"Shadows on the Wall"
Game: Fire Emblem 7
Words: 1940ish
Challenge 007: Vision
Characters: Kent. Sain. Lyndis. Tactician(Teran). Fiora.
Warnings: Major angst. Kent.
~O~
"All that he could see of them were shadows on the wall, yet they wove a definable tale."
~o~
He sat alone in the darkened room. On a table nearby sat an untouched bottle of spirits, proof of the despondency that Kent felt. He had purchased the alcoholic beverage earlier in the day in a fit of pique, determined to do something out of the ordinary, something that would draw attention to the fact that he was different. That burning determination had waned with the setting of the sun, fading into a dull ache that burned behind his chest in silent agony.
It was almost time. The show would start soon.
Leaning forward slowly, Kent stared outside at the window opposite his own. From here he could ensure that no thief or assassin approached his lady's room unseen. He had left the other avenues of approach to Sain's discretion. His friend understood Kent's reluctance to deal with Lyndis in these times and had agreed to take over the duty of guarding her. Other men would be posted to seal away the beautiful woman from enemies that would try to harm her.
But try as he might to distract himself from such pursuits, Kent couldn't bring himself not to watch. He tried to persuade himself that he did it only to keep her safe; his heart knew better - he watched because he couldn't bring himself to leave her alone.
Light flickered in the window. They were lighting the lamps now.
He could see them now, the dancing shadows that depicted them upon the walls. Lyn was taking down her hair, much as she did every evening before retiring. His shadow joined hers, fused as they drew together. She turned and kissed him, lingering for long moments as he held her.
In his mind's eye, Kent imagined all that went on behind those closed doors.
His lady would disrobe gracefully; every contour, line and plane perfection. Her hair would flow freely, alternately hiding and revealing her body.
Then he would join her and they would retire to the bed.
Kent always shut out his thoughts at this point. He knew what happened behind closed doors; Sain talked on such things often enough when he was drunk out of his head, though thankfully that sort of thing had been happening less frequently these last few months. Dolefully Kent stared at the bottle of liquor, debating what to do with the thing. He was too disciplined to use it himself, despite the temporary relief from reality that the drink might provide.
Perhaps he could use it to club the other man. Or maybe if he just shoved it down his throat and held it until the man suffocated?
What man could be so evil, so cunning, so despicable? He had taken Lyndis away from them all; from Caelin, from her friends, from her family.
From Kent.
No, the man was not evil. Kent could admit that, no matter how much his own heart ached that Lyn would never be his. Kent had thought that his silent devotion and steadfast manner would attract his lady's heart. After all, where else could she find a man so devoted to her?
Apparently she had brought one with her. When the stranger from the plains had left Caelin soon after their arrival and liberation of the place from Lundgren, Kent had felt relief at the prospect. He had known that something had begun to develop between the apprentice and his lady; with the man's disappearance, he felt that Lyn would forget about the bond and move on to appreciate those who remained by her side in her new life.
She had been silent after bidding goodbye to her friend, though Kent and Florina had often caught her straying to the hill where she had said farewell. These visits had ceased as her new duties drew in upon her and she had to act more and more the part of a noble lady.
Teran's reappearance changed all that.
Teran returned to Caelin in time to salvage a bad situation and rescue both Lyndis and her grandfather yet again. Like the rest of Lyndis' Legion, Kent had felt relief, while at the same time, a tiny grain of doubt had imbedded itself in his mind at the way that Lyn had greeted her former companion. It was like all the sunshine had returned to her countenance and all of the life that had been passively waiting inside of her suddenly returned to bloom.
She was positively radiant as she twirled the man around and then darted off to hug Florina. Kent had found himself staring with something close to shock; he'd thought Lyn had cured herself of impulsive habits beneath the stern demeanor of her tutors.
He could admit privately that his lady was never so beautiful as in these small moments of uninhibited spirit. Forcing his eyes away, he wondered how anyone could have had the heart to deny Lyn her freedom. He could not fathom how she had the will to bear it.
Kent wondered if he had been so reliable a protector as he had envisioned himself, if she found in one man's return so much of the spirit that she had lost during her stay at the castle.
None of that mattered in the long run however, because his lady had regained her fire. She shone brilliantly before his eyes.
That glory lasted until the last days before the Dragon's gate.
There had been nothing unusual in her entering the tent. Even as busy as he was planning strategy, the tactician had made a standing offer to any in the army who wished to speak with him. If you entered his tent, he would spare you what time he could. Discussions were usually held over maps and errant notes on the disposition of the enemy. Kent had seen the interior of the place several times by himself, as well as in the austere company of such men as Marcus, the Lord Eliwood's retainer and Oswin, Hector's man.
When Lyn closed the flap behind her, however, it had drawn his attention immediately.
