Cuckoo in the Nest
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Rated T for adult themes.
By the time she reached Altea's capital, Catria had finally decided that the best way to carry a baby was to have it slung on her back like a bag of supplies. At first, she'd been afraid to let the baby out of her sight, and had worn the sling around her neck with the baby secure against her chest. But that method left her head and neck aching, and the sound of her heartbeat didn't lull the baby into sleeping any better than he normally did, so Catria resorted to carrying him around the way the way barbarian women carried their little ones. It left both of them far happier.
This, of course, attracted a fair amount of attention in the Altean streets, especially once Catria made her way to the living quarters of the Royal Knights. She didn't care any more about being noticed; getting out of Macedon had been the tricky part. Now, she wanted to be seen with the child.
Some of the Altean knights looked vaguely familiar, but Catria didn't see any of her close comrades from the war. A number of the Alteans seemed to know her, though, or at least they could see she was a woman who meant business; she was directed, without much delay, to the quarters of the Knight Captain. Cain had moved up in the ranks; it didn't surprise her in the least. And it was a good thing, another step toward attaining what she needed right then.
For the sake of presentation, she untied the baby from her back and had him in her arms when Cain opened the door.
"Catria!"
He looked just as she remembered him, freckled from the sun and with tufts of hair sticking up around his ears. He was smiling at first, pleased despite the surprise, but a familiar frown replaced that smile as he took in the sight of her with the sleepy, dribbling baby with a shock of red hair.
"Catria?"
"It's not what you think," she said, as quietly as she dared. "Can we talk in private?"
"This is as much privacy as anyone has around here," Cain replied as he ushered her into his apartment. The rooms, Catria noted, were a definite step up from Cain's old bunk in the barracks. Still, the furnishings were more about efficient living than comfortable living, and the only real decoration was a portrait of the Altean king on the parlor wall by the fireplace. Catria seated herself on the couch, hoping that the baby wouldn't decide to wake up and spit something across the polished wood and leather; she stared a while at the portrait while Cain fixed them some refreshments.
"Does the baby need any milk? I can have some brought up from the dairy."
He was taking this all in stride... for now.
"No, he's eating regular food now." And screaming like a demon whenever a tooth came in, as it did during the first leg of her trip north. "I don't know if he'd like cow's milk, anyway... we don't drink that in Macedon."
"I'm sorry, I should have asked... how old is he?"
"Eight months." Catria turned away from the portrait to see the effect of her words on Cain. The frown became a stern expression indeed. Cain, ever one with a head for numbers, performed the calculations in his head and didn't like the answer.
"Catria, what is this?"
"I told you, it's not what you think." She accepted the wine he offered her and drank a deep swallow of it. Her mouth was going dry; confessing state secrets on the level of high treason usually did that to her. "He's not yours."
"He's either four months too young or a month too old to be," Cain replied. They'd only lain together twice, both times here in the Altean capital, on nights when homecoming celebrations had turned more complicated than joyful.
"And he's not mine, either."
Cain's bold brows arched ceilingward.
"You'll have to start from the beginning. I can't follow this."
Catria let her eyes drift back to the portrait.
"Cain, you'll recall that Princess Minerva abdicated and retired to a convent."
"Of course. I deal with the ramifications of that one every day. I've had to send three platoons down to Macedon in the last two months."
"Yes. And you must have sent the greenest novices you could scrape together, but we'll talk about that later. Now, at the time, it was said that the princess wanted to care for her younger sister, who of course was greatly... troubled... by the effects of her captivity during the war."
"Yes. How is Maria doing, by the way?"
"Much better. She spends a lot of time with the orphans in the convent, teaching them basic things like numbers and letters- she's good for them, and I think they're good for her. But, as I was saying... there are other reasons that noble women do retire to convents. Less... respectable reasons."
Cain had taken a seat across from her; his large hands had rested easily upon the arms of the chair, but his fingers stiffened perceptibly at her words.
Catria took another swallow of wine. Saying words that could never be safely uttered before just wasn't easy.
"You'll recall that Princess Minerva had an exceptionally close relationship with her late brother, the former king."
