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runicloreThe Child-like Empress - I
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki (platonic)
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9-10
Theme: 17 - kHz (kilohertz)
Words: 4976
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: this was going to be a single piece, and then it exploded. I'm an opportunist. Based somewhat on Lekain's explanation for Sephiran's role in Sanaki's life in chapter 4.1, though I'm more interested in other stuff - like changes of heart etc. You know how I am by now.
Also, part of the loose arc of platonic (ha!) posts, which are...
1. Promises Made of Glass
2. Unrepentant
3. Believe
4. A New Leaf
5. Birthright
......................................................
Sephiran's chair in the audience chamber was on the highest tier, reserved for the weakest members of the lower senate, a hard wooden mold against his back that left his shoulder blades aching after every session and his legs sore just under the knees where the seat bit into his thighs. The young empress often shouted, her voice merely echoes at his end of the room, her demands repeating as they bounced between the walls, underwritten by whispered comments as to her spoiled behavior. I'm hungry! snapped out more than once and rang in his ears. She kicked the legs of her throne, fidgeted, demanded breaks from her guards in stage whispers. The woman to his right muttered about the girl's lack of discipline. Her own children, she told the person beside her - she'd given up talking to Sephiran, thank the goddess - never abandoned courtesy altogether like this little empress, simply to whine that she had to relieve herself.
That complaint worked every time. The empress was a quick study.
She was quiet then, relatively. The conversation resumed when she returned to her seat, and he watched her work a puzzle in her lap, perhaps a toy the knights procured while she pretended to take care of her private business - a cube with squares of different colors, red and yellow and blue, which she turned around and around. He knew the game. The senior senators argued the finer points of the legislation they wanted to pass, and no one in the tiers of seats around him dared to speak up, unless they meant to offer agreement. It meant more money to line their pockets, Sephiran thought, and didn't bother to listen. The sun had lowered enough to glare through the windows at the top of the chamber and slant down to heat the wall above his head. Sweat tricked down the ridges of his spine. The scent locket he wore tucked beneath his coat wasn't enough to drown the smell of dozens of bodies packed into their narrow rows of chairs.
He hadn't spoken to the little empress since giving her up to the care of her knights and the nanny assigned from Duke Hetzel's household. Law in Begnion had become an odd, twisted thing in his absence; his part in her rescue didn't matter, didn't allow him so much as a greeting when she passed by. Lord Sephiran was a stranger, hardly better than a commoner, and the coincidence which led their paths to converge had since been brushed under the rug. That was the intelligent thing to do, of course, and yet their reasoning - his low rank, rather than his obscure origins - eluded him. Zelgius was in a position only marginally better.
"How long can this possibly take?" The child directed her question to the senior senators, and their conversation faltered. The puzzle sat completed in her lap, each side a solid color, and she fingered the edges, hefted the wooden weight of it, perhaps contemplating the wisdom of throwing it. It wouldn't be the first time. Lekain still bore a red mark on his temple as proof. "We've been sitting here discussing the same thing for an hour. The solution seems obvious to me. What am I paying you for?"
Sephiran covered his mouth, swallowed his laugh. He coughed when the senator beside him looked over.
She wasn't paying them, technically - someone would have to tell her.
"Your majesty," Lekain said, shifting on the edge of his chair - perhaps readying himself to dodge? "This matter must be solved before tax collection, or the treasury--"
"How many bills for the treasury need to be talked about in a week?"
Smart girl.
"Your majesty, please." Valtome, now, smiling his painted smile. Sweat thinned his pale face powder at his hairline, his ears. "When you're older you'll understand the important nuances--"
"Spare me."
Sephiran wondered if any of the council members had children. Even if they did, he supposed raising one's own offspring had fallen out of fashion. Idiot beorc. If they'd thought this through, they would have realized Sanaki's impressionable age, her impatience, and her intellect were all facets of their empress they might use to their advantage if cultivated correctly. Did they not think it worth their time? Surely they wouldn't seek to rid themselves of her; why put her on the throne, then? Their political mythology required a child of his wife's blood.
Was there another scion he didn't know about?
The pale-haired knight knelt beside the throne and murmured something. Lady Sanaki threw the puzzle down the stairs, and her voice was still loud above the clatter. "I have been waiting for three hours, Sigrun."
They were allowed to converse if she spoke to Sephiran first. He put a hand to his forehead, rubbed his temple, and the man to his left asked if he was well. No, he said; no, he had a splitting headache - who wouldn't, the woman beside him wondered - and the air was suffocating him. Was it always this warm in Sienne at fall? He rose with their help and slipped behind the row of chairs, walking slowly and grazing his fingers over the wooden backs to maintain the ruse.
"If my lady will be patient--"
"I'm tired of--" The empress went quiet, and her silence echoed louder than the initial yell once the echoes died down.
Sephiran didn't dare look up. He spoke to the recorder at the bottom of the stairs to mark his departure, felt eyes on him, and for the first time since joining their number felt the tightness of paranoia in his back, the cliche prickle between his shoulder blades. He'd never liked the attention of beorc to begin with. They stared without shame. Sometimes he wondered why his nature wasn't obvious to them - wasn't his facial structure different, wasn't there some mysterious magic to the shine of his hair, according to their scholars? He didn't have to feign a light-headed stumble upon the last step.
Maybe she wouldn't recognize him from afar. They hadn't spoken for months. She slept through much of their journey, and when they traveled it was in the dark, the nights sometimes moonless, breathless while they ran. His arms ached at the memory of carrying her so many leagues.
"Wait a moment!" she said when he turned. He started, not quite expecting it, and caught himself on an unoccupied chair. "Stop!"
