kissed him, felt his lips soften. "Later."
...............................................................
What is technically 'part two' will be along in a while. Maybe even today, as if this isn't enough to read.
Edited ~2:30am November 29, 2008.
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Theme: 21 - violence; pillage/plunder; extortion
Words: 6799 (4977 + 1828 extra)
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: I'm not so sure this is a good idea. It's also probably sloppier than the other installments, because Nano is running me into the ground.
... so, I guess it'll have to be more than five parts. This chapter is... it just exploded. When I outlined it, I thought for sure I'd need more after the last scene to round it out, and then it turned out that no, it was more than enough, and I had to cut it in half so as not to break the character limit.
What are you talking about? This isn't long at all.
... what.
Previous Installments:
1. Judgment
2. Initiation
.......................................
"The bird tribes have refused Lehran's call," Sanaki said. "They haven't declared their intentions. He thinks they will try to maintain their independence, and urged me to emphasize they aren't in open rebellion yet."
Ashera's gaze had a heat to it very much like the breath of desert wind her aura summoned to mind. Standing before her was like standing beside a banked fire that might flare to life at any moment. "Their refusal is rebellion enough. Where are they gathering?"
"He didn't say." The misty glow around their feet was no longer prone to fading as it was in the beginning, when Sanaki often found the goddess stepping out of shadows and patches of shade. Proof, she said to Sigrun once, that Ashera is the dark goddess they used to dread awakening. Does she look like a 'goddess of dawn?' Obviously not. "There are herons with them. Two males and a female, he said." She traced her nails with a fingertip. "And the remnants of the wolf tribe."
The goddess did not respond. Sanaki listened to the draw and release of her breath, turning her face away to look at the arched window. Nightfall was close, the patch of sky dark lavender and purple; Lehran and Dheginsea had been waiting for over an hour, but Ashera hadn't deigned to speak with her until now. She presumably had other matters to attend to, though Sanaki had never seen Ashera do anything but stand at the center of her chamber and listen to her reports. The day she walked the streets of Sienne turning her stone subjects to dust was the first and last time she witnessed power in the goddess beyond the stifling glow.
She'd tried to leave once, while waiting for Ashera to respond - just like this. The only thing worse than standing in the silence of the tower for hours was listening to her senators, and the degrees of boredom were not far removed.
Never again. If Ashera was quick and decisive in nothing else, her punishments were always timely.
"It would be a shame to destroy them," she said, voice low.
Sanaki clenched her hands together. The situation couldn't possibly be as black-and-white as the goddess made it seem. "They can be negotiated with--"
"You said Kilvas was bound to your country by a blood pact."
She turned back to the goddess and hoped Ashera said that just to draw her attention. It was rude not face forward when spoken to, but she'd never bothered with the traditional courtesies before. "That is correct. One of my senators held the document." Sanaki didn't know which one, but their crimes were interchangeable. "I don't know what happened to it. Whoever carried it would have kept it close."
Ashera blinked slowly, the tilt of her eyebrows knitting down. "Find it."
"Surely you don't mean--"
"Yune."
Sanaki's teeth clicked shut. She pulled her hands apart and held them still at her sides, rolling her shoulders back to relax them, taking a deep breath. "He looked everywhere." The air around her grew warm and still, humid and hard to breathe. "He can't hear her as he used to-- that's what he told me."
The red gaze narrowed. Sanaki stood her ground. She still had to look up to meet the goddess's eyes, but she kept her chin high, ignoring the sweat beating at her temples. How much longer until she matched Ashera's height, how long until she could stare her down on equal footing? Would the goddess make her kneel, then, to dispel the illusion of equality? It had been suggested Sanaki's arguments and requests were denied because she was just a child - an unreasonable, disobedient child who must be bribed to follow her sovereign's commands.
