This is...the fourth Ike x Zelgius fanfiction currently on Fanfiction-dot-net. I think. Unless there's a few hiding somewhere that I can't find... (And of the other three, two are mine and crossovers. The fourth is a lovely fanfic called A Moment of Interest by Sol Hiryu, which I quite like except for the lemon bits. Lemon makes me uncomfortable...^^;)
Why isn't there more Zelgius/Ike? Is it really that bad?
Anyway, I felt like it'd been too long since I'd written these guys. So I decided to write something. This is pretty much my headcanon for Zelgius' backstory, plus some Zelgius/Ike stuff at the end that I couldn't help adding. It's pretty much a part of my headcanon too, after all. If there're too many OCs, I understand, but they're kinda necessary when writing someone's backstory like this...
I hope I wasn't too out-of-character for them. I was trying to stay in-character, but I may have lapsed...or maybe they're all out-of-character. I don't know. It's open for interpretation.

Well, enjoy! :)

~DarkieDucessa

Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem belongs to Nintendo & Intelligent Systems.

I once had a home. A happy place, a place where I was safe—a place where I had someone that cared for me.

But I was not born in that place. I was born into a broken house, into a family that hated me for something that wasn't even my fault.

My mother was a peasant girl. Danielle was her name. I was told she had green eyes and golden hair and a beautiful smile, but I never saw that smile myself because she could never bring herself to show it to me. She hated me from the moment she first laid eyes on me, and it was all she could do not to cast me aside.

My father was the disillusioned son of a house that had once been noble. His name was Patrick. His grandfather had been a Begnion noble, but he moved to Daein shortly before his son was born. He bought a stately home in a small Daein town and lived a modest yet comfortable life, and his son tried to maintain that life for his family; but Patrick cared little for such things, and the estate fell into disrepair and ruin under his leadership. Or, should I say, lack thereof.

He didn't try to defend me when I was born. He saw me, a newborn infant with raven-blue hair that matched his own, and wanted to be rid of me.

Because I was marked. Tainted. Branded.

Because the son of Patrick's grandfather was not the son of my great-grandfather's wife, no. He was the son of a slave. A Laguz slave. And that blood had resurfaced into a Brand on my back, shaped like the wings of the slave, and proving that my blood—and, in turn, his—was not pure.

I surely would've been abandoned to die, were it not for that same slave whose blood had tainted the line. That beautiful woman, with brown wings and dark hair and piercing golden eyes, who had stayed with the family even after her grandson swallowed the anti-Laguz propaganda and treated her as less than dirt.

Her name was Sydelle.

She defended me, convinced Patrick and Danielle not to let me die. Promised that they would be happy for it, when they were older and needed support. Reminded them that even if I was inferior, they could always send me to the army, and let me die on a battlefield. And so they kept me alive.

Danielle cared for me until I was old enough not to need her sustenance. Then she left me to Sydelle.

It was she that raised me. She that brought me up, who taught me right from wrong, who taught me how to think. In a family of hatred and violence, she was my only light, the only one who cared, and I thought the world of her. She was my world.

Patrick and Danielle only had one other child. Two years or so after my birth, they tried again, and produced a daughter. She was much like me, in appearance. Same raven hair, same green eyes.

Same mark on her back.

After Kita's birth, Danielle gave up on life. She fell ill, and lingered for about a year before passing away. I believe she willed herself to die—so that she wouldn't have to face the two abominations that she had created. So she wouldn't be a parent of the Parentless.

After her death, life became even worse. Patrick discovered the solitude of the drink, and there was many a night where he was hardly even sensible enough to speak angry words.

And there were many more nights when he would rage against the world, and our part in ruining it. Those were always painful. Those were the nights where I would crawl under my bed and cry, trying to ignore the pain in my back, the blood on the floor, praying that he wouldn't come and find me and tell me how worthless I was.