Cain, to his credit, controlled everything except the width of his pupils. Those grew larger, blacker, swallowing up much of the bright color in his eyes. How convenient for them all that Cain's eyes were so close in color to those of the former Macedonian royals.
"It seems that during the final days of Michalis, when Minerva was caring for him in that village near the outer reaches of Dolhr... well, something happened. And not for the first time. But that particular time..." She looked down at the baby- still sleeping, still dribbling, and completely unaware of his role in world events. "And this was the result."
"And why have you taken the trouble to bring the child here?" His voice sounded only a little... strangled.
"It wasn't safe to leave him at the convent. There were too many present who might put the pieces together and realize that the princess had a child, and that this must be that child."
"And this is safer?"
"Altea is the only safe place. Stable, completely loyal to King Marth, and far away from the intrigues at Pales and Khadein. This is the only place we can be safe, and you're the man I can trust to keep us that way. We have to hide him, Cain. Here. For the rest of his life."
They were quiet for a time. Catria heard bells chiming out the hour in a distant courtyard. She heard the baby gurgle as he shifted position on her lap.
"Are you asking me to take the heir to the bloodline of the former throne of Macedon and raise him as my son? On account of my loyalty and the color of his hair?" Cain ran one of his hands through his own hair, thick and unruly and with nearly the same brilliance as the auburn hair of Macedon's royalty.
"I am asking that we raise him as our son," she said, the words coming out low but with more conviction than she felt.
"This is madness, Catria."
"It can't be any other way, Cain. Macedon is no happy land- there are rumors that Michalis still lives, yet again, rumors that Minerva was forced into the convent, that she and Maria are held against their will and are in danger of losing their lives should they speak out. If some of the disaffected, some of the old nobles or former generals, should learn of a son of Michalis, or a child of Minerva's- never mind both!- can you imagine the threat?"
Cain had closed his eyes; his head was resting against the back of the chair in what Catria recognized as a pose of... well, not defeat, but resignation to fate. She lifted the child up from her lap; the baby stirred, but still didn't wake. He kept to his own schedule, Catria thought ruefully.
"We cannot let this child be used as a political tool. For his sake, for the sake of King Marth's dream of a unified continent... and for the sake of King Marth's children. On their account, I will not be returning to Macedon. We won't be returning to Macedon."
Really, Cain didn't have a choice. She'd put forth her argument in the terms that Cain knew best, in the language that his heart spoke, and she knew what his answer would be. If she hadn't known him that well, she wouldn't have come to Altea at all.
"What's his name?" Cain said at last, sounding almost casual about it.
"Philip. It's a very common name for boys in Macedon... it just means 'fond of horses.'"
"I won't let my son be named 'Philip.'" Cain pulled his long body out of the chair and walked over to where Catria sat. "He will be called 'Justin,' a solid Altean name. My father's name."
"Justin," Catria repeated. She hadn't cared for the orphanage-bestowed name of Philip either, and in truth had been thinking of the baby simply as... well, Baby.
"Justin." Cain touched two of his fingers to the child's red tuft of hair, thereby acknowledging the child as his son. It would have been the perfect moment for Justin to open his eyes, but he merely opened his mouth to emit a loud, greedy-sounding smack.
"He's a happy baby," Catria murmured to end the pause that followed. "Except when he cuts a tooth..."
"He should be happy," said Cain, and there was as much of the unyielding knight in his face as there was of the satisfied patriarch. "In Altea, there is nothing to fear."
To be Continued...
A/N: Obviously, this is going to be a fairly weird story, even by my standards. Stay tuned...
Re: Continuity... I'm sort of mushing up the standard FE3 "Michalis dies" with the FE12 "Michalis lives!" endings- he survived for a while in that village where he hands over Starlight, and Minerva tried to save him, but he died anyway because being sexy is NOT enough to get a free pass on one's actions. For those of you interested, Cain and Catria got together twice- one after the liberation of Altea during the War of Heroes (when everyone was shaken by Abel's betrayal), and again after the "victory party" during which Est skipped town. Again, adding some FE12 elements to the mix on this one.