Well, after some consideration with a few close friends of mine, I came up with this story. The rating is susceptible to change, depending on how the story goes. Any way, this is a much more serious and darker story than my previous ones. But I hope you enjoy it. Please review and tell me what you think.
The clouds began to obscure what was left of the dying afternoon sun. The rumbling off in the distance was all Ike could here, but he didn't move. He stood where he was on the dock on Lake Hylia, looking as the last ray of the blood red sun fell. He felt moisture on his face as he bated his eyes. Was it tears, sweat or the rain that began to fall? The blistering hot humidity would make it seem like it was the last two, but Ike knew he would be lying to himself if he denied the first.
Could he have prevented this from happening? Could he have saved her from herself? The questions were pointless and trivial, ultimately borec ones. No man should question the alternative choices of the past as he has no power in his hands to change it. What passed was passed, though it did not mean that he was bitter about the whole situation. Just as much with her as he was with himself.
He looked down into his hand and saw a token, a memento of sorts, that she gifted to him on his first day in the lands. It was a golden pendent, a Crimean rose interwoven with three small triangles, symbolizing the unity as part of his position he accepted on that faithful day. He could here Elincia's voice in his mind as she told him of what needed to be done.
"Now my Lord Ike, you must understand that this is not a battlefield I am sending you into. Well, in a sense it is, after all. Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed. I need you to use your words and manners as skilful as you would use Ragnell in battle. The only reason I am sending you and not Bastian is your... presence gives you more leverage."
The rain began to fall much more frequently and the winds picked up too. He instinctively pulled his cape closer around him, but his face was still battered.. He ran his fingers over the pendent and scraped the back of his mind, trying to find out what exactly in the name of the Goddesses how he did not see this coming. He was there, he should have seen the signs, picked up a hint or two that she was going to do something. But he couldn't.
Ike, despite his vows of independence and not getting to attached, couldn't help but find himself smitten on the sight of her for the first time. She was, in every sense of the word, a paragon of beauty. Her voice was smoother than the finest honey, and her scent of exotic flowers threatened to overload him. It took all of his willpower not to look like a complete ape in front of her and the council.
He kept those feelings safe from her, knowing that they were not his to share openly with her. His duty was to Crimea and all other things, even his own indulgences, were to be second compared to that. In the truth of everything, he tried his best to keep his new found profession and personal life aside, but he did slip up on more than one occasion
"Tell me, ambassador, what would be your proposed idea in dealing with the international trade with your Kingdom? As it stands, my tariffs will remain in place so long as yours are. My nation cannot afford to pay such outstanding rates without doing the same to recover some of our funds." She said as she leaned over the desk with a glass of sharp spiced wine in her hands.
Ike looked over the piles of parchment and pulled one free, which caused the rest of it to fall down. He bit back a curse, remembering where he was and who he shared his presence with. He looked over the parchment and began to make the needed numbers. Despite his position as a mercenary, he wasn't a bloody idiot who could only count to twenty if he was barefoot. "Well, milady, as it stands you charge far more for Crimean imports then we do for your exports. Ranging anywhere from twenty to thirty percent in most cases. If you lowered your tariffs to our rate, I can guarantee that trade would increase by at least threefold."
She smiled, something that told him he either made a fool of himself, she was amused or all of them at once. "Well then ambassador, what else do you think?"
"That dress really shows off your assets." He muttered as he scratched a few numbers on another piece of paper.
She looked to him with a perplexed look. "Did you say something, ambassador Ike?"
He laughed quietly to himself. "No Princess Zelda. I didn't say anything."
He smiled bittersweetly at the memory. The first time he tried to make his feelings known to her, and he backtracked as if he was admitting some childhood crush. The temperature began to drop slowly, but noticeably. Ike could see his breath in front of him but he did not move from where he was standing. He played with the talisman in his hand and looked out at the lake. He laughed bitterly at the situation before him. The laughter was mixed with a grim satisfaction and pain along with the realization that he was fate's play thing.
He sat down at the edge of the dock, now barely able to see two feet in front of him, save the occasional flash of lightning or so. He came to this place to find peace, though it was not that same peaceful night a few months ago when he first found the lake. He lived in the the castle with all of the other ministers, so the lake was roughly a few kilometres away. When he needed to clear his head of problems that threatened to have him lose what was left of his patience, he knew a relaxing swim under the moon and stars would soon clear his mind.
One one of those nights however, after a particularly hard day of political muscle flexing and threats, he went out to the lake and found company. Zelda was there, dressed in a night gown that could pass off for swim wear. Ike was about to leave her, when she pleaded with him to stay. He was reluctant, explaining that him, a borec ambassador, should not be seeing the Princess outside of the castle.
