Title- Sin
A/N- A companion one-shot for "The Rising Dark", though it can be read as a stand alone. I'm not used to writing in a first person perspective, sorry if it's a bit off.
Background music- "Sin" from the "Saya no Uta" OST
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"I don't want you to regret this... I don't, but... even so, I'm happy. I guess I'm pretty selfish, aren't I?"
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Sometimes, I wonder if I'm afraid of being happy. Yes, I'm well aware of how melodramatic that sounds, hardly something befitting a man of my age, but it is an honest thought that gnaws at the fringe of my consciousness at times. Perhaps it's simply a side effect of how I was raised. I have lived among the wealthy elite, I have seen them in their natural habitat, and despite their many complaints about taxes and climbing the social hierarchy, they are so truly blessed. When the famine comes, they can simply pay to have food imported from further south, or even from Hoshido if they are wealthy enough. Should they grow ill, they can summon the finest healers and physicians to their homes to do everything possible to cure them. Such was not the way of life when I was a child. When the famine came, you ate anything and everything you could get your hands on, regardless of edibility. I remember eating a roach once when I was very young, I was so desperate to have anything in my stomach. The taste, the texture, the sound it made when it was crushed... ugh.
Forgive me; thinking about it even now makes me a bit ill, but such things were simply the way of life for the poor and hungry. I remember people in my village dying from eating things like poisonous plants and fetid carcasses, for hunger will surely drive a man to madness. And while they may have even been able to have been saved, there were no healers around to treat them. And even if there had been, surely no one where I lived would have been able to afford such a luxury. When death surrounded you, when it pressed down on you and there was nothing you could do to alleviate it's weight, "happiness" becomes something you only hear about in stories that end "happily ever after". That's not to say it was all bleak wretchedness and misery. Contentment and adoration exist in abundance, yes, but never that overwhelming warmth that floods one's inner self and leaves them assured that all is right in the world now feeling of happiness. Of course, that might also be my own fault. I have always lived as though my life were a list of things that needed to be checked off, things I was expected to do.
Get married, have a house, have a child, yes, yes, and yes.
Perhaps not in that order, but they remained ticked off just the same. Such a mentality definitely proved useful when I became a soldier in the Nohrian army.
Scout out the terrain, feed the horses, execute the children who witnessed everything, all accounted for.
But even if I felt pride or a sense of fulfillment for those things, they were strangely... lacking...
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My wife is very small, at least in comparison to me. The top of her head doesn't reach my chin, though when the royal painter did our portraits, she insisted on being portrayed as taller. It wasn't that she had an issue with her height, she simply complained that it made the composition of the painting look off. I don't like thinking of Nerr as my "second" wife, or my "new" wife. Partially because I sometimes worry what she might do if she ever realizes I'm thinking such things, but mostly, because it does her a disservice. Michaela and I were married, but we never referred to one another as "husband" or "wife". That was perhaps a side effect of our youth- we weren't some old married couple who argued over the breakfast table; we were simply friends... who lived together... and had a child together... and happened to be married. Vows were just things we memorized because we were supposed to, like one does with the dates and places in a history book. Adore her as I did, being married to Michaela felt no different to me than not being married to Michaela. Not so with Nerr, whom I still have yet to actually call by her full name. I don't particularly want to. I don't think she wants me to, either.
There is a very clear distinction between "then" and "now". And it haunts me. During those rare instances when we are in the same place at the same time and not busy dealing with paperwork or ministers or nobles, we tend to spend our time huddled together on a bed or couch, reading, either silently to ourselves, or I'll read something aloud to her. She always leans against me, pressing into my ribs as though she's trying to scoot away from something unpleasant on the other side of her. Maybe she is these days. I can't be sure what she's seeing when she stares vacantly into the middle distance. It's a habit I'm both used to and charmed by, but there are times when I'll remember her doing the same thing as a little girl, and grow utterly sickened with myself. It happens at sporadic intervals. Sometimes, I'll remember picking her up by the waist so she could reach a book off the top shelf, or wrapping her in a towel after she got out of the bath (long before Flora and Felicia came to us), and I'll falter in whatever I'm doing and be absolutely disgusted. Such flashbacks to the earlier days of our relationship, before it was an actual "relationship" happened when Michaela was alive as well, but it wasn't the same. We were the same age, a few months separating us at most. When I remembered her as a child swimming in the lake near our village, I was a child as well.
We were playmates; I wasn't the one teaching her how to read and write.
When Nerr's weight against me grows heavier and I realize she's fallen asleep with a rare look of peace on her face, I could just be happy. I could be happy that the gods blessed me with a brave, charming, lovely wife. I could be happy that the person I love loves me as well... But then I remember looking at her face as I tucked her into bed years ago, and I feel too filthy to be happy.
