[30 Kisses] [Fire Emblem 10] Afterword - I
Sep. 1st, 2009 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreAfterword - I
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Theme: 18 - "say ahh...."*
Gauntlet Theme: 27 - an inflamed organ of fancy
Words: 2423
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: for the record, I think Yours to Command stands alone, and doesn't need any sequels or additions. However, I'm strapped for ways to make them kiss that don't involve a) incredibly long chapters, or b) yet another AU or scenario to throw them together. Not that I dislike coming up with those, mind you, but sometimes it's nice to have an established canon to write scenes for, and surely SOMEONE ELSE will eventually write this pairing. RIGHT? >_>
I couldn't resist the gauntlet theme.
..........................................................................
Begnion welcomed Lehran with silence when he, along with Reyson and Naesala, presented themselves to the empress outside the cathedral to begin their official visit as Serenes representatives. The sky was clear and blue, the sun hot and white, the flagstones shimmering with heat that coiled like serpents of water and made the grand plaza an oven from which even Sanaki wasn't spared, for the empress could not compromise her dignity by appearing before the public with a parasol in hand, nor could her knights or dignitaries occupy their hands with frivolous objects when they must be ready to leap to her defense at a moment's notice. She wore white; a white dress hugged her breasts, her hips, spreading around her feet like the petals of a flower. Miniature gardenia pins swept her hair back over her ears, where it draped over her back and swayed below her hips, an indigo curtain.
Ten wide steps separated them, and the nine hundred something gawkers who chose to attend their arrival: merchants and their wives, minor noblemen, ladies of high rank beneath canopies held by plainly-dressed servants, palace staff, acolytes, students, everyone. Faces he recognized, many of which he hoped never to see again. Hands rose to mouths, glittering with gold and jewels, recognition in their raised eyebrows and the tilted heads and whispered exclamations. His empress welcomed them formally with a short speech thanking them for the grace of their presence and the cementing of alliance between their nations. Lehran wanted to walk up and hold her hands, kiss her cheek, though he'd spoken to her only a month past, when she ended her informal visit - he wanted to run his fingers into her hair as he used to when she welcomed him back from a long journey and demanded to know everything that happened to him, whether it was pursuit by bandits or a lumpy bed.
Instead he remained behind Reyson, at his right hand, while Naesala stood at his left, bowed when the prince delivered his response and they were invited inside. Lehran watched the train of her skirt while they walked. It shimmered like the heat did, liquid, silky, minding him of the spicy wisteria scent coiled in his house, his mark on her skin, her taste lingering on his lips, slightly bitter, slightly sweet, and altogether an appropriate memory to underline the formal way they parted in the palace foyer, where the chamberlain waited to escort them to their rooms.
"That went well," Naesala said once they were left to themselves in the room common between their bedchambers. "Nobody tried to kill you."
"Give them time," Lehran said, glancing sideways at him. There was no fire in the grate behind the raven's black wings, but roses cut and arranged on the mantle. Trees swayed outside, the shadows they cast through the glass sweeping the wall, the empty hearth, the landscape framed and hanging above it. "News of my resurrection will make its rounds within the night, and the ball is tomorrow."
Naesala crossed his arms with a crease of leather. "So you'll be the talk of every salon."
Reyson's shadow erased the light play on the walls. He twitched the curtains farther open with the tip of one wing, his back to them. Sunshine gilded his pale hair. "And he will become the embodiment of all that is sinful come tomorrow's audience. I hope your agents are out there keeping track of these rumors."
"Of course they are."
Three chairs and a setee with a low back were arranged in a circle before the fire. Naesala took one, sitting with his legs thrown over one arm and his wings angled over the other, gaze directed at the light filteing through Reyson's white feathers. The walls were plain, faced and bordered with pine wood polished until it shined. Rugs layered the hard floor, green, white, brown, woven with triangle patterns. The door to Lehran's chamber opened in the wall opposite the window; the bed was plain, no canopy or posts, clothed with blue linens. A lamp burned on the night table, turned low, and there was no window. Naesala's room would be beside his; Reyson would have a window, and a balcony, and likely the finest coverlet and sheets the palace could offer.