Unlikely. She was older now, and Ashera afforded her no further respect. "It isn't his fault. He tried." All he ever did was strive to obey his goddess. Why, she could not fathom. It was true, what Catalena said when she lectured Sanaki on her refusal to kneel - she wouldn't stand here, obey, or keep silent if not for the threat to withdraw her access to Lehran. Why deny it? She'd never sought to hide her feelings. "Please forgive him. Assign someone else in his place. If we negotiate with the bird tribes, maybe one of their herons will find her."
Ashera's head bowed, and her headdress chimed. Her hair stirred in a breeze Sanaki couldn't feel, but she watched the aura shift like swirls of sparkling dust kicked up in a whirlwind, her shadow and the goddess's shifting on the walls, fading, and bleeding dark again. The air cooled and chilled her hands, the skin at her hairline where perspiration had gathered.
"Please--"
"Very well."
Sanaki's heart pounded against her chest. Her hand flew up to press over it. "You'll... you will allow it?"
Ashera lifted her gaze, expression smoothing. "You."
Sanaki took a step back. Her knees almost gave out. "Me?" Are you insane? The goddess's brow lifted sharply and she swallowed. "That isn't possible. I don't have--"
The goddess waved her hand, and Sanaki wasn't sure if her voice caught or if Ashera silenced her. "I will give you the means to find her if you believe Lehran unequal to the task."
"I said no such thing!" She flinched when her voice echoed from the walls and rang in her ears. "Why must you punish him at all? He obeyed every one of your commands!" He killed the innocents resisting in Daein, he manipulated Crimea into folding without a fight, he faced a dragon prince in Nevassa she had every reason to believe he cared for, and Ashera refused to credit him for his loyalty.
What an ungrateful goddess. She wouldn't even speak with him. Even Sanaki forgave him, and his deceptions were more harmful than a failure to find this mysterious Yune. Whoever it was, whatever she was imprisoned for, the world was not significantly impacted by her presence. Why all this fuss over a peaceful opponent?
"Your service or his," Ashera said.
Sanaki swallowed her sigh. "How am I supposed to do what he can't?"
Ashera lifted her left hand and beckoned. "Give me your hands."
Sanaki's fingers twitched and she leaned back, gaze resting on the pale white shape offered to her. It looked so small and slender, mere centimeters longer than her own. The fingernails were perfect white crescents. It would be heavy and cold like marble if she touched it.
What a stupid, disobedient child she'd been. She gave Ashera the advantage of knowing her weakness the very first day of their acquaintance.
Sanaki stepped forward and offered her hands. Her service for his.
.
Gallia's laguz were slow to return to Begnion. Their memories were long; their nation formed three hundred years before her birth, and there were individuals among them old enough to remember it and young enough to have their wits about them. They remembered the injustices, or they heard the stories practically from the womb, and Sanaki knew the laws banning slavery and declaring laguz citizens equal to beorc were ignored in the provinces before the judgment struck. There were rings of smugglers and slavers, nobles willing to buy, rich enough to hide it. No wonder they didn't want to come back.
She didn't want to admit complicity in the breaking of her own laws, but her citizens were the responsible parties. Would it help to issue a formal apology? Would they listen when she promised them equal status? Would Ashera let her? The goddess was always right, after all. She was a perfect being, she did not make mistakes, and her servants, therefore, did not make mistakes either. An apology for the deeds of Sanaki's predecessors would irritate her at best. She was the 'priestess of dawn' after all, 'Ashera's chosen,' the 'mouthpiece of the goddess,' and so on and so forth, a nearly perfect being - perfection being reserved for Ashera herself - and not to confuse her duty with petty mortal obligations.
Was it the branding Ashera left on her wrists that made it so, or her refusal to be intimidated? Or maybe it was her ability to walk up all of those stairs without breaking a sweat. That was a hard-earned skill. Not even her knights were capable of it.