Sydelle was strong, but she was not all-powerful. She couldn't protect me from Patrick's rages. The best she could do was take care of me afterwards, and this she did, every night, without fail. She would find me, and take me out from under the bed, and clean and bandage my wounds, and give me herbs that lessened the pain. She would hold me to her, and tell me stories of places where there was no Patrick, there was no hatred or violence, where everyone was loved no matter the blood in their veins.

I loved her. I loved her hair, her eyes, her hands, her wings, the silver markings across her face. I loved her beyond all reason; I loved her as a goddess, a shining star, a mother that I wanted more than anything. She was my mother more than Danielle could ever have been. She was my only reason for living; without her, I might have willed myself into death as Danielle did.

That was my home. When Sydelle held me in her arms, that was my only happy place. My home. I wish I could've been home more, for longer, but my visits there were always too brief.

Kita wasn't like that at all. She bore my Brand, my looks, but those were our only similarities. While I devoted myself to Sydelle, she devoted herself to Patrick—to her father, the man who beat her and cursed her and told her she should never have existed.

While I would cry with Sydelle after a beating, she would sit outside Patrick's door and not make a sound. I saw her doing this only a few times. She would sit there and stare at the wood, and tears would be streaming down her cheeks and blood down her back, but no noise would she make.

No matter how much I think of her, I have never understood her at all. Not her mind, not her reasons, not anything. Perhaps that is for the best.

This state of things lasted for years. Kita and I aged, but our bodies took a long time to catch up. This seemed to make Patrick angrier, and as the years passed he drank more and beat us more. Oddly enough, he never touched Sydelle, but that was hardly a comfort.

Then, when I was eighteen, Patrick died.

It was not an accident on his part. It was not from natural causes.

It was me. My fault. I killed him.

He was drunk, he was raving. He tried to force himself on Kita. My pent-up rage, at him, at the world, came out all at once. I hardly even remember what happened, but I know I hit him so many times that I bruised my knuckles and caked my hands in blood.

Then he fell down the stairs, and his neck snapped.

After that, everything was a blur. Kita immediately took control of the estate, such as it was, and made arrangements for the funeral. She came up with a cover story that people believed, and pushed me away into the shadows.

I didn't mind. I didn't care about any of that at all, in fact.

Because I was with Sydelle. She had taken ill, but though she usually pulled through disease easily, this time was different.

She lingered for a few months in a near-coma, then died.

I didn't know how to go on. My world was dead. My everything was dead. My reason for living was dead. It was as though life had been sucked out of everything, light and color, and I was living in a world of gray. Cold, lifeless gray.

I buried her under the tree in front of the house. I'd hardly finished placing the headstone over her grave when Kita came and told me I wasn't needed.

I wasn't needed there. I wasn't needed anywhere. I was useless, a boy who looked four years younger than he actually was, with no practical skills in anything, who had murdered his own father. I was worthless. I was hated.

I was nothing.

So I joined the Daein Army, in the hopes that I might die on a battlefield with even the smallest shred of honor.

For years I lingered there, training. If I was worthless, then I needed to gain something of worth, so I set my sights on the blade and trained with anyone who was willing to spar with me.

It was in this way that I met my greatest teacher. General Gawain of Daein, one of the Four Riders. I was assigned to the border post that he was passing through, on his return from a mission. Late into the night, I was the only one still out—I had long shifts during the daylight hours, but despite that I practiced all night through. I had seen him spar during the day, and that night, I practiced some of the moves I had seen him perform. Though I didn't know it at the time, he was watching.

The following morning, he asked me who was in charge of my training. Who had taught me. I told him that I had nobody, that I had taught myself through watching those greater than I, such as him. He asked if I would consider going back to Nevassa with him, to join the men under his command. To learn the blade under him.

I said yes.

The five years after that are all a blur to me now. A whirlwind of training, of battles, of technique and swords and combat and the man who taught me how to be worth something.

For the first time since Sydelle's death, I was happy. If Sydelle was my mother, then Gawain was the father I'd always wanted, always desperately craved. My world revolved around him, and I loved every minute of it.