Lehran pulled the door shut. He wouldn't be sleeping in this room.
"You know a quiet way there, don't you?"
He looked up. Reyson turned his back to the window, tilted his head, wings catching on the brocade and drawing it over half the window with a scrape of brass rings.
So he gave himself away. Unsurprising. "I may be seen, but not by many," Lehran said. "Tomorrow will put an end to all speculation, in any case."
Naesala's arm draped over the back of his chair. "I should go with you."
Lehran walked to the door. "Only if you plan to offer yourself as a pin cushion for Tanith's blades in my place."
The raven snorted. Lehran left, pulling the door shut with a wing, and cramped them both to his back, curved slightly over his arms, so he wouldn't be tempted to spread them and hit something. The hallway was empty, lit at both ends by windows stretched from floor to ceiling and the white, molded plaster of the walls. The path he sought began at the east end, where a servant's corridor would lead him to the north wing, and from there to the west, where the imperial apartments waited on the fourth floor. He waited outside the concealed entrance until the voices and footsteps faded, and the walls rubbed his feathers the wrong way, made him want to flap them back into place, when he finally stepped inside.
He counted ninety steps to the end of the narrow corridor, and forty-one to the left before he stepped sideways into a small chamber decorated with the green tile and cream paint he remembered from the north wing. The other senators had lived there, years ago; he'd visited Hetzel many times, Oliver now and then, and Lekain only when necessary. Green and white tiles patterned the entryway, the stairs, antechambers and servants' spaces, and the floors became marble only in private spaces. The east wing was white, the west blue. The higher floors were carpeted in red.
Sanaki had promised to leave orders for his passage with her guard, and the pegasus knights didn't look twice when he passed their positions along the staircases, on the third and fourth floors, though he thought many would have frowned if discipline allowed it. Sigrun gaze flicked up and down when he approached the imperial apartments, and she only stepped aside from her place in front of the empress's doors when he was close enough to touch her. She kept her face turned forward, but tilted in such a way she looked annoyed, and she did not greet him as she would have before the war, when they used to pause, talk, even exchange news related to political matters at hand - a tax bill, a popularity poll. She made him open the door himself.
The red velvet curtains were drawn when he entered Sanaki's parlor, and the crystal globe of her table lamp lit to shed white light and scatter rainbows across the room. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar, the illumination within shed from her window and dappled with shadows when he peered through and knocked, and Lehran thought she'd planned to entertain him at the table-- which made sense, but he hadn't held her since her visit to Serenes, and they could talk any time, anywhere. Talking would not raise eyebrows and inspire speculation - much.
"What is it?" Sanaki called. "Hurry up."
Lehran flattened his lips so he wouldn't smile and pushed the door open. "I must be early," he said, wings cramped to his back so he would fit through. The violet curtains were open, their gauzy white companions around the bed still drawn, and the coverlet hidden beneath a pile of clothes - her formal velvet, the white dress, the slip and under-clothes. Her sandals were tipped on their sides against the wall beside the vanity. "Your chamberlain left as soon as he found an excuse. I wonder if it was something I said?"
"Oh--" Her voice came from behind a silk dressing screen. Her hand grasped the edge, and then her pale face appeared, and her hair swept into view, blue more than black in the gray shade from the window. "I thought you would want to eat first, at least. And of course it was something you said." A slight frown turned her lips before she disappeared behind the screen again. It muffled her voice. "Or rather, what you did ten years ago. I'd say he wants to be insulted on my behalf, but it's more likely he realized why you were here and stormed off to compose his letter of protest."
"Hmm." Lehran glanced at the mirror, at the vanity; the pearls she wore today were heirlooms, but the golden bracelet was a gift he'd given her when she was younger, and the belt stretched around her waist he'd given her when she stayed at his home in Serenes. He remembered his throat tightening when he saw her wearing it, and only wished the dress had been from his store also, but he knew his own work; the weave of the brocade wasn't his, and if he were fair to her seamstresses, there hadn't been time to make a formal costume from the gifts he sent home with her. "He can get in line."
