Author's note: special thanks to my amazing fantabulous wonderful beta, Xirysa.
An Immortal Emperor in a Mundane Universe
murmuring reminiscence, flittering memory,
fluttering evaporation, trembling immortality
the future, past, and present me
The emperor of Grado never laughs. When he smiles at all, a rare sight, it is a mockery, a twisted half-smirk that bares the slightest glimpse of teeth and lends a feral glint to his eyes. There is nothing gentle in his long strides, nothing kind in his quiet, almost demure speech. Sometimes he wonders if there ever was.
There are scraps of a timid prince hanging in his vision, bits and pieces of a torn-up boy with silly loves and sillier dreams, blocking his view of the present and the future. It seems everyone he knows wants to reach out and grasp those tiny shreds of who they think he is, and he does not know how to refuse them what they so dearly desire.
At times he tries to glimpse at them himself, to remember just a little more than he does. Bits and pieces, drowned by the echoes of laughter in his mind and the flash of fire at the back of his eyes. He is holding something – someone? – and on his knees sobbing, on his knees begging, but he does not know for what or why or who. He is watching armies of things he cannot understand, things that ask him for orders in silent stares, but they do not obey the words he screams: go away, go away, for all that is holy, please, go away –
And he is on his throne looking up as the councilors come to tell him his visitors have arrived, hearing his voice saying "Show them inside", watching the men scurry away like insects beneath his gaze.
He does not know their faces, their names, not as he once knew others. Everyone he knew is lost to him, gone with a whispered apology from beneath a dark hood, gone with a word about a fallen brother, gone in silence out of loyalty to a lost king. It is fitting to sit here alone, adrift in a sea of faceless names and nameless faces, an emperor without allies, facing problems he cannot begin to comprehend.
Slowly, he stands, though his knees are weak and his breath is short. He wonders, for a fleeting moment, what might happen if he were to faint. Perhaps some kind assassin will do the deed he swears he hears whispered at every turn, slide his blade quietly against the white of his throat and let another puppet take his place. Even awake, he would not object. He wants to fall and let the floor swallow him up, drag him down to the depths of the darkness that creeps just beyond his reach. It will never happen, not today, not tomorrow. It is just a daydream, just a fantasy, like all the other things lingering beyond his reach.
He must stop dreaming, for the doors are opening and the visitors with their grand retinue and regal vestments are coming inside to face him. He must stand strong. He will show no weakness, no flaws, not before them, for they have seen all of him laid bare before, those dangling scraps of gentle smiles and friendly words, and he must make them forget they were ever there.
The king of Renais walks with a limp, but his pride, that pride that begged to be captured and crushed and scattered across his homeland, keeps him from leaning too heavily on his walking stick. His sister is not far behind, offering smiles and warmth and everything else the emperor does not deserve. They are followed by retainers, by warriors whose blades gleam sharply in the sunlight through the windows – sharp like fangs bared in derision, sharp like the sword shoved in his gut, like the spear sliding into his chest as if his flesh is made of butter, like the taste of blood pooling in his mouth and spilling from his lips and suddenly oh sweet Latona it hurts and –
"Emperor Lyon."
He is still standing, for he does not know if he should bow or shake hands or just tip his head to these – what are they? Friends? Enemies? No, strangers. The emperor does not know them, and they do not know him. The decision is mercifully snatched from his hands, for the princess has extended her hand for a simple shake, and the king is looking on with the slightest hint of suspicion in his eyes.
"Princess Eirika. King Ephraim. Well met."
His hand is in hers, her hand rough against his soft skin, and he imagines her squeezing just so, snapping his birdlike bones between her perfect calloused fingers and breaking him as he has broken everything she loves. But she is still gentle; she is still kind. Her smile is still like sunlight on his face, even as she tries to grasp at those fleeting scraps that insist on blocking his view of her.
"How are you?" From the other voice, from the king, an honest query despite the wariness in his eyes. Where the concern springs from, he cannot say, for he does not understand this compassion offered to someone who lives on only in snippets, only in scraps.