Sanaki joined her knights at the bottom of the tower and went straight to her room after her dismissal to change. The heat of the goddess's aura left her silks clammy and clinging to her skin like they'd been drenched. She shed the formal robes, washed quickly, and rubbed oil into her skin while Tanith searched her drawers and chests for a pair of gloves and a dress to match them. The floral scent calmed her, but it was cool and blue, and reminded her of the sheen of the tiles she stood on in Ashera's chamber while she waited for the goddess to notice her - a sea of glass, or marble, or crystal. It was never the same when it caught her eye, yet the stone was plain and opaque when she looked down to examine it more closely.
The marks weren't as aggressively red after she oiled them. She listened to Tanith open another wooden chest, let the top slide to the floor, listened to her open boxes and the jewelry rattle.
If she'd known-- the goddess's blessing was something to be coveted in the legends, which Lehran assured her were somewhat true. Ashera rarely bestowed her favor on a single person. She blessed objects, gave gifts, summoned gold from the ground - but her gifts were impersonal. Sanaki looked at her wrists, and saw the same image branded on the twin swords.
Objects. Let the common faithful fight amongst themselves for that honor.
Tanith found a pair of long white gloves sewn with seed pearls, part of some ensemble she'd never had the opportunity to wear, and a simple, high-waisted dress that had fit her a month ago. The lines on her skin had faded from crimson to pink, and she hoped they would hide themselves altogether to save her the trouble of trying to do it herself. Her knight buttoned the gloves to Sanaki's elbows, muttering about how fast she was growing. Her mouth tightened when she looked at the marks, but she didn't ask. Later, her gaze said. Sanaki knew the look. Don't think you're getting out of it.
"If anyone tells him," she said before they left, "it will be me. Understood?"
The knight's frown deepened, but that was fine - she didn't have to like it, as long as she obeyed the order.
The search party had been back all of a day. Lehran's eyes lingered on the gloves when she went to see him, but when she told him what Ashera wanted he paid them no mind at all.
"But we searched their property," he said, rising from his chair and fanning his wing, maybe stretching it. They'd looked cramped, the way he was sitting. "There was no sign of the pact. It would have been useful in negotiating with the bird tribes, but--" He spread his hands.
"Who had it?" Sanaki pressed the seams between her fingers, picking at one that tickled her with a loose thread. "Tanas? I know he had dealings with Kilvas..."
"Lekain. And he wouldn't have filed it away in some archive. He must have had it with him."
Sanaki wove her fingers together and looked down at her hands. Her skin still itched and tingled where the curving, calligraphic mark blazed when Ashera uttered her blessing. For a moment she thought they showed through the white fabric, but staring revealed shadows cast by the lamps, folds in the silk, and nothing else.
What chance the pact was destroyed along with Lekain's body? The safest place to hide such valuable documents would be on his own person. The very thought of touching him was revolting, and she couldn't imagine anybody felt differently. "I'll have the palace searched, and the vaults in the cathedral. If we don't find it, I'll tell her it was destroyed."
Lehran's hand brushed her shoulder and she flinched, then reached up to grab it when he withdrew. "Did she really tell you to use it?"
She clasped his hand and held it to her throat. It was warm and soft, alive. Her skin prickled when his nails grazed the skin. "That was the implication."
His hand trembled, then gripped hers tightly. I see. Then more loudly, "I hope it remains lost."
That could be arranged, if Sanaki chose the correct search party. She smiled, and his gaze slanted in the direction of the tower, though the drapes were closed. Was he finally beginning to see?
.
The cathedral was searched; Sanaki helped her agents leaf through the documents in the Archives with her own hands, and Lehran took Sigrun with him to unpack the boxes of paper and belongings salvaged from the senators' manors in the city and their apartments in the palace. He checked each wall and piece of furniture for hidden compartments he didn't know about, for passages, and though he found several there was no sign of the Kilvas pact. The treasury benefited from their hidden stores of money and jewels.