"You'll take a slightly more accommodating attitude, I trust, when the announcement is made."
He slanted his gaze over, and felt his eyebrows lift. "What--"
"One of your gifts," Sanaki said, spreading her arms and turning to show her lacing. He'd given her a dozen bolts of white brocade, and her clothier had dyed this one imperial purple, just red enough to make her shoulders blush. A crisp white chemise showed between the diamond gaps of the ribbon holding it closed and showed between the lacings on her sleeves, and around the tapered ends. The skirt flared outward into a full shape over her legs, but the bodice hugged her figure so tightly his fingers twitched. "I think it would look better without the white, but there isn't time to dye another slip."
Perhaps the dress would be better with nothing at all beneath it-- yes. "You aren't thinking of wearing this to the banquet, are you?"
She faced him, a hand on her hip. "That was the idea."
Lehran traced the decorative cording shaped over her hips. "They don't deserve to see this." The cut of the dress shaped her breasts, and locks of her hair curled down between them.
"Some of them have seen quite a bit more than this." Her fingers flicked his chin. "My face is up here."
He met her gaze. A taunt was on the tip of his tongue; it isn't your face I'm here to see, or something equally Kilvas-like, something brazen that would make her blush and laugh, slap his hand away and scold him, because she would be animated, relax, and forget about the impending announcement and the tension cording her muscles, making her shoulders hunch more than she usually allowed. Her smile was hardly echoed by her eyes, though she allowed him to draw her close and pushed her face into his neck. The silk ribbon slithered when he untied it and started pulling the laces out.
"Impatient, aren't you."
Lehran smiled against her hair and listened to the silk hiss. She smelled like gardenias. "I get to look at it all night tomorrow." Her back arched when he pressed his fingers into the brocade, found the knots, and rubbed. "At least I won't have to beat your other suitors away-- but there are only so many ways I can think of to take care of their wandering eyes."
Sanaki's sigh was hot against his throat. The dress loosened, the laces half undone. "You're not allowed to damage them. I've only just gotten the government working to full capacity."
Her ribbon slipped out of the last eyelet, and he let it drift to the floor. Her chemise held the dress in place, kept it from slipping open, and the front was caught between the press of their bodies. "You know I'm not the violent type." He tugged on her hair.
"No, you only start wars behind my back and turn entire continents to stone." She tilted her head back. "If you do that again, I'll pluck your wings bare and make a dress out of your feathers."
He spread his wings and curled them around her. "Do you refer to the war, or pulling your hair?"
Her eyes narrowed, and he felt her fingers toy with the smaller feathers, ruffling them. "I haven't decided yet."
"I think you'd look lovely covered with my feathers," Lehran said, pulling the dress down between them and tracing the curve of a breast through her silk chemise. "What do you say?"
Sanaki's lips flattened, but the corners tried to twitch up, and she kicked his leg when he laughed. "Just for that, you can do without--"
He leaned in, kissed her. Sanaki sighed, vocally, but parted her lips to invite him in and let herself be led toward her bed. The dress slipped over her chemise, rustled and folded onto the floor, and she stepped over it, her hands locked behind his back. Her fingers clenched into his robe and hooked around the buttons fastening his overcoat around his wings.
"Sigrun will be in later with tea," Sanaki murmured against his lips, her lashes curving low.
"I'm sure she knows not to interrupt," Lehran said. And if she did, she would be treated to an eyeful. He wasn't going to stop just because Sigrun disliked him.
She leaned her head against his and sighed again, a soft rush of breath against his lips. "Only one more day."
"Mmm." It seemed like forever.
.........................................................................
:(
I can't edit until I have access to a printer. I always miss stuff doing it on the computer.
Part of me hates to be so pathetically pointless and lame, but the rest of me thinks that I'm on my honeymoon, so plotless fluff is fine and appropriate. (And I guess it's not completely plotless - just 90% or so.)
