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kinkfestTitle: Libation
Author: Amber Michelle //![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
myaru
Rating: T
Warnings: n/a
Word count: 1772
Prompt: Fire Emblem 10, Sephiran/Zelgius: atonement - drench your soul in the water / cleanse your heart of the stain
Summary: n/a
A/N: it's a bit literal.
....................................................................
If the light of judgment had frozen the world, everything in the Tower of Guidance seared itself into Zelgius's retinas - the goddess in her glory with a halo of hair like the dawn, and Sephiran shedding his illusion layer by layer: first his skin became luminous, as if the goddess's light brought it to life. He robed himself in black, wore it like mourning. Food and drink were brought for Zelgius, and Levail when he made his appearance; his master didn't eat or sleep, and the arrowhead shape of his ears implied perhaps he didn't have to, either because he was Ashera's favored, or because a life stretched across millenia found little need for such crude forms of nourishment.
I wonder if he'll reveal his wings, Levail murmured while they sat at a stone table in a room that might have been a mess hall for the priests, if the goddess had never employed any; tall, narrow windows with diamond glass panes broke the wall at exact intervals and let light in to gild their plain glass plates. I never thought I would lay eyes on one of his kind.
He didn't say the word heron, and Zelgius kept his lips tightly closed after his neutral response, layering bread, sharp yellow cheese, a dry slice of turkey. Sephiran never alluded to his past or his heritage. Levail made his assumption based on stories, paintings, songs, not knowing the man he gazed at with lips parted refused to sing and denied what he called an accident of birth. Both were affirmation in their own way.
After the noonday meal Zelgius left the hidden corridors and crossed the wide public chamber to a smaller gallery, lit by windows similar to the room he just left. No part of the fourth floor was left in darkness as long as the sun hadn't set. A long, shallow pool was cut into the floor, ten steps wide, twenty steps long, a precise rectangle outlined by white tiles and decorated at the bottom with a mosaic depicting the rood sacred to Ashera. It looked deeper because the tiles were so dark - gray, dark blue, brown. She favored those colors for some reason. His master only shrugged when asked why and answered with another question: did it matter?
Sephiran waited for him at the far end of the room in black, though his robe lacked the gold stitching and ornamentation of the others, and flashes of his pale skin could be seen when he turned his back to reach for something on a black table, where blue towels were folded, white linen, a line of silver vessels arrayed against the wall; this robe of his, like the others, was cut for wings.
What color were they? Black like his hair? Perhaps gray, the next natural choice. Or brown, like trees, reminiscent of birds in the wild whose plumage changed according to season and necessity, sometimes a practical brown, sometimes bright yellow or blue or green. Zelgius wanted to reach and touch the parting of fabric, slide his finger in to feel warm skin, and ask. His master had never denied him. Nor had Zelgius thought to ask until Levail did it for him quietly, gaze drifting.
Sephiran turned back to him with a precise square of folded white fabric in his arms. "You'll have to take that off." Less than two paces stretched between them. His fingers curled around his offering to belie the steadiness of his gaze. "Practically speaking, entering the pool in everyday clothing will contaminate the water, and she hates refilling it."
Zelgius wanted to snort. Instead he loosened the laces at his throat, on his sleeves, pulled his leather belt from its loops. That, he thought to himself, would be an affront to a goddess of peace, if one believed the teachings of the priests. Ashera didn't appear to fit the description. "Why did you call me in to do this?"
His master looked at the water, still hugging the robe to his chest. "You said you wanted purification."
He paused, one arm free of its sleeve. From his vantage, the pool reflected the windows like a mirror, so still it seemed he could walk over it like glass. When did he say that? Before he realized what he was asking for, surely. The brand wouldn't disappear, no matter how many baptisms he completed or how many times he tried to cut it out of his skin. The path to the goddess's awakening drenched them both in blood. Would water blessed by the goddess cleanse him of that stain?
"It was a long time ago," Sephiran said. His voice was soft enough it didn't echo. "However, as you will be entering her presence tomorrow, I decided we should do it today."