"It'll take another month to complete the search of the Archives," she said, fingering a ruby filigree pendant that allegedy belonged to her grandmother. I saw her wear it, Lehran told her, but what was it doing in Numida's rooms - how did he get it when Misaha's letters implied she'd thought him the dregs of humanity? "I don't think it's there, but I told her they would continue to look."
Lehran's rooms were refurnished upon his return; the chair he leaned back in was shaped with low arms and a slender back for his wings. Most bird laguz stood or sat on stools when they visited beorc colonies, he said, but in his time as Begnion's prime minister he'd grown accustomed to real chairs. "They're trustworthy, I hope. The information there should be kept confidential."
"They were your servants-- before you left." Her thumb left a print on the oval ruby. The chain slithered over her fingers to her lap when she lowered the pendant. "Your orders, they said."
He looked down, to the side-- at nothing. The carpet, or the fringe of another chair. "Yes." A wing fanned open slightly, the longer feathers dragging on the floor. "You're still angry."
Sanaki shifted on the sofa, pulled her legs up, and rested the pendant on the cushion. Her feet were bare and frozen, even after she wrapped them in the folds of her skirt. He didn't keep his rooms as warm as he used to. Maybe he didn't need a fire with his wings to insulate him from the chill, or maybe laguz simply didn't feel it the same way she did. He had yet to explain the differences. What allowed them to transform? Did the special abilities - the ability to hear or smell, or see - did they remain with the individual in this human form?
What was it about inter-racial breeding that snuffed that ability out? Ashera didn't know. She didn't say so, of course, but Sanaki had learned to decipher the meanings behind her various responses. That matter is not for you to know sometimes meant she overstepped the bounds of her relationship with the goddess, but usually it meant there was no answer.
"She commissioned a priest to compose a song about your marriage to Altina." His wings moved back, pressed together, spreading, and Sanaki spread her hands on her lap, pretending not to see. "He was made a saint for his work."
"There are no records of that time to worry about," he said. He didn't look up.
Sanaki rubbed her feet through the fabric. "Nothing in that building can be as disturbing a revelation."
Lehran remained silent on the matter, refusing to speak until she changed the subject. She'd thought eight centuries would be enough, but-- maybe it was, maybe the past didn't bother him unless someone dredged it from the bottom of his memories and forced him to relive it for details. She didn't understand that aspect of laguz psychology either - how they maintained such long memories, how they avoided forgetting.
Or did they?
She apologized, and didn't bring it up again. He told her not to concern herself with it, as always, and the slant of light from the window, yellow as the sun descended, gilded his hair and eyelashes. His feathers glinted other colors - green and magenta, and blue, so many different shades of it - and remained dark at heart, shadows against his back. She wanted to touch them again.
"I'm sorry for leaving," he said, inclining his head, almost bowing in his chair. "If I'd known..."
Sanaki stood, let the pendant slip and slant into the space between the cushions, and crossed the rug to his side. His hair was slick and soft, cool, a finer adornment than gold and ruby. "What do you plan to do about it?"
He looked up, reaching for her arms. His hands were warm. "I'll never leave your side again. Nothing will be as important to me as you are."
Not even Ashera?
What about Altina?
When the search was completed, Sanaki told Ashera the contract was destroyed with Lekain. There was no other reasonable answer; only the senior senators and Kilvas himself knew of its existence. The goddess was displeased, but Sanaki bore the heat of her aura in silence. She didn't know Kilvas very well, but she knew the misfortune such a contract brought.
Anyone who needed such a tool to control their subjects was a fool - a coward. Sanaki would accept his loyalty if given freely, or not at all.
*
Cats, lions, and the beorc that made their homes in Gallia were still trickling over the border and into the city in 651, in fives or tens, and never together. Sanaki met each group personally to assure them their rights would remain intact and to pass on the commands Ashera wished them to live by: do not raise your hand to others in violence, obey the law of the land, honor your neighbor. There were a dozen, all very practical. She'd given the speech so many times she knew the most effective nuances by heart. Feline laguz responded favorably to a soft intonation, beorc - especially the Daein-born - wanted a ringing command, the sort that traveled across a parade ground. Children wanted her stern, disliked it when she tried to smile.