He heard a scuffle, and the hissing protests of her knights. You can't leave the throne during session! the younger commander said. The woman called Sigrun begged her to wait, and sandals slapped on the marble steps. Armored boots clamped after her, caught up to her, and he heard the sweep and snap of fabric when Sanaki pulled away and told them to be quiet, leave her alone. Sephiran turned around and used the chair to kneel at her approach.
"You." Her voice softened until he didn't think it would carry beyond the immediate listeners seated along the aisle. "I didn't know you were still here."
Sephiran lowered his head. "I apologize for my disrespect, your majesty. I feel unwell."
Sanaki clenched her hands together, fingers still rounded with baby fat, unadorned. Tiny chain bracelets hung at her wrists and their ornaments jingled - little ruby roses, golden teardrops, and emerald leaves. "Don't go. Can't I talk to you? I--" She turned her head, but her escort shielded them from the eyes of the senior senators. Whispers sprang up, slithered in the large chamber. "I'll go with you."
"No, your majesty," he said, lifting a hand. He rested it on her clenched fingers when she nodded. "You must stay here, but I would be glad to speak with you afterward if you wish."
Sigrun shifted on her feet and said in a whisper, "That isn't proper, sen--" Sanaki stamped her foot. The smack startled the senator one chair over into a gasp, and the knight quieted, but only for a moment. "My lady, he isn't of a proper rank to speak to you. Allow one of us to carry a message instead."
"Tanith." The young commander straightened at the empress's address. "Go with him, and bring him to me after."
Sephiran protested just as her knight did; that was more attention than he intended to seek. He thought she would ask for his name and rank, or perhaps send one of the others after he'd left to invite him later-- not this public display, which every pair of eyes in the room was surely noting with the purpose of discussing afterward over refreshments. He heard a chair scrape heavily somewhere behind the pegasus knights, and swallowed the tightness in his throat; one of the seniors, perhaps rising to approach.
"Tell me your name again," she said, and he saw the spark of recognition when he answered. Then she left him with Tanith, went back to her throne, and he exited with the clamp of boots behind him - lighter than he was used to, but still reminiscent of Zelgius. He would have liked his servant's large frame to shield him, just then. She escorted him to a small waiting room in the palace - not the cathedral, as the empress would demand to return to her rooms immediately - and he sat in a red-cushioned chair to wait.
Tanith paced the room, and questioned him on everything from the paperwork he was sentenced to compile for his wage to his tailor and how much money Sephiran spent on his robes - a hundred gold per article, and she need not know the details of his finances - and when he finally met the empress afterward their talk was brief. She was tired, hungry, and on the edge of tears. When they brought her dinner, a plate of miniature pastries filled with mushrooms and cream sauce, she nibbled on one for a full ten minutes while he explained his place in the senate, and pushed the food away once she finished it. It's fine, she said, it's very good, but she wanted to lie down.
He asked if this happened every night. Sigrun frowned, but Tanith, her back to the expression on her commander's face, told him the empress was barely eating and a little too thin for her own liking. Most evenings she simply refused food.
"I appreciate your concern, senator," the elder said, wrist propped on the hilt of her sword, "but this is not a matter you need to concern yourself with. Your role in her ascension aside, it likely never will be - unless you conjure proper references from the ether."
"Must I?" He rose from the chair. "Is her conduct in the council chamber not the concern of everyone involved? What are her tutors doing?"
Tanith snorted. "What tutors?"
No, she wasn't jesting. She shrugged at his stare, Sigrun rolled her eyes when Sephiran turned his gaze to her. "If I'd known they would do this to her--" The knight's gaze narrowed, and he returned her glare. "She is a child."
"An uncooperative one," Sigrun said. "We've tried, senator. We've procured books for her education, but she refuses to read them. It was a battle simply to confirm she knew how. Now if you're quite finished nosing into matters above your station--"
Sephiran left, positive she would grab his shoulders and steer him out the door if he didn't move under his own power, and reminded himself as he went downstairs that Sigrun was a product of her society - that she meant well, that it was her job to protect her empress, and she was quite right to suspect his motivations if she meant to live up to her duty. Thinking unfavorably of her would be a disservice. But - he couldn't help thinking they weren't trying hard enough.
*
Though he thought the empress would forget about him during the three days between council sessions, she called him to the marble dais almost immediately after the opening reports were examined and the floor was opened to proposals. I want you to explain while they talk, she said. Stand right there. Her finger pointed to the spot on the red carpet to her left, and her charm bracelet clattered on the gilded arm of her throne. Lekain protested almost immediately when she did that, though he couldn't hear what Sanaki said. If you want an adviser, your majesty, Hetzel-- She snapped at him, and Sephiran saw his lips thin and whiten.
Sigrun stepped back to allow him space when the empress repeated her command, and he heard the dagger at her waist click, pulled just slightly out of its scabbard. He was never so aware of the vulnerability of his internal organs until that afternoon; surely the blade would pierce his kidneys if he so much as shifted the wrong way - or perhaps her hand would slip, and the dagger would be startled out of its sheath at one of the empress's outbursts. Sephiran pitched his voice low, for her ears alone - he's referring to the old property tax for the capitol - and after an hour of feeling the senate's eyes on him his legs stopped shaking.
He'd nearly been caught by a gang of hyenas once when he was still young and in bird form, traveling with his goddess to desert-bound Tyre on the other continent; he almost felt the hot breath of wind, smelled the dusty, grassy scent. The empress leaned on the throne arm, chin in her hand, and stared back at the tiers of senators in their dark, high-backed wooden chairs. She frowned. Her ankles crossed, recrossed. Duke Tanas talked - and talked, and talked, coughed, smoothed his hand over his chin and looked at the dais.
As soon as she let him go, Sephiran went home. He ignored the glances from his colleagues and several who called out to him; the home he rented was small, three stories but narrow, and all of the windows could be locked and covered with dark curtains, the doors bolted. He went to bed without eating, and of the two days between sessions, he only slept enough for one.