We. That was the first time he'd said it since the judgment, but the context was not quite right. "I didn't think Lady Ashera would want to see me," Zelgius said. He shed his shirt, his weapons, his trousers and boots, wrapped himself in the robe his master offered and tied the sash too tightly. It was meant for someone larger; his fingertips barely peeked out of the sleeves and the hem dragged when he twisted and turned around to make sure everything was straight. She was a goddess of order; if she decided to pay attention, she'd probably be fussy about the angle of his seams. "If she wants an oath..."
Sephiran watched him, his head tilted. His hands folded Zelgius's shirt independently. "Serving me is the same thing." The black shirt almost disappeared when placed on the table, discernible only by its matte texture. He took a silver vessel in hand and let it hang at his side. "Don't lie."
Of course he wouldn't lie. He only ever did so on his master's order. In the gallery of faces and characters Zelgius had deceived, as the black knight or as himself, only one made him regret his actions. She never left his mind, perhaps because she was never far from Sephiran's, or because, when his master led him down the shallow steps, into the bitingly cold water, she waited in the shadow of the pool when he looked past the writhing, sunlit surface: a child, not even waist-height, face soft and round and peaceful in sleep.
Zelgius didn't attack children. He didn't befriend them only to betray, as he was himself betrayed - until now. He'd never told Sephiran about that. It was a common story among children with brands, and the past wasn't supposed to matter.
The water smelled sharp and slightly bitter like myrrh while they sloshed to the center of the pool. His feet numbed, his toes stiff with cold, and the bottom was slippery tile, not the rough, slightly pitted terracotta he was used to walking on in the baths at Persis, in the palace. Sephiran helped him keep his balance until they stopped, where the water was knee-high. He stood with his back to the light and his dark robes pulled down, heavy at the hem with golden ornaments that kept them hanging straight even while they moved, giving the illusion he wasn't touched by the water at all.
Lately, very little touched him. He didn't even smile. The chimes on his belt jingled and glinted when he leaned down with the silver, long-handled vessel to gather water. Droplets glittered like gems on the mirror surface of the slender pitcher, around the lip meant for pouring. "I'll empty this over your head three times. Endure it."
Sephiran raised his arms, and water splashed onto Zelgius's head. Freezing, tingling, it splattered onto his shoulders and crept beneath his thin linen collar to trickle down the ridges of his spine. It ran over his face in cold fingers and forced him to squeeze his eyes shut. It curled around his body and seeped inward to make his blood sluggish and cold-- then it paused while his master bent to collect more water, and started anew. The second libation ripped shivers out of him, left his skin numb, and the third made Zelgius so cold he couldn't tell where the water ended and he began.
His master's hands, when they pressed to his cheeks, blazed like fire. His eyes flew open. Water plastered the robe to Zelgius's skin and tried to drag it down, off, rip his last shield away.
"That weight," Sephiran said softly, features coming into focus, "is every drop of blood shed in the pursuit of my ideals."
Zelgius took a deep breath. It seemed his skin crackled with the movement of his chest like a thin layer of frost over a puddle. His master's prompting led him out of the pool, but he didn't feel his legs move or the water slapping against his knees as they sloshed toward the stairs. Would the cold ever go away? Even Sephiran's hands were beginning to feel cooler.
Perhaps that was the point - the reason he insisted Zelgius do this. The goddess wouldn't care which pool he bathed in before he went in to meet her, as long as none of his attributes stood out as unpleasant. When they met for the first time in Daein, while snow fluttered and swirled from the slate gray sky and he bared his mark to a stranger for the first time, he asked if anything could be done to remove it - if a way existed to cleanse him of the taint. Sephiran answered in the negative. You are not a child of blasphemy.
That was then; this was now. Zelgius chose to bear the weight of blood and guilt so his master wouldn't have to.
"Come now." His master's voice, still soft, but thawing. His hand stroked Zelgius's arm before helping him up the steps. "There is nothing more to be done here."
No? Then - there was no redemption. None but death pursuing Sephiran's goal. Zelgius let him strip the drenched linen from his body and watched him reach for a towel. Sensation returned to his limbs in tingles and needle pricks.
That was a fine goal, all he needed. Zelgius would fight for him until the world ended-- or he himself did.
..................................................................