Yune was not among them. The goddess assured her she would know immediately - there would be no mistaking the signs. Sanaki felt nothing when they took their turns kneeling at the foot of the dais to promise their compliance. She noted their expressions - did they look at her, cast their eyes down, avert them to the side? - and their body language. Several refused to bend knee. She motioned her knights to stay their anger each time and let them file past her.
What did she care for Gallian loyalty? She'd as soon let them stay within their own borders if they preferred, but Ashera was insistent: laguz and beorc would begin again in the same place.
Tellius is the oldest of the five lands, Lehran told her one night when she returned from her nightly trip to the tower. The birth of civilization is traditionally located here, between Serenes Forest and the eastern range. This is where she first awakened, so it is sacred. Ashera was trying to recreate the genesis of their two races, and this area was the natural choice. The true cradle of civilization as they knew it was on the other side of the ocean, probably dust, and not a viable option. The flood swallowed the other continents and came over the mountains. It stopped at the deserts bordering Daein and Persis. When the waters receded, the salt rendered the land uninhabitable. All of it, as far as I knew.
I don't know how the wolves survived, he said. Where could they have fled?
Sanaki wanted to know as well, but Hatari's survivors had taken refuge with the bird tribes, and she could not leave the capitol to seek them out. Even her speculation Yune hid among them would not convince Ashera to allow it. If that is the case, the goddess said, I will find her when the time comes.
No, Sanaki was not allowed to end her search. Yes, she must descend to walk with the commoners and interrogate them personally if the task required that effort-- and she was not to sully the reputation of her office while she was at it.
Just once, she wished the goddess would make a request rather than a command or, if such miracles were possible - Ashera was a goddess after all - ask for Sanaki's opinion on the practicality of her wishes. Gods couldn't die as far as she knew, so it wouldn't kill her. The ideals they were supposed to live by, the commandments passed down to each group of refugees, were sensible and desirable ends. Sanaki didn't think any of the subjects she watched kneel would object to a world in which their families were safe from the threats of slavery or murder.
But they were all individuals with needs and desires, and with so many together in one place, those desires were fated to clash. Ashera did not understand it. She dismissed Sanaki when the matter tried her patience, and that was the end - until some crime cropped up in her morning reports and they had the discussion all over again.
Inevitable. She knew it, and the goddess refused to see. The argument was reflexive.
"Tell me," Sanaki said one night when she returned from the tower and found Lehran waiting for her. He'd lit her lamps and brought a folder of papers and forms she supposed he would advise her on, just as he used to when she was a child. She glanced at it, at him, and he motioned for her to ignore it. "Has she always been this unreasonable? Does she ever consider the capabilities of her servants when she makes her demands?"
He rose from the edge of her divan, where the back sank low enough to accommodate his wings. "What is it she wants?"
"The same thing. Find Yune. Find her, hurry, why do you continue to report failure--" Sanaki threw her hands up. "If this goddess is intelligent at all she will have fled my influence. Am I supposed to find her by thought alone, or should I invest in a crystal ball to divine her location? It might be more effective--"
"Shh, calm down." Lehran grabbed one of her hands and seized the other when she reached to pry away from him. "You've served her ten years now, and still haven't accustomed yourself to taking commands? An imperial order from you is much the same, my lady. She--"
"Are you saying I'm just as--"
"No." He tugged on her wrists and she tensed. The silk of her half-gloves gathered around his fingers, but they didn't move enough to show anything. "Listen. You've passed these orders on to your knights, and they probably feel as you do." He let her go when her hands went limp, and she rested them on his shoulders, fingers spread. "They don't know what failure will mean, they don't want to be punished, and they don't want to disappoint you."
