Author's Note: I had the random urge to write a brotherly-love story between Heughes and Nasca. Even I don't know how it will turn out, so we'll wait and see eh?
Disclaimer: If I owned rights to Baten Kaitos: Origins, Heughes and Nasca would have been in the game a lot more than they were, if they didn't just take the places of Sagi and Guillo entirely. Thus, it is beyond obvious I do not own the rights to Baten Kaitos: Origins.
Nasca had always been a small and sickly child. Growing up in a noble family in Alfard, Nasca had always received the best treatments available, but his body had never grown strong or muscular. His hair was pale, although that was a genetic trait; all their family members had pale, silvery-purple hair. His skin has a blue tinge to it, as though he was always cold, and his eyes held an iciness of their own. He was an enigma to everyone.
Nasca hated that he was such a weak person. He hated that he was sickly, small, and weak. No amount of exercises designed to develop his muscles or injections of strange medicines and drugs healed him of weakness. Nasca abhorred himself to the point where he refused to leave his rooms for days at a time. With the drapes closed and his small form curled up in a dark corner, he would sit and brood about his unfortunate lot in life.
He wanted to be useful to Alfard; he wanted to be like his father, his uncles, his cousins—he wanted to join the military. He wanted to defend their glorious Empire, to bring glory to their Empire, to show the other nations just how glorious their Empire was. Nasca did not dream of being an important general or have any leading position in the army; he merely wanted to be a part of it.
Nasca knew that he would never be accepted for it though.
The Empire would not admit people into their elite army if they were weak in any physical or mental way. Nasca loved the Empire and reveled in its glories, but he would not deny the dark corners it had. They would not even accept him for an aide or messenger-boy; he had to be perfect in his mind and body to be accepted in any position.
"Nasca? Hey Nasca! Can I…come in?"
Nasca lifted his head from his knees. "Of course…"
Heughes entered the room then, and paused for a moment at the door. Nasca sat completely in the dark and made no move to switch on a light. Obligingly, his brother refrained from it as well. He strolled over to his little brother with the grace of a predatory cat, the kind one would find just outside the city. He took a seat beside his little brother and sat in silence for a moment. Nasca didn't mind that; silence suited him.
It didn't suit Heughes though. He was loud and boisterous. Anyone could hear him approaching from a mile away. Heughes was Nasca's idol. His big brother was the ideal man; he had muscles, intelligence, vitality, strength, courage, health, vigor…he had everything that anyone could wish for in a man. Not that Nasca lacked intelligence or courage or any number of other qualities, but the ones he did lack were the ones that Alfard prioritized. He was sickly rather than completely healthy; he was weak rather than strong and muscular.
Nasca loved Heughes. If Nasca could be said to love anyone, it was his brother above all other people. It was Heughes who he aspired to be like more than anyone else. Despite the difference in their personalities and their ages, they were as close as two peas in a pod. Nothing had ever been able to separate them, nothing ever could. Heughes was overprotective of his little brother, and he understood better than anyone else Nasca's longing to join the Empire's army. Heughes promised that if it was ever within his power, he would find a way to get Nasca in.
Nasca did not count on it though.
Much as he loved his brother, Nasca would never be accepted. He had accepted that (or tried to) and was trying to move on now. Being the sickly person he was he could never be a part of the military. He would be lucky to get work in the royal palace. But he would never be in the army.
"Mother is worried about you," Heughes said slowly. "You skipped dinner again. She was going to come up here herself you know." Heughes paused. "You shouldn't make her worry so much."
Nasca shifted his position. "I'm not hungry. She needn't worry about me."
His brother looked at him sideways. "She's right to worry Nasca. I worry about you. Father worries about you. You need to eat. You're prone to sickness, but that's no reason to invite it into your body by starving yourself. You need to get out of this musty room more too. It's not good for your lungs. Let the maids come in and clean it."
Nasca tried not to snort in distaste. Maybe they did all worry about him, but that would never change the fact he was weak and sickly. Eating wouldn't change that and coming out of his damp, dark room wouldn't change that. Nothing could ever change those things. He told his brother so.
"You really think so?" Heughes asked with a note of incredulity in his deep voice, "Nasca, that's stupid! You could avoid sickness if you ate better and let light in here. Light gives people energy, but darkness makes you lethargic."
Even to his own brother, Nasca realized he was an enigma. His brother knew nothing about how he felt being so weak, so sickly. His brother was perfect in health and body. How could Nasca ever expect Heughes to understand him? Heughes may understand his longing to join the military, but he was sorrowfully ignorant of Nasca's internal torment.
"It does not matter if I am lethargic," Nasca said coldly, "I am weak as it is and that will never change. I need no energy when I have nothing to use the energy on. Light only lets me see things I don't want to face."
Heughes was silent for a long while after Nasca said that. He thought that Heughes simply wasn't going to say anything else at all. Perhaps he was just going to leave without answering. Nasca did not feel like talking any more in any case. He wanted to be left alone.
"It matters, Nasca, oh how it matters!" Heughes surprised him by suddenly answering his statement. "With that kind of attitude, you really will never join the military. For everything in life, you must prove you are worthy of what you aspire for. You need energy to do that, and you need light to see your obstacles in order to overcome them, yes?" Heughes smirked. "Who knows? You might be the first person who is sickly that will get a spot in Alfard's military! Only if you prove yourself worthy though. Can you do that?"
Nasca stared at Heughes.
Oh, how he idolized his brother! How he loved his brother! Yet as he was an enigma to Heughes, at the same time, Heughes was an enigma to him. They were two peas in a pod, so close that there was no force in the entire world that could ever hope to separate them, but they were as different as apples and oranges, pickles and cucumbers. As way of an answer, Nasca stood gracefully and threw aside the drapes.
Bright sunlight cut through the darkness of his room and lit up his life.