Cross-posted atruniclore.
Author: Amber Michelle //
myaruRating: T
Warnings: n/a
Word count: 1772
Prompt: Fire Emblem 10, Sephiran/Zelgius: atonement - drench your soul in the water / cleanse your heart of the stain
Summary: n/a
A/N: it's a bit literal.
....................................................................
If the light of judgment had frozen the world, everything in the Tower of Guidance seared itself into Zelgius's retinas - the goddess in her glory with a halo of hair like the dawn, and Sephiran shedding his illusion layer by layer: first his skin became luminous, as if the goddess's light brought it to life. He robed himself in black, wore it like mourning. Food and drink were brought for Zelgius, and Levail when he made his appearance; his master didn't eat or sleep, and the arrowhead shape of his ears implied perhaps he didn't have to, either because he was Ashera's favored, or because a life stretched across millenia found little need for such crude forms of nourishment.
I wonder if he'll reveal his wings, Levail murmured while they sat at a stone table in a room that might have been a mess hall for the priests, if the goddess had never employed any; tall, narrow windows with diamond glass panes broke the wall at exact intervals and let light in to gild their plain glass plates. I never thought I would lay eyes on one of his kind.
He didn't say the word heron, and Zelgius kept his lips tightly closed after his neutral response, layering bread, sharp yellow cheese, a dry slice of turkey. Sephiran never alluded to his past or his heritage. Levail made his assumption based on stories, paintings, songs, not knowing the man he gazed at with lips parted refused to sing and denied what he called an accident of birth. Both were affirmation in their own way.
After the noonday meal Zelgius left the hidden corridors and crossed the wide public chamber to a smaller gallery, lit by windows similar to the room he just left. No part of the fourth floor was left in darkness as long as the sun hadn't set. A long, shallow pool was cut into the floor, ten steps wide, twenty steps long, a precise rectangle outlined by white tiles and decorated at the bottom with a mosaic depicting the rood sacred to Ashera. It looked deeper because the tiles were so dark - gray, dark blue, brown. She favored those colors for some reason. His master only shrugged when asked why and answered with another question: did it matter?
Sephiran waited for him at the far end of the room in black, though his robe lacked the gold stitching and ornamentation of the others, and flashes of his pale skin could be seen when he turned his back to reach for something on a black table, where blue towels were folded, white linen, a line of silver vessels arrayed against the wall; this robe of his, like the others, was cut for wings.
What color were they? Black like his hair? Perhaps gray, the next natural choice. Or brown, like trees, reminiscent of birds in the wild whose plumage changed according to season and necessity, sometimes a practical brown, sometimes bright yellow or blue or green. Zelgius wanted to reach and touch the parting of fabric, slide his finger in to feel warm skin, and ask. His master had never denied him. Nor had Zelgius thought to ask until Levail did it for him quietly, gaze drifting.
Sephiran turned back to him with a precise square of folded white fabric in his arms. "You'll have to take that off." Less than two paces stretched between them. His fingers curled around his offering to belie the steadiness of his gaze. "Practically speaking, entering the pool in everyday clothing will contaminate the water, and she hates refilling it."
Zelgius wanted to snort. Instead he loosened the laces at his throat, on his sleeves, pulled his leather belt from its loops. That, he thought to himself, would be an affront to a goddess of peace, if one believed the teachings of the priests. Ashera didn't appear to fit the description. "Why did you call me in to do this?"
His master looked at the water, still hugging the robe to his chest. "You said you wanted purification."
He paused, one arm free of its sleeve. From his vantage, the pool reflected the windows like a mirror, so still it seemed he could walk over it like glass. When did he say that? Before he realized what he was asking for, surely. The brand wouldn't disappear, no matter how many baptisms he completed or how many times he tried to cut it out of his skin. The path to the goddess's awakening drenched them both in blood. Would water blessed by the goddess cleanse him of that stain?
"It was a long time ago," Sephiran said. His voice was soft enough it didn't echo. "However, as you will be entering her presence tomorrow, I decided we should do it today."
