kinkfest | A Solidor's Lesson [Final Fantasy XII - Vayne/Gabranth

Title: A Solidor's Lesson
Author/Artist: Anya
Rating: PG13
Warnings: None
Word count: 1,190
Summary: For prompt Nov 13th: Final Fantasy XII: Vayne/Gabranth - sex on a throne - Vayne dresses Noah in royal grown and calls him 'my lord Vayne Solidor'. Gramis lectures his son on the importance of Not Getting Caught Doing It. Did not at first intend to take the prompt, but yesterday the mental image stuck and wouldn't leave.

Final Fantasy XII: Vayne/Gabranth - sex on a throne - Vayne dresses Noah in royal grown and calls him 'my lord Vayne Solidor'

A Solidor’s Lesson

Vayne finishes his explanation with what he personally feels is great aplomb, and waits expectantly, hands behind his back in a pose of militant ease.

His father’s study proves stuffy in summer, despite its extravagant space and domed ceiling, with stained glass windows cast open to the lawn. The carpet is a blood red and gold, too rich; the furniture, heavy salika oak, too antique, the shelves full of leather tomes, and his father ensconced on the overstuffed chair, so withered in his silk and brocade robe that Vayne oft wonders if he had once been hale enough to lift his double-handed sword, elaborately framed in precious jewels, set behind him.

Gramis folds one palm against his cheek, his skin parchment-thin and mottled with age, while his free hand drums nails yellowed from his habit of smoke over the vellum of his desk. The Sun Crown sits heavy on wispy hair, its shard of azshorn cryst winking in the afternoon light, and beneath it, steel-gray eyes affix Vayne with eloquent disbelief.

Ah well, he had tried.

“You would have me believe, child,” and Gramis only e’er calls him ‘child’ when he is displeased, with Vayne now seventeen winters of age, “That you had shared a plate of strawberries and cream with that blond pup of a Judge on my Throne, due to having mistaken it for your study in a fit of sheer insobriety, and the displeasing scent is from another dessert… Rozarrian, you say?”

Put so bluntly, it was poor explanation. Vayne could be embarrassed at that, at the least, but even as he opens his mouth to extrapolate, Gramis sighs. “Clumsy. Very clumsy, child.”

“Father, I-”

“Firstly, Vayne, did you e’er bother to take some note of how refreshment is prepared in the Palace?” When Vayne shook his head, Gramis sneers. “’Tis one of the first matters you should have attended to once you became of age, boy. Did our tutors not teach you of Solidor succession history? It is only a wonder that your late brothers did not think to poison you.”

“Ah, t’was-”

“And so,” Gramis cuts in mercilessly, “Had you bothered to look into the matter, you would have known that all ingredients on the menu for the month are personally approved by Julian, our Master of Service, and annotated on his records, which are open to any of Solidor blood to inspect. Any Solidor with an interest in his lifespan would have memorized the ingredients the month before, so as to guard against any dish that does not come from the kitchens. Strawberries were not ordered this month, and we certainly do not serve anything Rozarrian.”

“But I could have-”

“Any servant you send out to the bazaar for food will also have had to have sought Julian’s permission, child. So. Secondly. Have you not bedded that pup before?”

“Certainly.” Vayne blinks warily, already a little out of sorts. Conversations with his father are often as comfortable as being skewered onto the nearest wall.

“Then you would undoubtedly have known how vocal he is?”

“Aye.” Vayne smirks, but hastily schools his expression when his Lord Father’s glare seems to turn icy with its intensity. “Ah-”

“Yes. ‘Ah’. Think yourself through all contingencies, boy. You have yet so much to learn before even earning a Bergan, let alone the Sun Throne.” Gramis sighs deeply, wearily, and sinks into his chair as though crushed by the stupidity of the world and his son in particular.

“I humbly apologize for my incompetence.” Vayne is sure he managed to kept any trace of a mocking tone out of his words, but Gramis smiles thinly, shakes his head again, and pinches at the bridge of his nose as though in exasperation.

“Thirdly, could you appreciate the depth of scandal that would arise were word to out that you had stolen one of my robes and dressed the pup in it to play?” Distaste. “Play-acting as each other, at that. You may have no regard for the other Houses, but their support, symbolic as it often may be, is essential in deals with the Senate.”

“We were fairly inebriated at that stage,” Vayne says defensively before he remembers that being defensive is the first step in absolutely losing control of a conversation. “Father-”

“To think that when I was about your age, and took Thuron o’er the arm of that selfsame seat-”

“What?”

Gramis snorts, waving a hand dismissively.

“Thuron, boy, now Judge-Magister Zargabaath. You have to learn the names of those you someday need to hold in the palm of your hand, at the least. The sort of power that comes from the skill of wielding a blade is the least power of all, child, that much have you not learned?”

“I meant… Lord Father… you and the Judge-Magister…” Vayne finds himself in the unpleasant situation of being so absolutely taken aback that he has lost his mental footing, and can only sputter. “You and-”

“Aye, aye,” Gramis says impatiently, “As difficult as it may be for you to imagine, I was once your age. Do you think you had your looks from your mother?”

Vayne looks at the rake-thin, wrinkled apple of a man before him and fights a sudden bout of depression with regards to mortality. His mother had pale golden hair. “Ah.” A thought occurs, belatedly and uncomfortably. “Lord Father, did you also find yourself in the position of having to explain-”

“Aye. Your grandfather, the late Emperor Maenthel, was a harsh taskmaster of his five sons.” A pause. “Two sons, by the time of this incident. Favor was difficult to earn and easy to lose.”

The past and curiosity hypnotizes. “Then, your explanation, Lord Father?”

“Naturally, I had the forethought to set enough cogs a-moving to pin circumstance on my brother.” Gramis smirks lazily. “Enough to have him sent to a war which he failed to return from.”

“Oh.” Shock cedes to reluctant respect. Gramis, Vayne already knows, is the pre-eminent political genius of his generation, and this merely cements the fact: likely, in this old wolf’s cunning, pleasure in itself was merely a bonus in the means to an end. Regretfully, he realizes he has yet much to learn. “I understand, Lord Father.”

“Understand?”

“Your lesson.”

“Do you?”

Vayne grins cockily. He has enough of a Solidor’s mind to grasp the complexity of another Solidor’s weave. “To turn disaster into blessing. Thuron Zargabaath is like to lecture me upon my exit back to my tutors, I do believe. Mayhap a careful riposte or two-”

“Quite.” Gramis shuffles the reports on his desk, already indifferent. “Try not to drop anything too difficult. Thuron has always been sensitive.” Another smirk. “In more ways than one.”

Flushing, Vayne excuses himself as quickly as protocol allows and retreats. Strategically, of course.

Left to himself in his study, Gramis chuckles, low and long and loud. Someday either of his remaining sons would learn the endless fun arising from tormenting one’s descendants.

-fin-