When Lady Sanaki was older, he thought she would make a fine predator. Perhaps she would throttle the life out of the senate with well-timed snaps and backhanded insults. She'd be a glorious empress if she lived long enough - the finest since his wife founded the country. Hearing the goddess would only ruin her natural charisma.
She called him up for the next session, and the one after that. It was only upon receiving a summons from the senior council - Sigrun's eyes narrowed at Valtome's signature, and Sephiran became aware again of what little space there was between her knives and his back - that he realized they hadn't addressed the dais once since Sanaki demanded his presence. The empress listened to everything he said, sometimes even nodded, and remained quiet. She frowned when she saw the note, and Tanith was once again ordered to accompany him - aren't you hungry? she asked, looking at the pocket watch one of her knights offered. I'm starving. It was nine thirty, the sun long since set.
He promised to eat if she would, and then excused himself. He couldn't keep them waiting. A wave of Duke Culbert's hand could end his career as a senator forever, and though Sephiran found the politics boring and unnecessarily convoluted, rank would help him serve his goddess. Any means with which to awaken her, any at all--
The senior council kept a meeting chamber on the second floor of the cathedral, windows facing south, overlooking a rose garden dotted with yellow and white blossoms, broken by bleached gravel paths in long, meandering curves, and lit by hanging lanterns. Lamps lit the chamber gold and cast faint, discolored rainbows through prisms hanging from their brass fixtures. The curtains were still tied open, and Sephiran watched his own reflection in the glass bow to the three senators present - Culbert, Gaddos, Tanas - seated in their wide chairs with their backs to the glass. The way Culbert said his name nearly drew a wince with its sibilant pull to the first syllable and the soft lisp of the second. Yes, that's correct, he told them. He was lucky they knew his name, wondered if it had only just been reported to them.
"No surname," Culbert noted, looking down at a scrap of paper. "You're a commoner?"
"No." The man lifted an eyebrow, and Sephiran tried to trace the letters inked on the other side, illuminated from the back. No use. "I am a member of the northwest branch of the imperial house. The connection is slight. I did not think it wise to use the name."
Silence. He wondered if there were passages hidden beyond the walls - if someone waited outside with an arrow drawn, aimed for his heart. Perfume clouded the air, rosewood and sweet tonka, so sweet it was cloying and hard to breathe.
To his left, Lekain leaned back in his chair. The pale leather cushions creaked. "You can prove this?"
Sephiran inclined his head and turned slightly. "If necessary." He breathed in measured intervals, and still felt light-headed. "I am told my appearance is proof in itself."
They knew, or suspected; he saw it in a glance - the narrowing of Culbert's eyes, Lekain's unwavering stare, the sudden stillness to Duke Tanas's hands, when before he twisted the ring on his index finger over and over, as if compelled. Tanas's murmured true enough drew the eyes of his colleagues.
Sephiran made himself look at the duke with eyes slightly widened, blinked. "Is that so?"
"Why don't we get to the point," Culbert said loudly, mouth set, startling the fat senator, making his chair jump a hair and thump on the carpet. He pulled his crimped hair over his shoulder and leaned back. "You've managed a miracle in keeping her majesty occupied during session, and we would like you to continue as you are."
A miracle, was it? Sephiran lowered his gaze. He didn't think it a stretch of the imagination to see the poor empress was bored. "I've done nothing worthy of your attention--"
"Enough with the false modesty. You know very well what difficulties we've had in maintaining order. I've seen your face in the audience chamber for almost a year now."
Sephiran lifted his eyebrow, but continued to stare at the duke's sandals. The straps were embroidered with white flowers. "Yes." He knew where this was going. If he were a real senator, perhaps the opportunities presented by this conversation would be more exciting. "I am not, however, in a position suitable for the role you would have me fill."
Duke Tanas's jeweled rings clicked together. "That can be arranged."
"She will insist," Lekain said, "if we do not make the offer first."
Valtome's fingers curled over the dark arm of his chair, slender like claws. "Why not appease her with the gift of your service before she works herself up over it?"
Now he was merchandise. Sephiran supposed it wasn't the first time. "Do I have a choice?"
The duke's thin-lipped smile was slight. "Of course. You may refuse."
He wondered how many of the corpses fished out of the canals ended there after uttering the word 'no' to these men. "I am honored to be of service to you," he said, bending in a bow he hoped was properly respectful, or grateful, whichever they expected, hand flattened to his chest.
They dismissed him, and Sephiran met Tanith in the hallway. He would have agreed to almost anything else simply to get out of that room, away from the glint of their jewelry and cloying scent of perfumes and oils dulled by the heat and turned rancid. The knight marched ahead of him, down to the first floor, and through a garden courtyard to the area of the palace in which the empress lived. Without the sun, the tiles had cooled and the air was more pleasant, fresh and scented by greenery - the maples, rose bushes, beds of lavender, and wisteria hanging from the eaves and climbing over the walls. He took a deep breath before they entered another part of the building and left the garden behind.
If the senior senators had known what he was, they couldn't have constructed a better environment in which to press a concession out of him. His discomfort at the front of the council chamber must have been more obvious than he thought. He should have asked them for more details. He should have demanded to know how they intended to 'arrange' a rank the empress's guard would appreciate, though it would be obvious what he really was when the orders came down to promote him - a puppet for the senate, a pat on the head for the empress, and a shove out the proverbial door so the real rulers of the empire could get back to business.
The lamps were turned down in the palace corridors, but the empress's suite was still brightly lit when Tanith let him in, and Lady Sanaki stirred an overflowing spoonful of dark honey into her tea, seated at the table by the window where he'd spoken to her during his last visit. Her feet kicked the chair legs, and the silver clinked against the porcelain of her cup as she stirred. Sephiran smelled orange and spice, the roses in the vase at the center of her table, still wide open to the heat of the crystal lamp. He crossed the rug when she looked up, leaving Tanith behind at the door, and bent down to one knee for his formal greeting.