The sky was beginning to darken and Kent was returning from a self imposed circuit of the sentry stations when he saw Lyn vanish into the tent. He stopped and stared, heedless of anyone passing around him, his eyes fixed on the shadows that loomed large in the lamp light upon the wall of the tent. They morphed and shifted and finally they became more defined as the bodies drew nearer to the wall.
Lyn leaned in and kissed the man.
Kent stood trembling, his feet rooted to the ground and refusing to obey the orders of his mind. He could not move forwards to confront this travesty taking place nor backwards to escape the sight that played out before him. A keening wail tried to force its way past his lips, but Kent found that his voice was just as lost as the rest of his mortal shell.
His saving grace was that Sain found him at that moment and propelled him swiftly away to Merlinus, where wine could be had for a price. Kent thought he might have imbibed a glass or two that night, but could not remember anything but the shadows that constantly played through his mind.
Sain had gotten totally drop-dead drunk.
He still wasn't certain how they had made it back to their tent, let alone how he'd fallen asleep that night.
Somehow he had managed to pull on his armor, imagining that he was steeling his resolve to face his lady and wish for her happiness. Somehow he managed to make polite replies to the words that came to him from worried faces, his own words perfectly controlled and respectable. He was fine, no need to worry.
He'd even wished the Lady Lyn a 'Good morning' and turned to face her when she called out to him. But when he looked at his lady, it seemed as though someone had dropped a sheet in betwixt them, for all that he could see was a shadow. It was sharply defined, but though he knew that somewhere beyond his sight was the same woman that he had always known, his mind refused to conjure the image that he so wanted. When she asked him what was wrong, he'd muttered something about nothing and then had not quite run away from her. He could hear her speaking with Sain as he marched away.
He'd been watching her shadow ever since.
Sitting in the darkness, Kent finally realized that the lights had gone out in the window opposite. It didn't matter; his mind continued to reconstruct intricately the motions of the shadows that he had already seen.
When the door behind him opened, he ignored it. Heavy footsteps crossed the wooden planks, squeaking over the ancient floorboards to the other side of the table where a second chair sat. There was a muffled curse as the intruder ran into the table and then the flare of light when a match was lit.
"Kent, you can't keep doing this to yourself."
The match flickered and went out. A second match flared and then a candle's flickering glow created strange lights on the walls. The intruder sighed. "Kent."
"What does it matter anymore? I can't see her. I only see..."
"Her shadow? Yes, I know that you fool!" Frustration poured out from the voice behind him and Kent jumped when a fist banged down on the table, nearly upsetting both the candle and the liquor that sat atop it. "You only babbled on and on about such nonsense whilst I drank myself under that table that first night!"
"Sain." Kent blinked and continued to stare out into the darkness.
"You poor, blind fool." Sain was whispering now. "We've been friends for many a year, boon companions for most of that time, and I've born with you this long because of that. She's not a shadow, but she is beyond you. She's free now of her own volition. You always said you never wanted to cage that smile."
"But here you sit, sulking because you aren't the one to take her hand and lead her into the starlight. You are the one chasing after the shadow of your broken heart because you cannot bear to think that she could be happy with anyone but yourself. You try to fool yourself into thinking that you are so strong, so noble... You fool!" Sain's voice broke. "If you'd only turn around and look, you'd see that there was someone else waiting for you, someone who's heart you break because you ignore her."
"Someone who breaks my heart because she only wants to be yours."
Sain uncorked the bottle and took a long drink. "Damn it, Kent! If you want to sit here watching shadows, it's your business. But if you do that, tell her that you can't go on, so that her heart can find relief. Either that or go and make her happy, so that I can stop sitting here and trying to drink myself to oblivion to sooth my pain."
The chair scraped across the floor and Kent could hear his friend stagger to his feet. There was a quick, muttered "I can't keep doing this..." and then the sound of the door opening once more. Sain staggered off and Kent finally began to move.
"Sain?"
He turned away from the darkness, towards the table and his retreating friend. Instead he found someone else looking back at him in the flickering light of the candle.
"Fiora?"
He watched as her lips formed the words, "Yes, Kent."
And then, for the first time in a long time, he cried.
He could see again.
~o~
AN: [Ducks] Sorry Manna! Sorry!
2: I cried while writing this. If you think this didn't affect me at all, think again. It deals with something that I'm somewhat familiar with. [hides from speculative questions]
3: I love the subject of the challenge. I was already writing a Kent/Lyn tale that has to deal with Kent marrying Lyn, but that he is her second husband. When I got online, I found that the next challenge was up. All of the sudden, the title smacks me in the face and I'm writing this.
4: There is no four. Okay, yes there is - I'm still crying, damn it!
5. If you hate me, I'll understand. I hate me too. T-T