We. That was the first time he'd said it since the judgment, but the context was not quite right. "I didn't think Lady Ashera would want to see me," Zelgius said. He shed his shirt, his weapons, his trousers and boots, wrapped himself in the robe his master offered and tied the sash too tightly. It was meant for someone larger; his fingertips barely peeked out of the sleeves and the hem dragged when he twisted and turned around to make sure everything was straight. She was a goddess of order; if she decided to pay attention, she'd probably be fussy about the angle of his seams. "If she wants an oath..."
Sephiran watched him, his head tilted. His hands folded Zelgius's shirt independently. "Serving me is the same thing." The black shirt almost disappeared when placed on the table, discernible only by its matte texture. He took a silver vessel in hand and let it hang at his side. "Don't lie."
Of course he wouldn't lie. He only ever did so on his master's order. In the gallery of faces and characters Zelgius had deceived, as the black knight or as himself, only one made him regret his actions. She never left his mind, perhaps because she was never far from Sephiran's, or because, when his master led him down the shallow steps, into the bitingly cold water, she waited in the shadow of the pool when he looked past the writhing, sunlit surface: a child, not even waist-height, face soft and round and peaceful in sleep.
Zelgius didn't attack children. He didn't befriend them only to betray, as he was himself betrayed - until now. He'd never told Sephiran about that. It was a common story among children with brands, and the past wasn't supposed to matter.
The water smelled sharp and slightly bitter like myrrh while they sloshed to the center of the pool. His feet numbed, his toes stiff with cold, and the bottom was slippery tile, not the rough, slightly pitted terracotta he was used to walking on in the baths at Persis, in the palace. Sephiran helped him keep his balance until they stopped, where the water was knee-high. He stood with his back to the light and his dark robes pulled down, heavy at the hem with golden ornaments that kept them hanging straight even while they moved, giving the illusion he wasn't touched by the water at all.
Lately, very little touched him. He didn't even smile. The chimes on his belt jingled and glinted when he leaned down with the silver, long-handled vessel to gather water. Droplets glittered like gems on the mirror surface of the slender pitcher, around the lip meant for pouring. "I'll empty this over your head three times. Endure it."
Sephiran raised his arms, and water splashed onto Zelgius's head. Freezing, tingling, it splattered onto his shoulders and crept beneath his thin linen collar to trickle down the ridges of his spine. It ran over his face in cold fingers and forced him to squeeze his eyes shut. It curled around his body and seeped inward to make his blood sluggish and cold-- then it paused while his master bent to collect more water, and started anew. The second libation ripped shivers out of him, left his skin numb, and the third made Zelgius so cold he couldn't tell where the water ended and he began.
His master's hands, when they pressed to his cheeks, blazed like fire. His eyes flew open. Water plastered the robe to Zelgius's skin and tried to drag it down, off, rip his last shield away.
"That weight," Sephiran said softly, features coming into focus, "is every drop of blood shed in the pursuit of my ideals."
Zelgius took a deep breath. It seemed his skin crackled with the movement of his chest like a thin layer of frost over a puddle. His master's prompting led him out of the pool, but he didn't feel his legs move or the water slapping against his knees as they sloshed toward the stairs. Would the cold ever go away? Even Sephiran's hands were beginning to feel cooler.
Perhaps that was the point - the reason he insisted Zelgius do this. The goddess wouldn't care which pool he bathed in before he went in to meet her, as long as none of his attributes stood out as unpleasant. When they met for the first time in Daein, while snow fluttered and swirled from the slate gray sky and he bared his mark to a stranger for the first time, he asked if anything could be done to remove it - if a way existed to cleanse him of the taint. Sephiran answered in the negative. You are not a child of blasphemy.
That was then; this was now. Zelgius chose to bear the weight of blood and guilt so his master wouldn't have to.
"Come now." His master's voice, still soft, but thawing. His hand stroked Zelgius's arm before helping him up the steps. "There is nothing more to be done here."
No? Then - there was no redemption. None but death pursuing Sephiran's goal. Zelgius let him strip the drenched linen from his body and watched him reach for a towel. Sensation returned to his limbs in tingles and needle pricks.
That was a fine goal, all he needed. Zelgius would fight for him until the world ended-- or he himself did.
..................................................................
Cross-posted at
runiclore.
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