She scooted to the edge of her chair, offered her hands; he kissed the left, then the right, listened to her laugh - how charming - and she pulled twice before he realized she wanted him to get up. Sit over there, she said, and pointed to the opposite chair, waving her hand at Tanith's attempt to censure her choice. "I sent Sigrun with a message because you were taking so long."
Sephiran tried not to smile. The chair back was high enough his shoulders rested against its cushion, upholstered in white. It was easily the softest he'd used for months, though the way the back curved around his frame would have been impossible to stand with wings out. "I don't think the appointment took more than fifteen minutes, your majesty."
Lady Sanaki sipped at her tea, holding the cup with both hands. It filled them like a bowl. "Are you going to drink?"
He turned his teacup right-side up on its saucer and reached for the porcelain pot. It was made for her hands, the curving handle slightly too narrow; he steadied it with his other hand, poured, refused the honey though it smelled sweet and pure, untainted by spices or the syrupy flavoring he'd discovered at the tables of others. He watched steam rise from his cup and told the little empress why he was called and what they said to him, and explained why he thought they were doing this. She hunched over her cup. Her indigo hair curled around her chin, bangs fell into her eyes, almost brown in the yellow light. The chair back stretched a length of two hands above her head.
She had Altina's golden eyes. They were the same shape. Lady Sanaki was too young to show other similarities, but in the quiet following his report Sephiran imagined he could feel the hum of his own blood in her veins, however diluted. She had the same manner - she looked directly at him when he spoke, and her snappish remarks during council sessions proved she was paying attention, even if the subject matter was, to her, the most boring thing on Tellius. Her foremother would have shared that opinion. Tax reform? The percentages are high enough as it is. I don't see the point in contemplating ways to extract blood from a stone. He remembered telling her to pay it no mind - her advisers only wanted to feel useful.
That was history. He couldn't give the same advice to this empress. "Have you eaten?"
Lady Sanaki shrugged. "I waited for you. The food will get here soon."
"Your majesty." Sephiran started to rise, thought better of it when her eyes narrowed. "Rank forbids me--"
"You sound like Sigrun." She frowned, and her lower lip became more prominent. "I know what they're going to do. There are empty council seats, and they always turn down new people before I can even see them."
He lifted his cup when the steam had calmed. "Granting me such a high ranking would draw unfavorable attention from the nobility. Nobles usually fill seats on the senior council, don't they?"
"I don't know." The empress threw herself back in her chair and spread her hands on the arms. "I don't care. All they do is argue and talk, and yell, and hand seats to their friends. If they can do it, I can turn you into a councilor."
"Why, your majesty?" He heard Tanith shift against the wall and started, almost spilling tea on his hand. He put the cup down quickly. "You barely know me. I'm surprised you remembered my face at all. You cannot trust me simply on the merit of our past association - I might be here to take advantage of your gratitude."
The empress slid out of her chair and came around to his side of the table. "Took you long enough." Lady Sanaki met his raised eyebrows with a lifted chin, hands on her hips. "Why are you here?"
When Ashera's judgment came to pass, her little round face would be turned to stone. Her head was only just level with his shoulder while he remained seated, yet in spite of her youth she was well-spoken and quick, so quick she'd leapt to hand his goal to him without even being prompted. What a waste. "You have made desperate men of your senators."
Lady Sanaki giggled and pressed her fists over her mouth to stop the sound, but her eyes crinkled over her fingers. Her bracelets were gone, and without her headband to keep the dark fringe under control, her eyes were shadowed when she lowered her head.
"Your majesty." Sephiran waited until she looked up again to continue. "You should be more careful when you show favor to someone. Anything, anyone, is a weakness your opponents will exploit."
The empress lowered her hands, and he wondered if she was still too young to appreciate that message. Her eyes were wide, glassy, reflecting the lamplight and nothing of what she thought, just then, not even a crease or a line between her brows. "Are you here to do what they tell you, Lord Sephiran? Maybe they'll like you better."
He turned the chair slightly, draped his hand on the arm. "Unlikely." Lady Sanaki tilted her head, scratched her cheek, and Sephiran curled his fingers around the wood so he wouldn't reach for her hair. It glinted when she moved her head, shiny and clean, perhaps brushed neat before he came in. She looked tiny without the velvet mantle clasped around her shoulders. "I'm here to listen to you, empress. Only you. Your command will always be my first priority."
She chewed on her bottom lip. "Really?"
"Yes."
Lady Sanaki glanced at the lamp on the table and the little brass clock beneath the roses - it read ten-thirty - and grabbed the arm of his chair, hiked up her skirt, and climbed into his lap. Sephiran stuttered a protest and grabbed her around the waist, intending to put her down, but her knees found purchase on his lap and her thin arms wrapped around his neck. "Stop that," she said when he tried to move her, and his hands froze. "I have your first command, Lord Sephiran. Are you prepared?"
She was soft, even her knees rounded, though he had to move one when she slipped and nearly stabbed him in an unfortunate place. She smelled like powder, a rosy, sweet, clean undertone to the scent of tea. "Y-yes, I suppose."
Her slight frown was less intimidating up close. "You'll have to do better than that."
The corner of Sephiran's mouth twitched up despite his effort not to smile. "Yes, of course your majesty. Please forgive me. Whatever you command, I will obey." She nodded sharply, and he said, "What is it you would like me to do for you?"
Lady Sanaki sat back on her legs. "Tell me a story."
*
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki (platonic)
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9-10
Theme: 17 - kHz (kilohertz)
Words: 4976
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: this was going to be a single piece, and then it exploded. I'm an opportunist. Based somewhat on Lekain's explanation for Sephiran's role in Sanaki's life in chapter 4.1, though I'm more interested in other stuff - like changes of heart etc. You know how I am by now.