Sanaki pursed her lips, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "I don't care if she's disappointed."
He sighed, stirring the hair draped over her ear. "What happened to inspire such strong animosity between you?"
The top of her head was level with his chin at best, but at least she didn't have to crane her neck back to look up at him anymore. "What does it matter?" Ashera hadn't made any other threats; there was just the one, hanging between them when Sanaki spoke to her, and telling Lehran about it would only pain him. "It's done. Even Ashera can't create a miracle dazzling enough to make me like her."
He rolled his eyes, mouth turning slightly in a frown, and she laughed at him, picking at the clasp of his collar with a nail and listening to it click. He pulled her hand away and spread her fingers on his chest, over his heart, twisting the ring that kept the silk in place over her hand. "You should have more made in this style," he said. It left her fingers bare, and her palm, and his hand was warm when it closed over her own and his thumb rubbed over her knuckles. "I like it better."
Hmm. She flicked his hair with her fingers. "I'll think about it."
When he left for the night and Sanaki told Sigrun what she wanted done for morning, she ordered the old style packed and sold, and the new style to be commissioned at the earliest convenience. She didn't want to be seen without some kind of covering - what if they became visible while they worked, what if she did something to activate them? - but if Lehran liked one style better than the other, why not indulge him?
She liked his hands. They were nicely shaped, the fingers long and delicate. They looked small, maybe even feminine until she held her hand pressed to his and realized they were still larger than her own. His wrists were wider, his palm didn't curve out as much. His nails never seemed to break. He didn't bite them or pick at the cuticles, and he kept covering her hands or pulling them away from her mouth when she tried until Sanaki broke the habit out of exasperation. He lectured her on how those habits would weaken them, and tapped his own nail on the solid oak of her desk to demonstrate its strength. The sound her nails made was thin and soft in comparison.
She told him how irritating he was, and Lehran simply laughed. His lips were just full enough that she wanted to look at them, and his smile gave her gaze enough reason to linger. He used to smile and laugh with her every day, but since his return it came more slowly, as if he had to remember which muscles to move for the correct effect.
He wouldn't say very much about what happened. It would bore you he said - as if he didn't know very well Sanaki was interested in everything outside of Sienne, everything she would never see with her own eyes. Eventually he told her Dheginsea didn't want him to speak of it and she stopped asking, though her desire to know didn't fade. He wouldn't give her any details about his time in Daein. The road through Gallia, he said, was spent searching every tree, keep, village, and crevasse to find Caineghis and his people. The rains were bad, and their supplies were damaged - that was why she didn't receive any letters.
The lion king had yet to arrive. Lehran assured her he would, but Sanaki had her doubts. Crimea's royal family, what was left of them, had long acknowledged Begnion authority and didn't put up a fight when she asked them to give up their hereditary rights as sovereigns. They were the only leaders to survive and answer Ashera's call to date. The birds continued to refuse, and the dragons bent their necks to Ashera without being asked.
The Crimeans assured her Caineghis was a reasonable man, but Elincia hesitated when asked if she thought he would bow to the goddess and Begnion. He's a good king, she said. He'll do what is best for them.
How very reassuring. Sanaki didn't want to have two rebellions on her hands. Her empire now consisted of eleven thousand people, and none of them were trained in the art of war. They were forbidden from forging weapons and practicing violent sports. If the goddess ever decided to take care of the bird tribes they would have to depend on the laguz to fight - another problem in the making. They didn't want money, they didn't want glory - what did they want?
I know it's horrible she told Lehran, but I'm so glad there aren't any other laguz clans. They're all so different, and I don't know how to deal with them. He was combing her hair after a wash, dividing it into small parts, detangling, and resting the smoothed strands over her shoulder while the others draped over the chair back to wait for his attention. It's almost a blessing the birds decided not to follow.
