Namesake
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Warnings: Contains massive spoilers for FE2 (Gaiden), including the Great Plot Twist(s). Features Alm/Cellica with references to Zeke/Teeta.
The imperial guards of Rigel raise a shout to the heavens: Long live Emperor Rudolf the Second! Alm stares at the hilt of the Royal Sword, gripped by his numbed fingers, as an icy sweat rolls down the back of his neck. It can't possibly be true. Can't possibly...
-x-
As he sits beneath the roof of Rigel Castle for his first celebratory meal with his people, they call him Prince Albyne and treat him as someone treasured although most have never seen him before in all their lives. He can see in their eyes the hope that he will like whatever is laid before him. He watches them nod and agree with all he says even though his southern accent must make it hard for them to understand. He doesn't understand everything they say, either. They stare at him as though everything he does- every toast he makes, every bite he takes of food- is a wonder. It's only when some of the ladies nervously switch their knives from the left hand to the right that he realizes something is wrong.
Alm feels shame before his people, even though he shouldn't. He can't blame Mycen for not warning him about this; it would have been suspicious for any patriotic youth of Sofia to learn to eat the way the uncivilized brutes of Rigel cut their meat. And so he makes mistakes, and people copy them, because after all he is their prince, their next emperor. He is, or will be, Rudolf the Second of Rigel. And if the new emperor holds his fork in the wrong hand, then everybody else must switch over and make the wrong... right.
General Zeke, who is still learning the customs of Rigel himself, has a few words for Alm whenever he slips up, and that helps a little. Alm learns not only when he is wrong, but why, which at least helps him to remember not to do something again. Still, he makes mistake after mistake- he is appalled when he is asked to lay a wreath of flowers at the place where the late emperor died. To Alm, flowers are a symbol of prosperity and abundance; they have no place in the rites of the dead. In Rigel, where the goddess Mila never cultivated the land, flowers represent the fleeting nature of life and youth and beauty, and they adorn every grave. Alm knows this- he learned it somewhere, at some time- but lifelong beliefs aren't so easy to throw aside.
-x-
It bothers him when Gray or Robin cuts short a joke that is suddenly unworthy of his ears. It bothers him when Claire looks away from him, flushed and stammering.
"It's me," he wants to shout at them. "I haven't sprouted wings or grown a tail! Stop looking at me like I'm some imposter."
Yet he is. He isn't "Prince Albyne," whoever that is... whoever the people of Rigel want him to be. Whatever Valencia wants him to be. He draws the line when General Massena suggests- politely- that Prince Albyne the true heir of Emperor Rudolf should probably not refer to the Prime Minister as his grandfather. Alm responds by passing an act that makes Mycen his grandfather, in title if not in blood, and after that nobody can complain. Cellica shakes her head, but then she smiles at him. Cellica understands the difference between something "right" that is just people doing what they've always done and something really being right. Part of their task is to set their people free from just doing what they've always been doing, and to guide the people in the direction that's right... even if it's more difficult. It usually is.
He hesitates whenever he writes down the name "Albyne" on a piece of parchment- and he won't write Rudolf. Maybe he feels he hasn't earned the name yet, but it doesn't feel right to him. Sometimes Cellica has to signal discreetly to him when someone says "Albyne" so that Alm remembers and responds to it, but he flinches inside at the idea of becoming Rudolf the Second. And he remembers what Rudolf the First said with his dying breath- he called his son "Alm." Not Albyne.
Besides, he isn't just the heir to Rigel. With Cellica beside him, they will bring both halves of Valencia together. Whatever he calls himself, he's going to be the first king of all Valencia... not the Second of anything.
He gives the foreign pegasus knights who aided Cellica a letter to take back to their people in the east and signs the parchment "Albyne" with a hesitant hand. Months later, he receives a letter in return from the emperor across the seas. Hardin of Archanea calls him a valiant youth, someone he would be pleased to ally with. Alm is surprised by how much it delights him; he reads the letter over and over, reads out loud to Cellica the praise the older man gives them both, and feels an odd sort of warmth inside. Perhaps this Emperor Hardin is a man like Rudolf the First... a man like Alm's own father. Wise and just and willing to give anything, however great, for his people.
But it would make Alm feel even better if the emperor knew him by his real name.
-x-
Cellica always calls him "Alm," and Mycen calls him that behind closed doors even if it's always "Your Highness" in public. Zeke calls him by the name as well; as formal as he is, the general also has an understanding of the difference between right and right and so there's none of this Rudolf the Second nonsense coming from Zeke. At times, Alm has the suspicion that Zeke looks at him yet sees someone else- the shade of the late emperor, perhaps? But even if his eyes get hazy at times, the general's words are always correct.