Also, part of the loose arc of platonic (ha!) posts, which are...
1. Promises Made of Glass
2. Unrepentant
3. Believe
4. A New Leaf
5. Birthright
......................................................
Sephiran's chair in the audience chamber was on the highest tier, reserved for the weakest members of the lower senate, a hard wooden mold against his back that left his shoulder blades aching after every session and his legs sore just under the knees where the seat bit into his thighs. The young empress often shouted, her voice merely echoes at his end of the room, her demands repeating as they bounced between the walls, underwritten by whispered comments as to her spoiled behavior. I'm hungry! snapped out more than once and rang in his ears. She kicked the legs of her throne, fidgeted, demanded breaks from her guards in stage whispers. The woman to his right muttered about the girl's lack of discipline. Her own children, she told the person beside her - she'd given up talking to Sephiran, thank the goddess - never abandoned courtesy altogether like this little empress, simply to whine that she had to relieve herself.
That complaint worked every time. The empress was a quick study.
She was quiet then, relatively. The conversation resumed when she returned to her seat, and he watched her work a puzzle in her lap, perhaps a toy the knights procured while she pretended to take care of her private business - a cube with squares of different colors, red and yellow and blue, which she turned around and around. He knew the game. The senior senators argued the finer points of the legislation they wanted to pass, and no one in the tiers of seats around him dared to speak up, unless they meant to offer agreement. It meant more money to line their pockets, Sephiran thought, and didn't bother to listen. The sun had lowered enough to glare through the windows at the top of the chamber and slant down to heat the wall above his head. Sweat tricked down the ridges of his spine. The scent locket he wore tucked beneath his coat wasn't enough to drown the smell of dozens of bodies packed into their narrow rows of chairs.
He hadn't spoken to the little empress since giving her up to the care of her knights and the nanny assigned from Duke Hetzel's household. Law in Begnion had become an odd, twisted thing in his absence; his part in her rescue didn't matter, didn't allow him so much as a greeting when she passed by. Lord Sephiran was a stranger, hardly better than a commoner, and the coincidence which led their paths to converge had since been brushed under the rug. That was the intelligent thing to do, of course, and yet their reasoning - his low rank, rather than his obscure origins - eluded him. Zelgius was in a position only marginally better.
"How long can this possibly take?" The child directed her question to the senior senators, and their conversation faltered. The puzzle sat completed in her lap, each side a solid color, and she fingered the edges, hefted the wooden weight of it, perhaps contemplating the wisdom of throwing it. It wouldn't be the first time. Lekain still bore a red mark on his temple as proof. "We've been sitting here discussing the same thing for an hour. The solution seems obvious to me. What am I paying you for?"
Sephiran covered his mouth, swallowed his laugh. He coughed when the senator beside him looked over.
She wasn't paying them, technically - someone would have to tell her.
"Your majesty," Lekain said, shifting on the edge of his chair - perhaps readying himself to dodge? "This matter must be solved before tax collection, or the treasury--"
"How many bills for the treasury need to be talked about in a week?"
Smart girl.
"Your majesty, please." Valtome, now, smiling his painted smile. Sweat thinned his pale face powder at his hairline, his ears. "When you're older you'll understand the important nuances--"
"Spare me."
Sephiran wondered if any of the council members had children. Even if they did, he supposed raising one's own offspring had fallen out of fashion. Idiot beorc. If they'd thought this through, they would have realized Sanaki's impressionable age, her impatience, and her intellect were all facets of their empress they might use to their advantage if cultivated correctly. Did they not think it worth their time? Surely they wouldn't seek to rid themselves of her; why put her on the throne, then? Their political mythology required a child of his wife's blood.
Was there another scion he didn't know about?
The pale-haired knight knelt beside the throne and murmured something. Lady Sanaki threw the puzzle down the stairs, and her voice was still loud above the clatter. "I have been waiting for three hours, Sigrun."
They were allowed to converse if she spoke to Sephiran first. He put a hand to his forehead, rubbed his temple, and the man to his left asked if he was well. No, he said; no, he had a splitting headache - who wouldn't, the woman beside him wondered - and the air was suffocating him. Was it always this warm in Sienne at fall? He rose with their help and slipped behind the row of chairs, walking slowly and grazing his fingers over the wooden backs to maintain the ruse.
"If my lady will be patient--"
"I'm tired of--" The empress went quiet, and her silence echoed louder than the initial yell once the echoes died down.
Sephiran didn't dare look up. He spoke to the recorder at the bottom of the stairs to mark his departure, felt eyes on him, and for the first time since joining their number felt the tightness of paranoia in his back, the cliche prickle between his shoulder blades. He'd never liked the attention of beorc to begin with. They stared without shame. Sometimes he wondered why his nature wasn't obvious to them - wasn't his facial structure different, wasn't there some mysterious magic to the shine of his hair, according to their scholars? He didn't have to feign a light-headed stumble upon the last step.
Maybe she wouldn't recognize him from afar. They hadn't spoken for months. She slept through much of their journey, and when they traveled it was in the dark, the nights sometimes moonless, breathless while they ran. His arms ached at the memory of carrying her so many leagues.
"Wait a moment!" she said when he turned. He started, not quite expecting it, and caught himself on an unoccupied chair. "Stop!"
He heard a scuffle, and the hissing protests of her knights. You can't leave the throne during session! the younger commander said. The woman called Sigrun begged her to wait, and sandals slapped on the marble steps. Armored boots clamped after her, caught up to her, and he heard the sweep and snap of fabric when Sanaki pulled away and told them to be quiet, leave her alone. Sephiran turned around and used the chair to kneel at her approach.
"You." Her voice softened until he didn't think it would carry beyond the immediate listeners seated along the aisle. "I didn't know you were still here."