There were others, he said. Once, a long time ago. I barely remember them. Different varieties of canine tribes, a race of gazelles, even other types of dragons - the ones he met looked like serpents, and their scales were bright green, their manes gold or silver. There was a water serpent beneath the sea, another kind of dragon, and the only one of his kind; the goddess destroyed his mate when she became violent, and the great leviathan had no children. He may yet live. Lehran rested a handful of hair over her shoulder. Perhaps he went mad in the long silence since the flood.
Ashera did not emerge unscathed. He didn't say it, but Sanaki knew it was true. There were times the goddess stared at her, and her eyes were so flat, so dark, they didn't mirror her aura or the lights, or Sanaki's own image. She would lift a perfect eyebrow and ask why the little empress thought such-and-such was a concern that merited her attention, and Sanaki would be left blinking at her back as it retreated behind the silver curtains.
Why was morale a concern fit for a goddess?
Why should Ashera raise her perfect hand to raise a broken temple from the ground so her subjects would have a place to worship her - a reason? Evidence of her power?
Idiot goddess. Lehran tugged on her hair, and she kicked her chair. "She made me read to her every night for three years. I don't want to hear it." After the histories, Sanaki read philosophy, and then social theory, and then scientific discoveries since the founding of Begnion. She read enough racial rhetoric from both sides to get sick at the mere mention of the topic. Ashera must have a perfect memory to match her perfect will, but her use of the knowledge was less than stellar if she thought asking laguz to till the same fields as beorc would lead to anything but trouble.
"It is your job to govern," he told her. "You are the earthly authority. That is why Ashera has spent so much time cultivating the image of the throne as the seat of her high priestess. She wants your descendants to create a strong dynasty in her name."
"When am I supposed to have these descendants if I'm running back and forth between the palace and the tower all the time?" She played with the folds of her robe and the end of the silk sash. "And with whom, pray tell?"
The sound of the comb ceased for a moment. Then her hair pulled again, and she felt it run through the length of the part he was working on, gathering hidden tangles around the tines. Lehran laid it on the curtain of hair draped over her shoulder and gathered the last handful, combing carefully behind her ear.
"I don't know what her preferences would be in that matter," he finally said. "If she has any at all."
Sanaki gathered her hair and wrung the ends out over the carpet so they wouldn't drip on her feet. "And you? What is your preference?"
The comb snagged and she flinched, hand flying to press the sore spot on her scalp. He apologized and placed the comb on the table. In the window, his reflection picked at the knot he'd found by hand. There were no stars past the glass - the sky was dark and covered by clouds, but at least the city was lit up again like it was during her childhood.
"I'd rather no one touch you," he said, smoothing the ends of her hair over his hand.
Sanaki turned around, folded her arms on the back of the chair, and drew her knees up onto the seat. It wasn't as comfortable a position as it used to be. Her legs were too long. Her knees knocked against the wooden back. "You want me to be the pure temple maiden after all?"
He spoke to the rope of hair he wrapped around his hand, not looking at her. "No."
She curled her finger around the length and pulled until he looked up. His wings arched in the back like a halo around his head - one bent, perhaps, tilted. They were always painted that way on walls or in storybooks, stylized until they looked more like sails than wings. They were warm when he curved them around her shoulders, though such occasions were rare. She wouldn't mind if they cloaked her more often.
Just the wings, nothing else.
"Good," Sanaki said. Her hair slipped from between his fingers. "I'm not saintly enough to meet that standard."
"Really."
Sanaki pushed her hair over her shoulder and stood up, reaching for his hand. "Why don't you come over here and see for yourself."
Lehran's hand froze, halfway to her own. He blinked slowly. "Are you-- you're--"
Heat rushed to her face. "Yes Lehran, I'm propositioning you." She pulled her hand back, put it on her hip, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. "And if you say no, you'll have to give me a few hours to piece my dignity back together."
"That isn't what I was asking." He drew his hand back, resting it on his chest. "I didn't expect this from you."