She laughed him off, telling him that she was always outside of the castle, and paid time to visit each of the foreign ambassadors that her kingdom accepted. Reluctantly, and with much hesitance, Ike agreed to do so. The water was warmed by the sun during the day and even when it set, there was still plenty of heat left in it.
It was the first time Ike saw Zelda outside of politics, and she was without a doubt a very gregarious person. The initial feeling of awkwardness and shame were quickly wiped away as they enjoyed themselves in the lake. No guards, no formal titles, no paper work... it seemed to last forever. And even as the rain whipped around him now, Ike could still remember her and how she ended the night.
"Ike, you are not like the other ministers Crimea has sent to my kingdom. And I mean that as a compliment. Either they are yes-men or so stubborn that it is either their way or nothing." She spoke to him as she held their bodies close together. "But I don't think you are an ambassador, not the usual profile. You are too kind and thoughtful, even open to both sides and trying to find a solution that would please both parties. You are a mercenary, I figured that much out of you and I still do not understand why you were given this position."
Ike looked down to her, wrapping his arms around her as she did to the back of his neck. "I was selected because of my character, your majesty. Not for my training or blood line. The Queen also knows that my bulk can be quite convincing and I can see it is working on you princess." She clicked her tongue in annoyance when he spoke her title and not her name.
"Just shut up and kiss me, mercenary." She told him, and she pulled him in closer and time seemed to have froze while they shared that moment together. There was only them, and no one else. Just her soft lips against his. For that moment in time, there was nothing else.
The same dock where he was on right now was the same one they spent time on. Over a period of weeks, what started out as a smile out of the corner of her lips and hands that somehow managed to intertwine with each other became something much more. Notes passed in books became the main way they made their feelings know to each other wen they were not in private. She even allowed Mist and her daughter to come visit him on more then one occasion. Something she only allowed other ambassadors to do on the important holidays of the kingdom.
And before either one of them knew it, they were really close. Closer then either of them had ever gotten before. On more then one night, expressions they could not find the words for found another way to be expressed. Each time was more expressive than the last, and both of them felt as if they were destined for each other.
Ike should have seen it coming, but goddesses damn it, he was too blind. He didn't know exactly where to start, but ultimately it was when she was asking more direct questions. Their conversations turned from generalization to specifics. And it was about his kingdom none of the less. Questions of history became more direct questions of resources and military power of Crimea. At first Ike thought of it as nothing, merely the princess wanted to know more about his nation so rifts could be sealed between the two kingdoms.
Other things began to change as well, and not just their conversations. The letters from back home were becoming more grim and rumours were spreading like wildfire back home about many things. What was his version of a wake up call was the day he received a letter from Lucia. He read the note with a shaky hand. There was no preamble, no greetings, or anything else that was in her previous letter. It was honest and brutally to the point.
He read through the letter and felt anger and rage build up inside of him as every word betrayed his very world around him. All he could think about was what he unwittingly done to his kingdom, that he was such a fool to allow himself to... to have her blood on his hands.
He couldn't remember leaving his room.
He didn't recall how he got past the guards.
He chose not to note what she was wearing when he swung the doors open.
All he remembered was the conversation they had.
"Ike, I know you must be full of pain but you are overreacting-"
"Overreacting?OVERREACTING!? No, Princess, if anything I am far too composed to what happened and the way I am acting now. What the hell happened to the Zelda I knew and I loved?! This... this... this is nothing she would do!"
She looked at him with a pair of solid emerald eyes, set harder the metal. "Then perhaps you do not know what she is truly capable of. What happened was a means to the end. I will not see Hyrule become nothing more than a pacifistic state bound to the whims of every other nation. We need to show that we can and will do what is necessary to secure our place in the annals of history besides being a pushover."
Ike felt as if he had been stabbed. "You... you used me. You used me as a person, my position... EVEN MY OWN SISTER! Have you no decency!? We were nothing more then stones for you to step on to get what you wanted? The words you said to me, the things we did to cement those words, were they all false? Were they just to gain my trust?"
Zelda was about to respond when Ike held up a hand to her. "It doesn't matter now does it? What has been said is said and what is done is done. You have made your decision."
He turned around and walked away, ignoring the pleads form behind him.
And now he was here, looking out on the same Lake where Ike thought that life was going to be different from here on out. That he would make a difference for Crimea that was not on the battle field or in Tellius, but far beyond it's borders. To bring healing to two nations who at long last showed some sign of unity.
But in the end, he did more harm then there was to begin with.
It looked at the pendent one last time and with a cry of rage, tossed it into the lake. The golden medallion skipped across the water twice in the lightning before it sunk to the turned away from the docks, his cape soaked in rain and his clothes were just about to get wet. He entered a small hut and rekindled the fire with in it. Soon it was burning hot and bright, just like the rage inside of him
In time the army would come and he would be at the head of it when it did. He was going to kill Zelda himself, and he didn't want to fight a cold while he was at it.