000
People stare at us everywhere. Nerr doesn't care. Sometimes, I can't be sure if she's ignoring them or actually doesn't notice their pointed gazes. Of course, there's an armored, man-eating beast contained within her flesh, so I can understand why she's not too concerned. She always holds my hand when we're walking- regardless of what she might be holding, she can figure out a way to carry it one handed. As much as I love her and indulge her whatever she wants, I often want to deny her this, just because I know how people will look at us, but when I feel her thin fingers tighten around mine, shaking violently, their judgment no longer matters.
But whatever horrors she's trying to fend off by clinging to me don't always haunt her, and then, the judgment becomes so much more scathing. The corridors of Castle Krakenburg are always teeming with people, so many more than should ever be in one location. Aristocrats and lobbyists and influential members of society all hoping to influence the rule of Nohr in some way, and perhaps pick up some juicy tidbit of gossip while they're at it. And when my wife and I pass by them, hand in hand, regardless of what they happen to be doing or whom they're speaking to, they always stop. And stare. And curl their lips and recoil slightly, muttering under their breath or behind their hands.
Why are they holding hands?
Is that his daughter?
Ugh, I hope it's his mistress.
They're much too close.
How old is he?
How old is she?
That's disgusting...
It was a never-ending refrain of scorn. I hated it, and I hated the guilt it brought me. Once, when the staccato whispers had grated my nerves raw and left my skin crawling, I pulled my hand out of Nerr's death lock of a grip. She stopped walking, looking up at me for a moment, before glancing down at our now parted hands. For a long time, her face remained the same impassive blank slate it had been for months. She did not grow angry, or burst into tears like she once might have. The change in her demeanor was imperceptible to a stranger, but to someone who had known her for years as I have, it was like seeing a large fracture suddenly appear in a piece of glass, the way her eyes widened ever so slightly. She remained silent and continued walking. The whispers didn't even stop, only growing more curious if anything.
I'm not a violent man by nature.
I prefer to avoid confrontation and violence whenever possible. Nerr is the same. I think it's part of why I love her so. But in that moment, I wanted to slaughter each and every person whose whispers filled my ears until the sound of their gurgled, dying breaths drowned out everything else.
...I've been having much more violent thoughts since my stint in Valla.
Perhaps because death was always on my mind in there. But I never acted on those impulses. I pushed them down and buried them and forgot about them. Not Nerr, though. I heard later from the royal gardener that she had gone on a rampage in the hunting forest. He didn't say it was her specifically, but the moment he said it looked as though a "monster had ripped everything up", I knew he was talking about my wife. When she returned to our shared room later that night, we didn't talk about it. We never talked about things like this. We used to. When she was my liege and I was nothing more than her retainer, she would've told me everything that was wrong, she'd have poured her heart out to me, and I would have... accepted it.
Comforted her.
Remained silent, because that was my duty. I'm not supposed to burden my ladyship with my troubles. Even though she wants me to. I should be happy- so, so happy- that my beloved wants to help shoulder my burdens. But it just makes me hate myself even more, because she's a little girl, dammit. Even though she's not. Even though she's a grown woman now, physically, mentally, legally... I've known her since she was four years old. I used to sing her lullabies and cradle her to sleep, and now, she often does the same to me.
It's repugnant. I never should have even broached the subject of love with her. If she had some kind of inappropriate infatuation with me, she would've grown out of it had I not encouraged her, even though she adamantly claims that is not the case and that she would've been utterly miserable had I not.
I should have taken these feelings to my grave. Every time I remember how disgusting and weak I am for thinking with my heart and not my mind, I hate myself even more. I adore this girl with all that I am. She brought me hope and light and happiness when I thought all I had to live for was vengeance. I love her so much, and that's the worst thing of all.
I just want to be happy. Why is that so wrong?
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A/N- Additional information for TRD's epilogue- that's how you can think of this. Even though I love Nerr and Gunther, I never imagined that they have the healthiest relationship. Yes, they love each other and are supportive of one another, but both of them are in desperate need of several years of intense, personal therapy. How can you be in a healthy relationship if you yourself are not healthy?
So, I'm certain this is mostly a mentality caused by the most vocal portion of the Fire Emblem fandom consisting mostly of tweens and weebs who only wanna see their waifus, but my god, do some people flip their shit at the thought of pairing a younger woman (or anyone, really) together with an older man. Argue against it all you like; they're legal, it's consensual- I ship it. Thank you for reading, and I apologize for the wangst.