She lowered her chin. At least she wasn't the only one turning pink. "I suppose you didn't notice the time passing."
His gaze flicked down a moment, up again. "I noticed. I was trying not to--" She turned her back on him, the ends of her hair flicking water onto the chair, the curtains, the back of her legs. He caught her elbow before she made two steps. "Wait, Sanaki." His grip tightened when she moved and his sharp sigh chilled her neck. "You're so impatient. Stop and listen."
The heat spread to her neck and shoulders. Her ears must be pink. She couldn't even escape his scrutiny with her back turned. "If it bothers you," she said, turning her head slightly to see his other hand curve around her shoulder, "I won't ask again. I just--"
"That wasn't a refusal."
Sanaki faced forward again. She would have liked to change into something dry and warm, but it seemed the perfect time to ask if she was going to take everything off again. "Then what is it?"
"Why me?" His grip slackened, but he didn't let go. "Why not someone else - Zelgius, or that priest, Rhys. They're both trustworthy and loyal, and attractive. I am not your only option."
Should it be expected she choose someone she didn't care about - even though circumstances gave her a choice? "I didn't wait seven years for Rhys so I could listen to his voice while I went to sleep." Her eyes prickled and she blinked before they could mist. She felt for his hand on her shoulder and pulled it around to look at the perfect white crescents of his nails, and the network of blue veins over the back, beneath his wrist. These were the only hands she'd ever known - the only ones she wanted to know. "If I give my children to Ashera, they will be yours as well - or she can find another pawn to do her bidding."
She heard the shiff shiff of his feathers. "Your reasoning being... what?"
Sanaki pressed a nail between her fingers, watched it bleed white, then pink again when she released his finger. Her heart beat violently of a sudden, stealing her breath. "You'll always be there to help them." There was a beat of silence. He tried to pull his hand away, and when she wouldn't let him go, wove his fingers with hers and squeezed so hard it actually hurt. She gritted her teeth and returned the pressure. "Seven years - you left me alone with her for seven years. Do you know what that's like? I will not sacrifice my children on her altar!"
"So it comes back to that." His wings moved, the air brushed chilled the cold, wet spots of her robe. "How many times can I apologize--"
She shook her head sharply, prying her fingers loose to turn around, drop his hand in favor of pressing her face into his throat and wrapping her arms around his chest tightly enough he stopped speaking. "I didn't mean it like that." His wing curved and brushed her fingers. If she moved her hands a few inches she would feel the down at the base. "I want you to talk me to sleep." He lifted the wet blanket of her hair, his arm pressing to the small of her back. "I want you to wake me in the morning and help me dress." She stretched her fingers to brush his wing, graze her nails on the skin where it met his back, and heard his sharp intake of breath. "I don't care about descendants, I just want you with me every day. Every free moment you have - I want it to be mine."
His soft, short laugh tickled her temple. "You don't ask for very much."
"I know." Sanaki worked her fingers into the soft feathers, feeling the warm skin, the hard, bony arch of his wing. "I should ask for every waking moment, but I decided to be conservative."
Lehran's shoulders shook, the laughter muffled in her hair, warming her ear. No one else made him laugh like that; even her knights had commented on how solemn he was since his return. He was warm, his heartbeat loud and steady. When he finally spoke, he tilted his head to say softly in her ear. "I've no intention of refusing. Your request is... difficult."
"It isn't a condition." She tugged on the short feathers, careful not to pull any out, and felt his skin prickle with gooseflesh. "I'd as soon ignore what she wants."
He reached back to seize her hand. "Do you want to talk it over or not?"
Sanaki tilted her head back to look at him. "Maybe."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Maybe?"
She kissed him, felt his lips soften. "Later."
...............................................................
What is technically 'part two' will be along in a while. Maybe even today, as if this isn't enough to read.
Edited ~2:30am November 29, 2008.