But I was aging far slower than anyone else, and though I was approaching my thirtieth birthday, I still looked as young as twenty. I tried to hide it—wore armor as much as I could, walked in shadows, tried not to associate with others. But it was inevitable that someone would notice, someone would ask questions—and then someone would find out, see my Brand, and then the hatred would return. The pain and the darkness would shroud me again. No; before that happened, I would have to leave—and meeting the Sage only seemed to emphasize the point.

The Sage. I know him now as Sephiran. Something about him was...different. He was kind. He drew me in, and I gave him my trust—and he did not betray it. I shared my darkest secrets with him and he didn't judge me at all. It was the first time I'd met someone since Sydelle who was like that—pure, unjudging, gracious, and kind. Meeting him gave me hope that maybe I might, someday, find acceptance in this world. I'll always be grateful for that.

He offered me his friendship and his sanctuary, should I decide to leave the army. I accepted. I had nowhere else to go, after all—and nobody else who I could truly call a friend.

A year after that, Gawain and his wife disappeared. There was no warning. It shattered me to my core. The man I idolized, who I cared for over all others, who I had thought cared for me to some extent at least...the man I considered my father...

He had left me. He was gone.

I promised myself never to let myself get attached to someone like that again. To never love someone, as I had loved Sydelle, as I had loved Gawain. It always ended in pain, after all, so what was the point?

I left soon after. Much like he had, I disappeared in the night and gave no warning to anyone.

I sought out Sephiran, and he took me in, as he had promised. For six years, he cared for me, stood by my side even when I was in my darkest moods. When I fell into despair, he helped me back into the light again.

He told me I had worth. That I was worth something—not just a piece of scum, to be cast aside without hesitation, but a being like everyone else. A person in my own right, with my own value.

He told me I was the best friend he'd ever had. I would've given up the past ten years of my life to have someone say that to me. My vow was close to breaking, for a friend like Sephiran was all I'd ever wanted, and I loved him for it.

Not in a romantic way. Not quite like Sydelle or Gawain, either.

He was the brother, the only one that understood me. And that was close enough.

Then we went to Gallia. Sephiran had had some kind of foresight, forboding, and he took me to search for Gawain.

We came too late. Gawain had touched a medallion, the medallion that drove people to madness, and he had slaughtered all in his path. Including his wife.

Elena...I had met her before. A beautiful woman, kind and gentle. She was a healer, and there were many times where I had found myself being cared for by her after a battle. She never questioned me when I refused to remove my armor, only insisting on it when it was necessary for her to properly tend to the wound. She was wonderful and I loved her, too.

Seeing her on the ground, with a gaping wound in her chest and all her blood staining the grass, was almost too much to bear.

And then I met his children.

Gawain's children, the son and daughter I had never met. A son that had seen the whole thing and couldn't comprehend it, and a daughter too young to understand how painful this was. She thought her mother was sleeping, and I allowed her the illusion, assuming Gawain would explain it to her himself when he awoke. I carried the general I had idolized and the woman he had killed into their home, and then Sephiran had cleared the memories of the children, so they wouldn't grow up with the memories of their mother's murder.

Ike and Mist were their names. I marked them down in my mind without even knowing how significant they would later become.

It was weeks before I felt worth something again.

Ten years passed. I spent my time training, practicing, pushing myself to greater heights. Sephiran arranged a backstory for me, and I took a place in the army of Begnion, slowly rising through the ranks until I was a general. Then he arranged another identity for me in Daein, and I became one of the Four Riders of the new king.

In Begnion, I fought battles and became something of a legend. I began to hear my name whispered in my soldiers' barracks—and they weren't whispers of scorn, no. They were whispers of awe.

That day was the first day in a long time that I felt I might have worth again.

Then war was declared. Crimea was invaded. I fought for Daein, and I began to wonder whether this was truly a cause I should be fighting. Still, for Sephiran's sake, I fought on.

And then I met Gawain again. He had a new name, Greil, and wielded an axe, but it was still he. On Crimea's side, protecting their secret princess.

He didn't know it was me—the black armor I wore assured that. But I knew him instantly, and to see him there wrenched my heart all over again.