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Theme: 18 - "say ahh...."*
Gauntlet Theme: 27 - an inflamed organ of fancy
Words: 2423
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: for the record, I think Yours to Command stands alone, and doesn't need any sequels or additions. However, I'm strapped for ways to make them kiss that don't involve a) incredibly long chapters, or b) yet another AU or scenario to throw them together. Not that I dislike coming up with those, mind you, but sometimes it's nice to have an established canon to write scenes for, and surely SOMEONE ELSE will eventually write this pairing. RIGHT? >_>
I couldn't resist the gauntlet theme.
..........................................................................
Begnion welcomed Lehran with silence when he, along with Reyson and Naesala, presented themselves to the empress outside the cathedral to begin their official visit as Serenes representatives. The sky was clear and blue, the sun hot and white, the flagstones shimmering with heat that coiled like serpents of water and made the grand plaza an oven from which even Sanaki wasn't spared, for the empress could not compromise her dignity by appearing before the public with a parasol in hand, nor could her knights or dignitaries occupy their hands with frivolous objects when they must be ready to leap to her defense at a moment's notice. She wore white; a white dress hugged her breasts, her hips, spreading around her feet like the petals of a flower. Miniature gardenia pins swept her hair back over her ears, where it draped over her back and swayed below her hips, an indigo curtain.
Ten wide steps separated them, and the nine hundred something gawkers who chose to attend their arrival: merchants and their wives, minor noblemen, ladies of high rank beneath canopies held by plainly-dressed servants, palace staff, acolytes, students, everyone. Faces he recognized, many of which he hoped never to see again. Hands rose to mouths, glittering with gold and jewels, recognition in their raised eyebrows and the tilted heads and whispered exclamations. His empress welcomed them formally with a short speech thanking them for the grace of their presence and the cementing of alliance between their nations. Lehran wanted to walk up and hold her hands, kiss her cheek, though he'd spoken to her only a month past, when she ended her informal visit - he wanted to run his fingers into her hair as he used to when she welcomed him back from a long journey and demanded to know everything that happened to him, whether it was pursuit by bandits or a lumpy bed.
Instead he remained behind Reyson, at his right hand, while Naesala stood at his left, bowed when the prince delivered his response and they were invited inside. Lehran watched the train of her skirt while they walked. It shimmered like the heat did, liquid, silky, minding him of the spicy wisteria scent coiled in his house, his mark on her skin, her taste lingering on his lips, slightly bitter, slightly sweet, and altogether an appropriate memory to underline the formal way they parted in the palace foyer, where the chamberlain waited to escort them to their rooms.
"That went well," Naesala said once they were left to themselves in the room common between their bedchambers. "Nobody tried to kill you."
"Give them time," Lehran said, glancing sideways at him. There was no fire in the grate behind the raven's black wings, but roses cut and arranged on the mantle. Trees swayed outside, the shadows they cast through the glass sweeping the wall, the empty hearth, the landscape framed and hanging above it. "News of my resurrection will make its rounds within the night, and the ball is tomorrow."
Naesala crossed his arms with a crease of leather. "So you'll be the talk of every salon."
Reyson's shadow erased the light play on the walls. He twitched the curtains farther open with the tip of one wing, his back to them. Sunshine gilded his pale hair. "And he will become the embodiment of all that is sinful come tomorrow's audience. I hope your agents are out there keeping track of these rumors."
"Of course they are."
Three chairs and a setee with a low back were arranged in a circle before the fire. Naesala took one, sitting with his legs thrown over one arm and his wings angled over the other, gaze directed at the light filteing through Reyson's white feathers. The walls were plain, faced and bordered with pine wood polished until it shined. Rugs layered the hard floor, green, white, brown, woven with triangle patterns. The door to Lehran's chamber opened in the wall opposite the window; the bed was plain, no canopy or posts, clothed with blue linens. A lamp burned on the night table, turned low, and there was no window. Naesala's room would be beside his; Reyson would have a window, and a balcony, and likely the finest coverlet and sheets the palace could offer.
Lehran pulled the door shut. He wouldn't be sleeping in this room.
"You know a quiet way there, don't you?"