Sephiran lowered his head. "I apologize for my disrespect, your majesty. I feel unwell."
Sanaki clenched her hands together, fingers still rounded with baby fat, unadorned. Tiny chain bracelets hung at her wrists and their ornaments jingled - little ruby roses, golden teardrops, and emerald leaves. "Don't go. Can't I talk to you? I--" She turned her head, but her escort shielded them from the eyes of the senior senators. Whispers sprang up, slithered in the large chamber. "I'll go with you."
"No, your majesty," he said, lifting a hand. He rested it on her clenched fingers when she nodded. "You must stay here, but I would be glad to speak with you afterward if you wish."
Sigrun shifted on her feet and said in a whisper, "That isn't proper, sen--" Sanaki stamped her foot. The smack startled the senator one chair over into a gasp, and the knight quieted, but only for a moment. "My lady, he isn't of a proper rank to speak to you. Allow one of us to carry a message instead."
"Tanith." The young commander straightened at the empress's address. "Go with him, and bring him to me after."
Sephiran protested just as her knight did; that was more attention than he intended to seek. He thought she would ask for his name and rank, or perhaps send one of the others after he'd left to invite him later-- not this public display, which every pair of eyes in the room was surely noting with the purpose of discussing afterward over refreshments. He heard a chair scrape heavily somewhere behind the pegasus knights, and swallowed the tightness in his throat; one of the seniors, perhaps rising to approach.
"Tell me your name again," she said, and he saw the spark of recognition when he answered. Then she left him with Tanith, went back to her throne, and he exited with the clamp of boots behind him - lighter than he was used to, but still reminiscent of Zelgius. He would have liked his servant's large frame to shield him, just then. She escorted him to a small waiting room in the palace - not the cathedral, as the empress would demand to return to her rooms immediately - and he sat in a red-cushioned chair to wait.
Tanith paced the room, and questioned him on everything from the paperwork he was sentenced to compile for his wage to his tailor and how much money Sephiran spent on his robes - a hundred gold per article, and she need not know the details of his finances - and when he finally met the empress afterward their talk was brief. She was tired, hungry, and on the edge of tears. When they brought her dinner, a plate of miniature pastries filled with mushrooms and cream sauce, she nibbled on one for a full ten minutes while he explained his place in the senate, and pushed the food away once she finished it. It's fine, she said, it's very good, but she wanted to lie down.
He asked if this happened every night. Sigrun frowned, but Tanith, her back to the expression on her commander's face, told him the empress was barely eating and a little too thin for her own liking. Most evenings she simply refused food.
"I appreciate your concern, senator," the elder said, wrist propped on the hilt of her sword, "but this is not a matter you need to concern yourself with. Your role in her ascension aside, it likely never will be - unless you conjure proper references from the ether."
"Must I?" He rose from the chair. "Is her conduct in the council chamber not the concern of everyone involved? What are her tutors doing?"
Tanith snorted. "What tutors?"
No, she wasn't jesting. She shrugged at his stare, Sigrun rolled her eyes when Sephiran turned his gaze to her. "If I'd known they would do this to her--" The knight's gaze narrowed, and he returned her glare. "She is a child."
"An uncooperative one," Sigrun said. "We've tried, senator. We've procured books for her education, but she refuses to read them. It was a battle simply to confirm she knew how. Now if you're quite finished nosing into matters above your station--"
Sephiran left, positive she would grab his shoulders and steer him out the door if he didn't move under his own power, and reminded himself as he went downstairs that Sigrun was a product of her society - that she meant well, that it was her job to protect her empress, and she was quite right to suspect his motivations if she meant to live up to her duty. Thinking unfavorably of her would be a disservice. But - he couldn't help thinking they weren't trying hard enough.
*
Though he thought the empress would forget about him during the three days between council sessions, she called him to the marble dais almost immediately after the opening reports were examined and the floor was opened to proposals. I want you to explain while they talk, she said. Stand right there. Her finger pointed to the spot on the red carpet to her left, and her charm bracelet clattered on the gilded arm of her throne. Lekain protested almost immediately when she did that, though he couldn't hear what Sanaki said. If you want an adviser, your majesty, Hetzel-- She snapped at him, and Sephiran saw his lips thin and whiten.
Sigrun stepped back to allow him space when the empress repeated her command, and he heard the dagger at her waist click, pulled just slightly out of its scabbard. He was never so aware of the vulnerability of his internal organs until that afternoon; surely the blade would pierce his kidneys if he so much as shifted the wrong way - or perhaps her hand would slip, and the dagger would be startled out of its sheath at one of the empress's outbursts. Sephiran pitched his voice low, for her ears alone - he's referring to the old property tax for the capitol - and after an hour of feeling the senate's eyes on him his legs stopped shaking.
He'd nearly been caught by a gang of hyenas once when he was still young and in bird form, traveling with his goddess to desert-bound Tyre on the other continent; he almost felt the hot breath of wind, smelled the dusty, grassy scent. The empress leaned on the throne arm, chin in her hand, and stared back at the tiers of senators in their dark, high-backed wooden chairs. She frowned. Her ankles crossed, recrossed. Duke Tanas talked - and talked, and talked, coughed, smoothed his hand over his chin and looked at the dais.
As soon as she let him go, Sephiran went home. He ignored the glances from his colleagues and several who called out to him; the home he rented was small, three stories but narrow, and all of the windows could be locked and covered with dark curtains, the doors bolted. He went to bed without eating, and of the two days between sessions, he only slept enough for one.
When Lady Sanaki was older, he thought she would make a fine predator. Perhaps she would throttle the life out of the senate with well-timed snaps and backhanded insults. She'd be a glorious empress if she lived long enough - the finest since his wife founded the country. Hearing the goddess would only ruin her natural charisma.
