Heartbeat
DISCLAIMER: Yggdra Union and everything associated © Sting.
One morning, as the Emperor stood half-awake before the dressing room's mirror, already finished ignoring his formal attire for those familiar comfortably worn work clothes that were easiest to wrestle into with hands too tired for anything but going through the motions—one morning, on a whim, he pulled his hair back.
Pulled his hair back—the phrase is misleading. Gulcasa was forever pulling his hair back, yanking it into a loose and inattentive horsetail at the nape of his neck to keep it out of the way while he performed some task or another. His pride and his vanity wouldn't allow him to cut his hair, but it was long and heavy and tended to cascade forward whenever he needed to see what was on his desk or in his hands.
Instead of that familiar, halfhearted tie—one morning, on a whim, the Emperor pulled his hair carefully and meticulously into a high ponytail, refining the wild red river down his back into one trickle of flame. And he stared impassively at his reflection.
"…"
There wasn't anything to be done about his bangs. They'd grown out, grown heavy, and with the rest of his hair tied back, it was a little overpowering. But more than that—
A bit self-consciously, Gulcasa lifted his hand and touched the point of his left ear. …These were more apparent than ever.
When had they gotten like this, really—assumed this shape? The change had to have been gradual. If he'd just woken up one day with his ears like this he would have noticed, but it had struck him all of a sudden looking at himself like this the way it occurred to him now and then that he'd gotten a lot taller lately, and would probably pass even Leon's height soon.
Gulcasa frowned at his reflection.
It was a truth he wasn't trying to run from, so why did it feel like a slap in the face? His blood, his ears, his strength, that vague sense of unease like growing pains—he'd accepted them all when he'd accepted his power. He knew what it meant, but he didn't think it was a bad thing. He had accepted his rightful place, and with it, the might to protect his people—all of them, not just the ones in front of his eyes. The might to serve his god.
In exchange, his body was slowly becoming less and less human.
He didn't care. Neither did the people around him, the people who loved him. So he usually paid it little mind, and accepted the small changes when they became obvious enough for him to notice.
Gulcasa looked at himself long and hard in the mirror, and then glanced down, softly pulling his hair loose from the tail. It settled heavily about his shoulders and down his back, all warm familiar weight.
"…It doesn't suit me."