"Well enough." It is not entirely honest, but it is all he can offer. He cannot bring himself to ask the same in return. He hates to hear them both lie, hates to watch their frenetic fantasy dance, hates how they try to deny the injustice of a hero who cannot stand on his own two feet and a heroine with the hands of a warrior facing down a villain who lives on with only scars to show for the lives he has ended.
Silences stretches on between them, punctuated only by the slight rasping in his chest with each breath. It is the king who speaks next, his voice still a hoarse whisper of what the emperor once knew.
"The preparations, how are they coming along? Can Renais be of any assistance?" Preparations, for a disaster he cannot quite remember seeing, though it lurks at the corners of his vision and skitters away when he tries to catch a better glimpse. He cannot remember where, or when, or what he saw, what drove him to the frenzied path he still cannot make sense of. Every time he tries to remember more than the sight of fire and the stench of sulfur, he is met with only the memory of laughter.
He remembers it well, that heavy, booming laughter that now makes his hands quake and his head pound, and he cannot say if it belongs to him or the thing that lent him power and strength. He is learning slowly that he never knew where one began and the other ended. All he knows is he is something less than he was with it, but more than he was without it, a different creature altogether.
"Renais has her own reconstruction to attend to, does she not?" He wants to shout in their faces, to remind them that to the victor go the spoils, that they are the victors and he is the defeated. But then, they have always refused to grasp such simple ideas. Sometimes, still, he wants to stand and show them he is still powerful, he can still raise his hands and let the shadows swallow them up. If he wanted to, he could take the king's other leg just as he did the first – a simple murmur of ancient words, a wave of his hand, a surge of energy and a sudden strangled yelp as a body hits the ground. Delighting, just for one sweet moment, at his weakness, his helplessness. Seeing him broken, hearing him scream, watching him writhe like a fly with plucked-off wings and –
Isn't he your friend? The thought strikes the emperor and he looks up with a hard swallow, watches the king and the princess shift uncomfortably and try to find the words to answer him. He notices now how large their retinue is, how every last man has a blade at his side. He remembers, like a hazy bit of a story he was once told, when Renais would bring only one man with them to his country, the same red-haired knight behind the princess now. They will never again be so trusting. Perhaps it is for the best.
"Of course," the princess says at last, and somehow she is still offering him that smile of hers. He had once thought it was something sacred, something that had meaning when she gave it to him along with a hand up after he suffered a spell of weakness or she trounced him in a duel. He knows better know. It is a sham, a charade, like the hand she extends, like the alliance she insists is still alive. "But we're also still friends, aren't we? Renais can spare the resources, if it means saving the people."
The king nods his agreement and tries to mirror his sister's smile, but there is the faintest trace of doubt at his lips – or perhaps that is just the way the sunlight hits his tired face, a play of the emperor's imagination. After all, they are friends, why should they doubt each other?
His advisers have told him that accepting the aid is the right course of action, that accepting the other offer spoken of in letters and whispers between ambassadors is even more important. He does not want to bow to the words of men he does not know, to men with unfamiliar smiles and invasive stares who ask him at all hours if he is feeling well, if he is in need of anything. The others gone before know that he is never feeling well, that he is always in need. Perhaps that is why they are gone. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he imagines going to find them, begging for forgiveness as their dead prince might have. He doubts he would receive it, but even cold refusal would be enough if they could not afford him rage.
But now, in the harsh afternoon light, he does not think of them at all – or he pretends he is not thinking of them, for there are more important matters at hand. He is staring at the king and the princess, staring into their eyes and trying to find a scrap of hatred, a touch of rage. He finds nothing, and yet it is there anyway, there dancing in the laughter he swears he hears whispered in their every breath. A helpless emperor on a useless throne, a pawn, just as always, a weakling –
"Grado can tend to her own affairs," he answers, and even he can hear that he is too curt. He tries to soften the harsh ring of his words in the cold, barren hall with a smile, but he can see them recoil, can see the way the redhead's hand dances subtly to the blade sheathed at his side. He wants to run out of the room, to cry in the quiet shadows and wonder what it was they wanted to save if not this, for this is all he has, this is all he can offer. And yet he wants to stand and laugh in their faces, say Look what you've done; look what you've saved. Was it worth it? He wants to walk past the king and let his foot swing just so, knock the cane out from his hand and watch him topple to the floor, watch his disgrace and humiliation as he is forced to take the hand of the former enemy offered down to him.