He looked up. Reyson turned his back to the window, tilted his head, wings catching on the brocade and drawing it over half the window with a scrape of brass rings.
So he gave himself away. Unsurprising. "I may be seen, but not by many," Lehran said. "Tomorrow will put an end to all speculation, in any case."
Naesala's arm draped over the back of his chair. "I should go with you."
Lehran walked to the door. "Only if you plan to offer yourself as a pin cushion for Tanith's blades in my place."
The raven snorted. Lehran left, pulling the door shut with a wing, and cramped them both to his back, curved slightly over his arms, so he wouldn't be tempted to spread them and hit something. The hallway was empty, lit at both ends by windows stretched from floor to ceiling and the white, molded plaster of the walls. The path he sought began at the east end, where a servant's corridor would lead him to the north wing, and from there to the west, where the imperial apartments waited on the fourth floor. He waited outside the concealed entrance until the voices and footsteps faded, and the walls rubbed his feathers the wrong way, made him want to flap them back into place, when he finally stepped inside.
He counted ninety steps to the end of the narrow corridor, and forty-one to the left before he stepped sideways into a small chamber decorated with the green tile and cream paint he remembered from the north wing. The other senators had lived there, years ago; he'd visited Hetzel many times, Oliver now and then, and Lekain only when necessary. Green and white tiles patterned the entryway, the stairs, antechambers and servants' spaces, and the floors became marble only in private spaces. The east wing was white, the west blue. The higher floors were carpeted in red.
Sanaki had promised to leave orders for his passage with her guard, and the pegasus knights didn't look twice when he passed their positions along the staircases, on the third and fourth floors, though he thought many would have frowned if discipline allowed it. Sigrun gaze flicked up and down when he approached the imperial apartments, and she only stepped aside from her place in front of the empress's doors when he was close enough to touch her. She kept her face turned forward, but tilted in such a way she looked annoyed, and she did not greet him as she would have before the war, when they used to pause, talk, even exchange news related to political matters at hand - a tax bill, a popularity poll. She made him open the door himself.
The red velvet curtains were drawn when he entered Sanaki's parlor, and the crystal globe of her table lamp lit to shed white light and scatter rainbows across the room. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar, the illumination within shed from her window and dappled with shadows when he peered through and knocked, and Lehran thought she'd planned to entertain him at the table-- which made sense, but he hadn't held her since her visit to Serenes, and they could talk any time, anywhere. Talking would not raise eyebrows and inspire speculation - much.
"What is it?" Sanaki called. "Hurry up."
Lehran flattened his lips so he wouldn't smile and pushed the door open. "I must be early," he said, wings cramped to his back so he would fit through. The violet curtains were open, their gauzy white companions around the bed still drawn, and the coverlet hidden beneath a pile of clothes - her formal velvet, the white dress, the slip and under-clothes. Her sandals were tipped on their sides against the wall beside the vanity. "Your chamberlain left as soon as he found an excuse. I wonder if it was something I said?"
"Oh--" Her voice came from behind a silk dressing screen. Her hand grasped the edge, and then her pale face appeared, and her hair swept into view, blue more than black in the gray shade from the window. "I thought you would want to eat first, at least. And of course it was something you said." A slight frown turned her lips before she disappeared behind the screen again. It muffled her voice. "Or rather, what you did ten years ago. I'd say he wants to be insulted on my behalf, but it's more likely he realized why you were here and stormed off to compose his letter of protest."
"Hmm." Lehran glanced at the mirror, at the vanity; the pearls she wore today were heirlooms, but the golden bracelet was a gift he'd given her when she was younger, and the belt stretched around her waist he'd given her when she stayed at his home in Serenes. He remembered his throat tightening when he saw her wearing it, and only wished the dress had been from his store also, but he knew his own work; the weave of the brocade wasn't his, and if he were fair to her seamstresses, there hadn't been time to make a formal costume from the gifts he sent home with her. "He can get in line."
"You'll take a slightly more accommodating attitude, I trust, when the announcement is made."