But now I had a purpose. I had a reason to fight. For if I could fight my old teacher, the man I had idolized, and defeat him, prove I'd surpassed him, then perhaps I would be truly worth something at last.

I will never forget that night for as long as I live.

We met in the woods. He wielded his axe; I wielded the golden blade that Sephiran had given me.

We fought.

Oh, how we fought!

I can hear every ring in my head, every sound our weapons made when they connected. Every step we took, every attack, every block, parry, or counter—I can see it all, I can feel it all in my mind.

Feel how disappointing it was. How...simple.

I tried to give him a sword. Even the odds. But he wouldn't take it.

Then his son arrived. He tried to intervene, but Gawain told him to stay back.

There were words said. He recognized my voice. That made me happier than it should've, but I didn't care.

Then it happened.

I thought he would block. It seemed too simple, too easy an attack for him not to dodge.

But he didn't.

I stabbed him. I killed him.

And that was all there was.

Nothing made sense after that. Did this mean I had worth, to have killed my teacher? Or did that mean I was worthless, to have beaten him so easily and then let him die?

Truly, I believe I lost all worth there. No one who would kill a good man is truly worthy of anything at all.

Still, I hid it. I hid what I felt. His son tried to stand up to me, and I wounded him. It was harder to hide after that. Wounding children, truly I was worth nothing...

I made threats—such empty words—but there was an intervention, and I fled. I have never been so happy to run away in my life.

After that, there was only hiding. Hiding from the Daein king, hiding from my Begnion superiors, hiding from Sephiran...hiding from myself.

What kind of person was I, to have killed the only man I've ever idolized—the man who taught me to fight, to be worth something?

I was nothing again. I was in the pain and the darkness again. I'd never been less alone, and yet I was more alone then I'd ever been.

And all I could show was control. Control, calmness, seriousness. As thought the storm inside didn't exist; as though I wasn't worthless again.

But then I was sent to Daein, with troops to assist the Crimean Liberation Army, which the Apostle of Begnion had provided. It was the midst of the winter, it was cold, I was alone.

Then I met the general of the army, and I realized it was Ike. Gawain's son. I'd nearly forgotten in the darkness, but the first word out of his mouth sent my mind flying into the past.

We spoke. Formalities, arrangements, explanations. I felt as though there was another man speaking, for all I could think of was him.

I hadn't realized before, somehow, but he wasn't a child anymore.

And then I got to watch him. Watch his honesty, his strength, his valor. Watch him speak with troops, bandy words with friends, laugh as though he had no worries and yet darken his tone when important matters arose. Watch him face everything that came his way, and come out unscathed and stronger than before.

It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

And it was the first time I'd felt anything but pain in so many months.

He left me behind to press on to Crimea, and when he was gone I wondered what I was worth. Wondered if I was truly worthy to fight him again, he who was worth so much to so many.

But for my only friend, I had to fight him again.

We fought twice more. The first time, I won. The second time...

Nados Castle. He wounded me, defeated me, and collapsed the castle on top of me—and yet, when I managed to escape back to Sephiran for repair, I felt lighter than I ever had.

Gawain had cut his sword arm. He wasn't at his full strength. I hadn't surpassed him after all, and for some reason, that knowledge was liberating. I felt like the darkness was receding again, and though I was hurting more than I ever had, my heart was light as a feather.

So when I returned to Crimea with new scars to fight in the final battle, I fought with entirely new resolve.

And when it was over? Not just the battle, but all the after-battle necessities, such as healing and tending to my men?

Well, I sought out Ike. And, searching my mind for an excuse to speak with him, I asked him if he would like to spar.

Yes. We had just fought a great battle together not a week past, yet I was asking him to spar with me. Still, he accepted.

Fighting him, without the damned black armor clouding my vision—and then speaking with him afterwards, listening to his laugh, seeing him smile—my vow, already stretched, finally shattered beyond all repair.

I loved him.

Not like Gawain or Elena. Not even like Sephiran. No, I would've gladly given everything I had to be worthy of even one kiss from him.

