Title: husk
Word Count: 480
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Fandom: Fire Emblem (Awakening)
Pairings (if any): N/A
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/etc): Mentions of war, spoilers maybe?
Summary: Where a king, arrogant and cruel, sees the consequences of his actions.


.

For an eternity and an instant, I was merely the broken husk of a man scattered to the void.

In that emptiness, there was a dream.

I dreamt of Plegian sands not ravaged by war, streets bustling with merchants who didn't have to contend with the sticky fingers of homeless youth. Citizens greeted strangers with kindness, their good faith returned threefold. The lands glowed with life from coast to coast.

Every family was whole.

Every child loved.

At its throne I sat, Gangrel the Supreme. On top of the world, I looked across my loyal subjects with pride. Our realm had climbed the steep slope of conquest until every country was forced to lay down arms, ending conflicts that had threatened everyone's safety for centuries. The Plegian flag was now the banner for all peoples. Soldiers recruited from every country beneath the vast sky, who vowed to keep the peace for the world.

Ylisse and Regna Ferox had fallen, the Valmese Empire surrendered, and Chon'sin gladly joined the fold. My rule was absolute... and really, it was for the best.

Before me stood the most trustworthy of my disciples - ones I might have called friends in what felt like another life. The mentors who had taught me how to seize control of a blighted nation's throne and rebuild it from the foundation up. The palace staff that had heeded some of my more ridiculous requests, patient and subservient. The allies that were never lost needlessly on the battlefield.

And at my side, the people who might have been able to replace the family I couldn't recall. The servant woman who had taken me in, who in the dream sat with healthy hands folded in her lap, looking on as a proud mother. The daughter she had always spoken fondly of, who I could've found and adopted as my sister, joked that she had to work harder now to keep me in check with the world beneath my heel. The husband that would've been lost to war, who was alive and well here with a vow to serve as best as he was able, a knight of justice.

It was a fantasy too perfect to be true... yet it was what I had once sought with reckless abandon. Young and eager, I had taken the throne with wondrous plans.

When I opened my eyes, there was a corpse pinning me to the dirt, where a desperate man had collapsed with the last of his strength. The stench of death and despair was suffocating, forcing any who may still breathe here to wretch and gag.

I didn't bother getting up. I didn't care if anyone found me or not. My heart might have still been beating, but from that moment onwards I was not alive.

The dream lie shattered in the hands that had ruined our great nation. And the hands were mine.

.


-Dragon