He slanted his gaze over, and felt his eyebrows lift. "What--"
"One of your gifts," Sanaki said, spreading her arms and turning to show her lacing. He'd given her a dozen bolts of white brocade, and her clothier had dyed this one imperial purple, just red enough to make her shoulders blush. A crisp white chemise showed between the diamond gaps of the ribbon holding it closed and showed between the lacings on her sleeves, and around the tapered ends. The skirt flared outward into a full shape over her legs, but the bodice hugged her figure so tightly his fingers twitched. "I think it would look better without the white, but there isn't time to dye another slip."
Perhaps the dress would be better with nothing at all beneath it-- yes. "You aren't thinking of wearing this to the banquet, are you?"
She faced him, a hand on her hip. "That was the idea."
Lehran traced the decorative cording shaped over her hips. "They don't deserve to see this." The cut of the dress shaped her breasts, and locks of her hair curled down between them.
"Some of them have seen quite a bit more than this." Her fingers flicked his chin. "My face is up here."
He met her gaze. A taunt was on the tip of his tongue; it isn't your face I'm here to see, or something equally Kilvas-like, something brazen that would make her blush and laugh, slap his hand away and scold him, because she would be animated, relax, and forget about the impending announcement and the tension cording her muscles, making her shoulders hunch more than she usually allowed. Her smile was hardly echoed by her eyes, though she allowed him to draw her close and pushed her face into his neck. The silk ribbon slithered when he untied it and started pulling the laces out.
"Impatient, aren't you."
Lehran smiled against her hair and listened to the silk hiss. She smelled like gardenias. "I get to look at it all night tomorrow." Her back arched when he pressed his fingers into the brocade, found the knots, and rubbed. "At least I won't have to beat your other suitors away-- but there are only so many ways I can think of to take care of their wandering eyes."
Sanaki's sigh was hot against his throat. The dress loosened, the laces half undone. "You're not allowed to damage them. I've only just gotten the government working to full capacity."
Her ribbon slipped out of the last eyelet, and he let it drift to the floor. Her chemise held the dress in place, kept it from slipping open, and the front was caught between the press of their bodies. "You know I'm not the violent type." He tugged on her hair.
"No, you only start wars behind my back and turn entire continents to stone." She tilted her head back. "If you do that again, I'll pluck your wings bare and make a dress out of your feathers."
He spread his wings and curled them around her. "Do you refer to the war, or pulling your hair?"
Her eyes narrowed, and he felt her fingers toy with the smaller feathers, ruffling them. "I haven't decided yet."
"I think you'd look lovely covered with my feathers," Lehran said, pulling the dress down between them and tracing the curve of a breast through her silk chemise. "What do you say?"
Sanaki's lips flattened, but the corners tried to twitch up, and she kicked his leg when he laughed. "Just for that, you can do without--"
He leaned in, kissed her. Sanaki sighed, vocally, but parted her lips to invite him in and let herself be led toward her bed. The dress slipped over her chemise, rustled and folded onto the floor, and she stepped over it, her hands locked behind his back. Her fingers clenched into his robe and hooked around the buttons fastening his overcoat around his wings.
"Sigrun will be in later with tea," Sanaki murmured against his lips, her lashes curving low.
"I'm sure she knows not to interrupt," Lehran said. And if she did, she would be treated to an eyeful. He wasn't going to stop just because Sigrun disliked him.
She leaned her head against his and sighed again, a soft rush of breath against his lips. "Only one more day."
"Mmm." It seemed like forever.
.........................................................................
:(
I can't edit until I have access to a printer. I always miss stuff doing it on the computer.
Part of me hates to be so pathetically pointless and lame, but the rest of me thinks that I'm on my honeymoon, so plotless fluff is fine and appropriate. (And I guess it's not completely plotless - just 90% or so.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-01 10:54 pm (UTC)And you're allowed to have plotless fluff! There's no crime against it, and I enjoyed the cuteness and their banter.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-01 11:39 pm (UTC)I really, really want to do a Naesala-specific piece, or one just about him and Sephiran, but my ideas are too sparse to produce anything good.
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-02 12:02 pm (UTC)more often I was practically trilled when you put the part about neasala