Death Cleric

A/N:

Hi! My name's Instant~ And this is a 'What If?' fic, wherein Roland is chosen as the 38th generation Sun Knight instead of Grisia... Therefore, some of the characters may appear slightly altered, affected by the different decisions... Yes, this is my excuse for any OOCness XD (For instance, Grisia isn't terrified of Neo, because he hasn't had to go through that tort- uh, 'training'... CX )

Disclaimer: I do not own the Legend of Sun Knight.

Prologue: the Knight and the Cleric

The brown-haired boy was watching his friend closely as he, wearing a slight frown of concentration, recited a long string of incantations praising the God of Light. Enough holy element was gathered in the blond's hands for it to actually be visible, before the spell was completed and it slowly faded. The cleric overseeing gasped in admiration at the boy's quick work, while every other child in the room, Roland included, whose holy magic was not at all bad, still struggled with the difficult spell, not able to gather enough of the necessary element, let alone manipulate it correctly. The blond, however, looked like he could do the same thrice more over, no problem.

As soon as they were released from the testing, Roland pointed this out. "Grisia, if you aren't chosen as the Sun Knight, then being a cleric wouldn't be too bad either! Then you'd be able to help heal my injuries in the future."

Looking downwards at his feet, the friend appeared to consider this. Then raised his head and said with a smile as bright as the sun; "Okay! In that case, I'll become a cleric."

With that easy response, Roland had never really considered how badly Grisia may have wanted to be the Sun Knight. After all, the blond couldn't really hope to win, not with such horrible swordsmanship, could he? ...He only realized later that Grisia was probably just practicing; after all, the Sun Knight had to always wear a smile and be forgiving, right?

Neo Sun surveyed everyone present, meeting each and every eye, the usual dazzling smile on his lips as he announced, "I have decided... That the next Sun Knight will be Roland!"

No one was at all surprised at this, just clapped politely and hurried to exchange betting money- not that they'd have gained much for betting on Roland, his odds had been so high it was practically a given.

The chosen young boy stepped forward, attempting, with some difficulty, to emulate his teacher with his brightest smile as he did so. Then he paused, glancing back to see his best friend with his real, warm smile congratulating him...

Though he scanned the entire crowd carefully, among the sandy sea of dirty blond and light brown hair, Grisia's gold was nowhere to be seen.
He was gone.

"I- and the rest of the Twelve Holy Knights- am retiring soon," Neo mentioned this casually as he (gracefully) took a seat at the tea table.

The person balancing delicately the ridiculously ornate teapot and cups shot him a sarcastic smile as he walked over and set the items down gently, careful not to spill. He'd definitely improved in the area of gracefulness; Neo could recall a kid covered in bruises and always tripping, dropping things (or in the case of swords, sending them flying...) and bumping into pillars. "Oh, really?" this person said in a tone of indifferent amusement, perhaps with a hint of scorn. "And yet you look so young, only thirty or so! How can that be?" Definitely scorn.

This stunningly handsome person, with his bright, golden hair and shining azure-blue eyes (though his complexion was a little more honey-colored than fair) did for all the world look the picture of a perfect Sun Knight. He was twenty years old now and though he did, as far as Neo could tell, consume solely sugar all day long, still had a good physique and a slim, elegant figure... Too bad these looks had been wasted on a person completely incapable of using a sword. True to his promise to Roland, he now wore the plain white robes of a cleric, and unlike Neo's student, had cut that beautiful golden hair short so that it just reached below the jawline. It was so irritating how perfect that color was, when Roland went through hair dye like Neo did alcohol... It had become a serious drain on his retirement savings! (The Pope would, of course, refuse to pay for the good stuff!) However, a broken bank balance was much better than the broken heart he would have gotten if he'd had to train Grisia in fencing...

The Sun Knight revealed a stunningly beatific smile befitting of his name and title. "Ah! The God of Light is ever gracious, blessing Sun with the retaining of youthful brilliance, so that his humble servant may better continue to spread his benevolence throughout the continent..."

