Takes place pre-FE10. A bit of Nailah/Rafiel, and some light angst.
Rafiel grasped at what he presumed was a weed—and tugged.
Fingers sparse in the earth, pulling at roots and breaking off leaves with quick snaps of his wrist, he ignored the cold dampness numbing his knees and the eyes watching his back. Wings stretched, conscience clear and light, feet cool, chest wide; his lungs ached briefly to reconcile with his position, and Rafiel sought out the tiniest of plants to remove them swiftly and efficiently. Experience spoke then, and became more obvious with the growing pile of wilted greens beside him, and the hmm that drifted across his back like a summer breeze instead of a question suggested Nailah was closer than he had initially figured. It was unnerving to have the wolf queen in such a proximity, but her company was always more than welcome. It was better than being left to his own devices; it was far better than thinking.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself. Maybe I should fire the keepers and hire you," she murmured on queue, and he tugged on a particularly obstinate-looking plant with a hint of a smile. The roots that emerged ran from his wrist to the tips of his fingers, and it was a wonder he had been able to pull it at all. Hatari's soil wasn't particularly rich. That is, not like the soil in Begnion he was more familiar with had been. Fertile, the palace gardens had always been full of bright and colorful ornamental perennials, but there was nothing intimate to be found about the precisely trimmed hedges made to look like the beorc's interpretation of the goddess; the plants were not allowed to do as they wished, much like the captives that had been forced to maintain them for years.
Hatari's gardens, however, were wild with overgrown patches of tropics, and Rafiel took delight in the chaos. It was how nature should be: wild and untamed by forceful hands. He reveled in it.
"Hm, I think they're doing alright. Weeds are notorious," he began by way of explanation, "for taking over entire gardens. Pulling them is the only way to keep them at bay—like this—and the rest of the plants healthy. I wouldn't say it's exactly enjoyable, though, the sun does feel nice, and the breeze feels pleasant, too. Though, I do think you should keep that grounds keeper around at least a bit longer. He's quite kind, and the plants are happy."
"Oh, alright. I suppose if he's being generous he can stay." Nailah smiled and stepped out of the shade to kneel beside him, gold clinking against her skin as she moved and bent to examine his work. Tawny skin crossed his own, where the heat and uncertainties meet and dare collide in small sun-kissed freckles and pale white scars, and Nailah rolled a broken flower stem between her fingertips absently, shadows dancing across her clothes like a ripple where the sun broke through the leafy green canopy above.
"Did Hetzel take you out to the garden often?" Her tone was curious, her words inquiring as she tread lightly on the soil before him. Rafiel knew better as she twirled the broken stem like a small child would, examining it in a patch of warm sunlight; her underlying questions weren't so perfectly concealed as to go unnoticed by him—he only assumed that was her intention. To answer or to not, she left it up to him to decide.
"Occasionally," Rafiel answered honestly, but not really, because occasionally was only on specific occasions not to his benefit. "...His private quarters allowed me more freedom than I'm certain was allowed for the others. Either way, inside or out, I was a slave." His fingers found another weed the size of a nail, and Rafiel hesitated briefly before passing it by. He couldn't bring himself to pull a sprout that hadn't even had a chance to grow.
"And he was never caught? This Apostle never suspected his participation in the illegal trades? Or any of these other senators?"
Pluck. Another uprooted weed. Another past gone. Another duty done. Rafiel brushed loose strands of hair away from his face absently, tucking them over his shoulder. Nailah leaned over to do it for him, and he smiled gratefully at her careful hands. "I would suspect the other senators conspired with him. Hetzel was the one who did the catching. Not the other way around. I don't known anything about the Apostle, but whether she enforced that rule or not, I never witnessed her in the act," he finished, and almost missed the instilled bitterness of his own remark.
Nailah hmmed thoughtfully, running fingers through his hair. She noticed his hesitation, it seemed. He couldn't hide from her. "...Did you ever consider yourself caught even with that bit of freedom?"
Rafiel was silent briefly, considering her words. Of course Nailah wouldn't ask such personal things unless she already knew the answer, but he'd humor her nonetheless, even though they both knew there was nothing humorous to be found.
"No. I didn't belong in the palace, and the gardens only made me nostalgic and ill. I held no desire to stay there, and my home had been destroyed—which is why I escaped through the desert. I hadn't realized where I'd gone until I awoke here," he added, and waited for her response, keeping his gaze firmly rooted on the earth before him. How ironic, he should escape slavery only to bind himself to it in the form of Nailah's exotic palace gardens. He wondered if she knew, if she saw him for how he was, the habit in his hands and the stains on his knees.
"It's a good thing you were found, then," she remarked, and Rafiel let out the air he hadn't realized he'd been holding. She never pushed, never asked anything of him unless he volunteered first. He shouldn't be surprised that she knew all his subtleties.
Nailah ran her fingers through his hair one last time and twirled the stem a bit longer in her hands before tossing it in the pond behind them with a quiet splash.