When Zeke begs for a leave of absence to visit his homeland over the seas, Alm is disappointed. There are questions he can ask Zeke and yet can't ask anyone else, like why three is an unlucky number in Rigel. Cellica knows that it is unlucky because of the books she's read, but she can't tell him why the way that Zeke can. But Alm agrees to let Zeke go for a while, because he knows the loneliness in the other man's soul. Zeke has a love and companion in Teeta, just as Alm can rely on Cellica, but Alm knows exactly what it's like to be somewhere he doesn't completely belong. If he could go back to Rahm Village and just be himself again... but he can't. He can do anything except that. Anything except go home and bring his father back to life.
Things get a little crazy once Zeke leaves. Refugees from Archanea turn up on Alm's shores, bringing with them tales of savage things overseas. Emperor Hardin is plagued by rebels- several rebellions have broken out at once, and the continent has fallen into chaos. A year ago, Alm might have felt immediate sympathy for these rebels fighting their impossible war against a mighty emperor, but he understands now that the situation is unlikely to be so simple. He sends Hardin another letter, offering whatever assistance the united kingdom of Valencia can provide- some pegasus knights, some mercenaries, whatever Hardin needs. No reply ever comes from over the water.
It's odd to be without Zeke, without his fellow stranger, but Alm has his grandfather and Bishop Noma and many other good men- like Sir Clerbe and General Massena- to consult when he needs advice or when he just wants to see if his own instincts are sound. And of course he has Cellica, who gives him better advice than almost anyone. Even when Cellica is not at his side, Alm feels her eyes upon him, and his heart can sense her smile whenever he does right. And, after a while, Grey and Robin learn the kind of jokes that they can tell their ruler, and Claire stops looking strangely at him and settles down with Grey, and everything falls into place one little bit at a time.
-x-
Zeke's absence lasts more than a year; some at court give the general up for dead and urge Alm to choose a successor for the Gold Knight. It gives Alm great pleasure to present Zeke to them, thinner and disheveled but very much alive. Teeta can fix Zeke up, Alm is certain, and then everything will be back to normal. Alm does have his own questions for Zeke, but at Cellica's urging he saves the questions for later, for a private moment when the officers jealous of Zeke are far away.
"Were you able to help Emperor Hardin?"
"Yes... in a sense," Zeke replies.
Zeke tells his story, not all at once but in pieces spread out over many evenings when it is only the three of them... or four, as Cellica usually has baby Mycen at her breast. Alm mouths the unfamiliar names- Lang, Gharnef- and reminds himself that there are yet men like Nuibaba and Dozer, men who take delight in evil deeds and in destroying the lives of other men. One fragment at a time, Alm begins to understand what Zeke meant about "helping" the tragic emperor; Cellica presses her fingers into his palm while they hear Zeke's somber account of madness and destruction. Alm tucks an arm around Cellica's shoulders as they hear of the terrible things that befell the three pegasus knights who fought so bravely alongside them in their own war.
Their war. It's funny, Alm thinks, how a great war could be such a good thing for Valencia. Their war cleansed and united and brought heroes out of obscurity, just as Rudolf the First envisioned it. This foreign war brought down kingdoms and turned its best heroes into madmen and murderers. The world Zeke left behind must be a place where love destroys as much as it saves, where light is as terrifying as any darkness. The message Zeke brings from Archanea is not of triumph over the whims of the gods, but of surrender to their will, and the thought makes Alm feel like ice crystals have formed in his blood. For a moment, he wonders what he has really taken on. Is there another twist of fate lying in wait for him, something that will knock him off his feet and make him question the most basic things about himself- who he is, what he is?
Alm stares for a moment at the brightly-wrapped bundle in the crook of Cellica's arm. He wonders how anyone- however great, however inspired- would base their plans for the world on something as tiny and fragile as a newborn baby. Maybe his father was, in his own way, as mad as poor Emperor Hardin.
"Don't change yourself, Alm." Zeke's eyes, deep brown and shadowed, bore through him. "You'll be fine just as you are."
The comment seems to come out of nowhere, and Alm turns to Cellica to see if she understands. Her eyes, warm and bright and unusually sad, lock onto his and Alm can see the beginnings of her beautiful smile. She understands. She always does.
-x-
When the crown of united Valencia is set upon his head, his people welcome him not as King Albyne, not as Emperor Rudolf, but as Alm- the first of that name since unification. The first of his kind, the first of many, for as long as Valencia itself will endure. A new name for a new age, an age when men can define their own destiny. An age where anything- absolutely anything- really is possible.
And They Lived Happily Ever After
Author's Notes: Just a weird little scribble that came to me after an uncomfortable meet'n'greet function I had to attend. Alm is really something of an unreliable narrator in this, at least with regard to his father (Rudolf I)- he's fantasizing and projecting things regarding a "father" he never knew and didn't even respect until after Rudolf was dead. Those issues may take him a while to sort out, but at least he has Cellica and a nice support network. And yes, his full name really is "Albyne Alm Rudolf"- quite a mouthful.