What he wants to say is Grado does not need your pity.
He sees the princess cower just the slightest bit even as she smiles back at him and everyone else, and he hates it, he hates it more than anything. He wants her smile to belong only to him, and yet it is the fear and hatred and pure pity he sees that are his alone. Take them back, he shouts in silence, but like the revenants he so vaguely remembers, she does not obey.
"The offer remains," she says quietly, extending her hand again. He remains still, and slowly she lowers it back down to her side.
"Thank you." He didn't want to say it, for gratefulness is the one thing he has never wanted to show them. Once, he did – when they were the ones to end it, when he saw the shadows closing in on him at last. It is one memory that is more than a scrap dangling before his eyes. He can reach out and touch it: the tearing flashing burning of metal through his body, a sudden lurch forward, red splashing on his hands and face and spreading beneath him, joining with the stone and the mud and the sulfur, and for once it is quiet in his mind. There is no laughter seeping in his thoughts and words, no question of what he wants or who he is or where he is going or why. He is in silence even as he hears the king repeating his name, begging him to open his eyes, screaming frantically for a healer, alone even as his body is clenched tight by hands he cannot name, and it is the most beautiful thing he has ever encountered, this emptiness, this blankness, this wild anonymity–
And then he is waking up, and there is a priest at his side with old, worn eyes and a thick mustache, muttering prayers and touching his too-whole chest, speaking of gods, speaking of miracles, and he swears he hears laughter echoing all around him.
"What of the other offer?" the king asks, and his reluctance, even disgust, is clear in that slight, subtle frown, the expression he has made into an art. The other offer – two countries united with a grand wedding, a princess becoming empress, an emperor becoming someone else's pawn. His advisers have spoken so much of it, and they know – doesn't everyone know? – that once this was his wildest fantasy, and in this time of doubtful peace it would be a perfect reality. They do not know that he has tried to be enough for her already, that he lies at night with mages and harlots and dancers and thieves, as he recalls so faintly his father being rumored to do. He pretends he is with someone else every time, and always realizes that he will never match up to even the fantasies he weaves between moans and caresses, fantasies of perfect, calloused hands running though his hair, of his own lips trailing kisses and apologies down a ruined leg.
He catches the red-haired knight staring him down, fingers still clenched on the hilt of the blade, and the smile leaves his face. He imagines approaching him, laughing at him, reminding him of every useless young soldier who came to challenge him and died for the trouble. Come, brave knight; come slay me where I stand. I know what you desire. But if the princess and the king could not, who is this useless vassal to even try? For all his desires and theirs, he is immortal, omnipotent. He has seen all the mysteries in creation laid out before him, left to right, and with the laughter in the halls he knows they are still within his grasp.
"I do not want it." Too casual, too flippant, but he does not care. It is honest, unlike everything he sees from them. "There are better ways to repair the bond between our countries, aren't there?" He sees the king's lips press together, the princess open her mouth to speak, and he cannot help but wonder at the path his steps have taken. Everything you have ever wanted, I have given to you, he remembers hearing from someone, something, a thing he dares not name, and now it is so. He has raised the dead, captured his princess, challenged the man who was once as a god, and now he rejects it all.
"Lyon. This isn't just for our countries. Please reconsider." He knows the words she leaves unspoken, this is for you, look what I am willing to do to fix you. She may be a martyr, but it will not be for his sake. Perhaps for the broken prince who flushed at the sight of her smile, who ached for the strength of her brother, who spent sleepless nights sprawled among books with an unseen other and wove daydreams of family that rang too true. Perhaps for him, she might throw herself and her kin onto the fire again. But not for an emperor, not for a man who slayed her father, maimed her brother, cast old friends into shadowed dungeons and sent loyal vassals flying to their deaths. She is still grasping at those scraps, and her brother, with his silent protest, is as well– scraps they cannot repair, scraps that can never be sewn back together into a man.
Neither would be content with what they have left, what they fought so hard to save from the ruins of his own making, a shattered man with a twisted smile and the sound of madness ringing ever on in his ears. He meets her eyes and the king's, and words do not come. Instead, the emperor of Grado laughs.