She called him up for the next session, and the one after that. It was only upon receiving a summons from the senior council - Sigrun's eyes narrowed at Valtome's signature, and Sephiran became aware again of what little space there was between her knives and his back - that he realized they hadn't addressed the dais once since Sanaki demanded his presence. The empress listened to everything he said, sometimes even nodded, and remained quiet. She frowned when she saw the note, and Tanith was once again ordered to accompany him - aren't you hungry? she asked, looking at the pocket watch one of her knights offered. I'm starving. It was nine thirty, the sun long since set.
He promised to eat if she would, and then excused himself. He couldn't keep them waiting. A wave of Duke Culbert's hand could end his career as a senator forever, and though Sephiran found the politics boring and unnecessarily convoluted, rank would help him serve his goddess. Any means with which to awaken her, any at all--
The senior council kept a meeting chamber on the second floor of the cathedral, windows facing south, overlooking a rose garden dotted with yellow and white blossoms, broken by bleached gravel paths in long, meandering curves, and lit by hanging lanterns. Lamps lit the chamber gold and cast faint, discolored rainbows through prisms hanging from their brass fixtures. The curtains were still tied open, and Sephiran watched his own reflection in the glass bow to the three senators present - Culbert, Gaddos, Tanas - seated in their wide chairs with their backs to the glass. The way Culbert said his name nearly drew a wince with its sibilant pull to the first syllable and the soft lisp of the second. Yes, that's correct, he told them. He was lucky they knew his name, wondered if it had only just been reported to them.
"No surname," Culbert noted, looking down at a scrap of paper. "You're a commoner?"
"No." The man lifted an eyebrow, and Sephiran tried to trace the letters inked on the other side, illuminated from the back. No use. "I am a member of the northwest branch of the imperial house. The connection is slight. I did not think it wise to use the name."
Silence. He wondered if there were passages hidden beyond the walls - if someone waited outside with an arrow drawn, aimed for his heart. Perfume clouded the air, rosewood and sweet tonka, so sweet it was cloying and hard to breathe.
To his left, Lekain leaned back in his chair. The pale leather cushions creaked. "You can prove this?"
Sephiran inclined his head and turned slightly. "If necessary." He breathed in measured intervals, and still felt light-headed. "I am told my appearance is proof in itself."
They knew, or suspected; he saw it in a glance - the narrowing of Culbert's eyes, Lekain's unwavering stare, the sudden stillness to Duke Tanas's hands, when before he twisted the ring on his index finger over and over, as if compelled. Tanas's murmured true enough drew the eyes of his colleagues.
Sephiran made himself look at the duke with eyes slightly widened, blinked. "Is that so?"
"Why don't we get to the point," Culbert said loudly, mouth set, startling the fat senator, making his chair jump a hair and thump on the carpet. He pulled his crimped hair over his shoulder and leaned back. "You've managed a miracle in keeping her majesty occupied during session, and we would like you to continue as you are."
A miracle, was it? Sephiran lowered his gaze. He didn't think it a stretch of the imagination to see the poor empress was bored. "I've done nothing worthy of your attention--"
"Enough with the false modesty. You know very well what difficulties we've had in maintaining order. I've seen your face in the audience chamber for almost a year now."
Sephiran lifted his eyebrow, but continued to stare at the duke's sandals. The straps were embroidered with white flowers. "Yes." He knew where this was going. If he were a real senator, perhaps the opportunities presented by this conversation would be more exciting. "I am not, however, in a position suitable for the role you would have me fill."
Duke Tanas's jeweled rings clicked together. "That can be arranged."
"She will insist," Lekain said, "if we do not make the offer first."
Valtome's fingers curled over the dark arm of his chair, slender like claws. "Why not appease her with the gift of your service before she works herself up over it?"
Now he was merchandise. Sephiran supposed it wasn't the first time. "Do I have a choice?"
The duke's thin-lipped smile was slight. "Of course. You may refuse."
He wondered how many of the corpses fished out of the canals ended there after uttering the word 'no' to these men. "I am honored to be of service to you," he said, bending in a bow he hoped was properly respectful, or grateful, whichever they expected, hand flattened to his chest.
They dismissed him, and Sephiran met Tanith in the hallway. He would have agreed to almost anything else simply to get out of that room, away from the glint of their jewelry and cloying scent of perfumes and oils dulled by the heat and turned rancid. The knight marched ahead of him, down to the first floor, and through a garden courtyard to the area of the palace in which the empress lived. Without the sun, the tiles had cooled and the air was more pleasant, fresh and scented by greenery - the maples, rose bushes, beds of lavender, and wisteria hanging from the eaves and climbing over the walls. He took a deep breath before they entered another part of the building and left the garden behind.
If the senior senators had known what he was, they couldn't have constructed a better environment in which to press a concession out of him. His discomfort at the front of the council chamber must have been more obvious than he thought. He should have asked them for more details. He should have demanded to know how they intended to 'arrange' a rank the empress's guard would appreciate, though it would be obvious what he really was when the orders came down to promote him - a puppet for the senate, a pat on the head for the empress, and a shove out the proverbial door so the real rulers of the empire could get back to business.
The lamps were turned down in the palace corridors, but the empress's suite was still brightly lit when Tanith let him in, and Lady Sanaki stirred an overflowing spoonful of dark honey into her tea, seated at the table by the window where he'd spoken to her during his last visit. Her feet kicked the chair legs, and the silver clinked against the porcelain of her cup as she stirred. Sephiran smelled orange and spice, the roses in the vase at the center of her table, still wide open to the heat of the crystal lamp. He crossed the rug when she looked up, leaving Tanith behind at the door, and bent down to one knee for his formal greeting.