So Neo is going to leave to travel after retiring. Grisia then snorted in a most in-Sun-like way, saying; "Yeah, well, the God of Light is graciously allowing my stomach to commune to me it's wish for blueberry jam. Maybe a 'humble servant' could pass that on to me, so that I may spread it over my bread?" (How did Grisia even get bread solely made out of sugar...? Who knows).

Neo rolled his eyes and (gracefully) passed the jam. "How have you been doing?" he asked Grisia seriously. "It's the third year since you became His Majesty's head cleric, right?"

"I'm fine!" the other replied, too quickly, defensively. "It's a good job. Even though that guy has angered many people, it's a difficult feat for anyone to get much worse than a broken toenail when you barely even leave these walls, and so I get to spend most of my time either with the royal knights or that ancient old sot of a mage."

"You're still running after knights?" The current Sun exclaimed with anguish in his heart. Poor royal knights, this one was really a relentless horror... What had he created?!

Grisia glowered at the person who would have been his teacher and answered vehemently; "No! I help them out with training, casting Light Shield to prevent injuries, meaning they don't have to hold back, or if they do happen, I'm right there to cure them! Unlike holy knights, they don't have any healing magic, so if a person gets injured during practice, it's really bad! And by using spells like Wings Of God, I can make them a lot faster, improving their reaction times as well. I'm definitely being useful!"

Neo shrugged, "Yes, but wouldn't something like Light Shield cause them to become overly reckless as well? You probably won't be around when they actually have to fight. You're a cleric and have to stay by the palace."

The cleric gritted his teeth angrily. Why did the Sun Knight always have to be right! He just wanted to be useful, why would the one person he wanted to impress never approve of him? What did he have to do to make Neo Sun happy?! "I run laps with them every day," he continued stubbornly. "I push my support spells further each training session, and even though I am hopeless with a sword, I still train my evasive skills with them! Then I go to that boring old mage and listen to all his mumble-jumble spell theory crap until the words haunt me in my sleep and I accidentally nearly roast the guy who visits at night to change the clothes... Just this month I even learned Resurrection, with a 1/15 chance of success! That's second only to the Pope in this kingdom."

Frustrated at this person who could have became anything but a knight (or a warrior), Neo said; "If that's so, why don't you go into the Sanctuary of Light and work to take his position? Because no matter what you say, you obviously aren't happy here, Grisia!"

I just want you to be happy of me! But instead Grisia responded as coolly as possible, "I don't want to. That old geezer's never going to retire, and I'm not going to be the apprentice of a guy who looks only fifteen years old! I'm twenty! Here, I'm in charge of all the clerics, I have my own platoon of knights as friends, and a master mage to pirate spells off of. Hmph, why would I want to be anywhere else?"

The real reason, and both Neo and Grisia knew it, was that he didn't want to be near the next Sun. Because Grisia still hadn't gotten over Neo's decision nearly ten years ago. He still wanted to be that Sun Knight. Neo sighed. Despite how unhappy Grisia clearly still was with his lot, he couldn't have made a different decision. Roland had had a hard past, and he'd needed this. "...Roland's taking over my position in just a few months. You haven't even seen each other since that day... For all he knows, you've probably died in a ditch. (Or worse, gone off to work for the Shadow God). He's here right now, so you should just go and talk to him!"

"..." Roland Sun... Roland would be happier if he didn't see me- all I could give him is a sense of winner's guilt. Grisia abruptly changed the subject. "...That reminds me, the rumors are that you're here to visit one of the princesses, isn't that what you tell your student? Which one, I wonder? Or have you been referring to me as a woman... Hmm? Sun." The smile that Grisia gave then was so scary that it made even the one they called the strongest Sun Knight in history shrink back...
(Gracefully).

A/N:

The way Grisia says it, you'd take it that the royalty doesn't even need clerics; I guess it's the useless job which suddenly becomes very important when something bad and unexpected happens... I mean, don't say the palace is completely safe; they do have all those perilous steps.

Anyway. I'm terribly unreliable with updates, but it would be really encouraging if I knew someone was reading... *cough* And hopefully liked it? (:
-Vanquish