Not even a kiss. Anything. A hug, a touch, to entwine my fingers with his—I would've died to be worthy of him at all.

I couldn't tell him, of course. He wouldn't have understood. So I only watched him, every chance I got, and prayed to anyone that might be listening that I could someday be worthy of him.

Then a day came when we were sparring, I was winning, and it was all I could do not to kiss him—right there, right then, for all the world to see. My desire was almost killing me.

He finally put his sword aside, conceding himself defeated. He had an injury on his arm—an accident, but this happens when you spar with real weapons—and he asked me if I would bandage it for him. He didn't want to bother anybody.

So I did. It was close to his shoulder, so I had to get close to him in order to bandage it properly.

Then he offhandedly asked my opinion on a certain relationship that had recently been started between two young women under his command. A myrmidon and a mage.

I said I didn't have much opinion on it.

He persisted, asking if I thought it was odd.

Thought what was odd, I asked.

That they were both women, he replied. That two people of the same gender were in a romantic relationship. Did I think that odd?

It was hard to keep my face straight when I replied. No, I told him. No, it's not odd at all. It's as fine as one between a man and a woman would be—who are we to judge others preferences, after all.

Good, he said. I don't think it's odd, either.

I tied off his bandage. I told him I was done.

I don't know if he saw me sweating, or saw the faint redness in my cheeks, but he asked if he made me nervous.

No, I told him.

You sure? he asked.

Yes.

You seem nervous.

You're making me nervous now.

Oh. Sorry.

It's fine.

Really, I don't want to make you nervous.

I'm not nervous.

Would you kiss me?

...

That's exactly how he said it. As casually as if he'd mentioned the weather.

And I couldn't help myself. I kissed him.

When he kissed back, the pain finally stopped. As if it had never been there.

It was wonderful.

He told me later that he'd loved me since he'd left Daein, but he hadn't known how to tell me. And his friends had told him to just tell me and be done with it. I'm glad he had the nerve to try—I never would have.

But he did. He did try, and we found out that our feelings were mutual at last.

It was wonderful.

He was wonderful.

I've never been so happy in my life.

After that, it was torture to not be near him. When he was in sight, when I could hear his voice, all my pain was gone; and when he was gone, my pain returned hundredfold.

Then I began to hurt around him again, because I finally remembered that I was his father's murderer, and that made me worthless to him.

I couldn't tell him. His heart would break, he would reject me, and then mine would. He would likely kill me, in fact.

The prospect wasn't entirely unpleasant. At least I would die knowing I had some worth in my honesty, as foolish and painful as it was.

So with a prayer to the goddess, I got alone with him. In his room, late at night.

And I confessed to everything. I told him everything and asked if he wanted to kill me.

He got mad at first. Then it turned into rage, but it was a seething rage, one full of hateful words and little physical action. Seeing him that way...still reminded me of Patrick, and that hurt even more than his words.

But then he tossed his sword aside.

And he held me.

And he told me he would never hurt me again.

Even though I was the one who had hurt him, I who had done all the harm, he swore that he would never cause me pain, and I didn't understand at all.

I thought he wanted to kill me. I told him this.

He said he could never kill me. Even for all the terrible things I'd done, to him, to others, he promised he would never harm me.

But why? I asked. Why wouldn't you kill me, why would you stay with me, when I'm not worthy of you at all?

Because you're a good man, he said.

Because you wouldn't have told me unless you truly regretted it.

And...

"Because I love you."

And I cried, like I was seven years old and in Sydelle's arms again, and he held me and kissed me and promised we would never be broken by anything.

And I thought I must be the luckiest man in the world, to be graced with someone like him. To be allowed to cherish and protect someone like him, and to be cherished and protected by someone like him.

I wish I could be like him.

Someone who could pull a man out of the darkness inside him, and show him what it feels like to be truly worthy.

But I'm not good enough for that yet.

Someday...

I hope you enjoyed this product of my very strange mind.

Reviews are very much appreciated! Thanks for reading!

~DarkieDucessa