She scooted to the edge of her chair, offered her hands; he kissed the left, then the right, listened to her laugh - how charming - and she pulled twice before he realized she wanted him to get up. Sit over there, she said, and pointed to the opposite chair, waving her hand at Tanith's attempt to censure her choice. "I sent Sigrun with a message because you were taking so long."
Sephiran tried not to smile. The chair back was high enough his shoulders rested against its cushion, upholstered in white. It was easily the softest he'd used for months, though the way the back curved around his frame would have been impossible to stand with wings out. "I don't think the appointment took more than fifteen minutes, your majesty."
Lady Sanaki sipped at her tea, holding the cup with both hands. It filled them like a bowl. "Are you going to drink?"
He turned his teacup right-side up on its saucer and reached for the porcelain pot. It was made for her hands, the curving handle slightly too narrow; he steadied it with his other hand, poured, refused the honey though it smelled sweet and pure, untainted by spices or the syrupy flavoring he'd discovered at the tables of others. He watched steam rise from his cup and told the little empress why he was called and what they said to him, and explained why he thought they were doing this. She hunched over her cup. Her indigo hair curled around her chin, bangs fell into her eyes, almost brown in the yellow light. The chair back stretched a length of two hands above her head.
She had Altina's golden eyes. They were the same shape. Lady Sanaki was too young to show other similarities, but in the quiet following his report Sephiran imagined he could feel the hum of his own blood in her veins, however diluted. She had the same manner - she looked directly at him when he spoke, and her snappish remarks during council sessions proved she was paying attention, even if the subject matter was, to her, the most boring thing on Tellius. Her foremother would have shared that opinion. Tax reform? The percentages are high enough as it is. I don't see the point in contemplating ways to extract blood from a stone. He remembered telling her to pay it no mind - her advisers only wanted to feel useful.
That was history. He couldn't give the same advice to this empress. "Have you eaten?"
Lady Sanaki shrugged. "I waited for you. The food will get here soon."
"Your majesty." Sephiran started to rise, thought better of it when her eyes narrowed. "Rank forbids me--"
"You sound like Sigrun." She frowned, and her lower lip became more prominent. "I know what they're going to do. There are empty council seats, and they always turn down new people before I can even see them."
He lifted his cup when the steam had calmed. "Granting me such a high ranking would draw unfavorable attention from the nobility. Nobles usually fill seats on the senior council, don't they?"
"I don't know." The empress threw herself back in her chair and spread her hands on the arms. "I don't care. All they do is argue and talk, and yell, and hand seats to their friends. If they can do it, I can turn you into a councilor."
"Why, your majesty?" He heard Tanith shift against the wall and started, almost spilling tea on his hand. He put the cup down quickly. "You barely know me. I'm surprised you remembered my face at all. You cannot trust me simply on the merit of our past association - I might be here to take advantage of your gratitude."
The empress slid out of her chair and came around to his side of the table. "Took you long enough." Lady Sanaki met his raised eyebrows with a lifted chin, hands on her hips. "Why are you here?"
When Ashera's judgment came to pass, her little round face would be turned to stone. Her head was only just level with his shoulder while he remained seated, yet in spite of her youth she was well-spoken and quick, so quick she'd leapt to hand his goal to him without even being prompted. What a waste. "You have made desperate men of your senators."
Lady Sanaki giggled and pressed her fists over her mouth to stop the sound, but her eyes crinkled over her fingers. Her bracelets were gone, and without her headband to keep the dark fringe under control, her eyes were shadowed when she lowered her head.
"Your majesty." Sephiran waited until she looked up again to continue. "You should be more careful when you show favor to someone. Anything, anyone, is a weakness your opponents will exploit."
The empress lowered her hands, and he wondered if she was still too young to appreciate that message. Her eyes were wide, glassy, reflecting the lamplight and nothing of what she thought, just then, not even a crease or a line between her brows. "Are you here to do what they tell you, Lord Sephiran? Maybe they'll like you better."
He turned the chair slightly, draped his hand on the arm. "Unlikely." Lady Sanaki tilted her head, scratched her cheek, and Sephiran curled his fingers around the wood so he wouldn't reach for her hair. It glinted when she moved her head, shiny and clean, perhaps brushed neat before he came in. She looked tiny without the velvet mantle clasped around her shoulders. "I'm here to listen to you, empress. Only you. Your command will always be my first priority."
She chewed on her bottom lip. "Really?"
"Yes."
Lady Sanaki glanced at the lamp on the table and the little brass clock beneath the roses - it read ten-thirty - and grabbed the arm of his chair, hiked up her skirt, and climbed into his lap. Sephiran stuttered a protest and grabbed her around the waist, intending to put her down, but her knees found purchase on his lap and her thin arms wrapped around his neck. "Stop that," she said when he tried to move her, and his hands froze. "I have your first command, Lord Sephiran. Are you prepared?"
She was soft, even her knees rounded, though he had to move one when she slipped and nearly stabbed him in an unfortunate place. She smelled like powder, a rosy, sweet, clean undertone to the scent of tea. "Y-yes, I suppose."
Her slight frown was less intimidating up close. "You'll have to do better than that."
The corner of Sephiran's mouth twitched up despite his effort not to smile. "Yes, of course your majesty. Please forgive me. Whatever you command, I will obey." She nodded sharply, and he said, "What is it you would like me to do for you?"
Lady Sanaki sat back on her legs. "Tell me a story."
*
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Date: 2009-02-28 06:44 am (UTC)Well, the remaining request fics will make me write about a few different things, but Crimea in particular - and if I ever get the motivation, there's an Oscar fic I really want to write, and one about Reyson that'll take place in Phonecis, though it'll also be about memories of Serenes. If I can come up with a believable plot, there's a Soren fic about the lands beyond Tellius that I also wanted to write. (But I'm not good at writing Soren or Ike, so it's hard to work up the will to try.)
So it'll happen eventually. I think if I hadn't joined