*looks anywhere but at the date* Oh, hey, it's the longest chapter yet! No wonder the editing process took... some... time. It's not that I got distracted or procrastinated because certain bits frustrated me or anything.
...As long as I got somewhere in the end?
For this chapter, I think I should come out and say that I went with Tiir knowing nothing about the Goddesses or anything related to them at this point. Also, the canon legends addressed in more detail are both from the anime (first and last episode), though I did take one tiny bit of information from the novel version of the latter. (Uhm, way to sound vague. I hope no one is expecting me to go deep into Fate Of The World Business now.)
But omg, the reviews made me so happy! Okay, they always do, but then there came more when I didn't expect it at all!
So, the remaining replies and then that chapter, yes...
To acperience: Thank you, glad you enjoyed Tiir's rather horrific encounter with the Council! At least his suffering was not in vain~. But yep, still agreeing with the hug thing - can't rely on just the cats for fluff and comfort. Too bad the only two characters in this story he'd readily accept one of the non-blown variant from are going to remain absent for at least a while longer. Not that he'd -expect- anyone else to try and hug him... *hums innocently* Though now I'm picturing some regular human showing up in front of Tiir and blowing him a hug like other people blow kisses and Tiir's brain dying because whut. Maybe a normal hug wouldn't be so bad, after all?
To Random Reader: Kya, thank you, I'm happy you're liking the long chapters! The one coming next is going to be a bit shorter than usual, but I hope I'll also have it up more quickly to make up for that. And ha, omg, I thought about the rating for a long time before I went, "well, character who eats people..." and just stuck with M, but I wondered if that might be potentially misleading. Because yeah, no scenes rated M for, echem, other reasons planned for this fic - I mean, at this point I can hardly think of two characters in it who wouldn't both be creeped out by the mere idea. So I'm thrilled you clicked at and are enjoying the story despite the rating confusion!
And here comes the chapter. Enjoy~
Chapter 5: On a Wire
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"All right, this is awkward," the prince declared the day after the council meeting. It was late noon, and they were walking through the palace gardens side by side, the large black dog strolling leisurely behind them. "I don't care if it's just insults or even an ode to my spleen, but at least talk to me. Please?"
Tiir shot the human a cool look, and continued on in silence.
It was better this way – the man was too confusing. Tiir was beginning to believe that the young royal had meant every word he'd said to him so far, but that only made distancing himself from him more important. Either this human was the most shameless liar Tiir had ever met – which wasn't at all improbable, considering he was a human –, or he was simply insane; a temporary anomaly that needed to be disregarded until it inevitably corrected itself.
Tiir wouldn't allow his beliefs to be shaken. Doubt was a weakness he couldn't afford.
It seemed, though, that the prince wasn't easily deterred. "Come on. There must be something about Salea you would like to know. Things I strictly can't tell you aside, I'll answer whatever questions you might have."
Tiir tried not to glance at the man as he quickly reassessed the situation. He couldn't deny the appeal of that offer. Though the prince hadn't been overly secretive in the first place, Tiir had carefully avoided showing an interest in anything that was actually relevant – issues concerning the safety of the children excepted. He knew better than to give the humans cause for suspicion.
However, now that the prince was practically asking him to pry, any inquiries he might make that would normally seem suspect to his enemies could easily be interpreted as a mere act of spite. Of course, there was no guarantee he would get an answer regardless, but there was nothing to stop him from trying. An opportunity to test the waters with this low a risk might never come again.
It wasn't much of a dilemma. Ultimately, gathering information was more important than keeping the human at arm's length.
There was quite a bit of knowledge to be gained from this that could prove useful in the future, but the first question which came to mind didn't have a lot to do with that. "The crystal you had," Tiir said without preamble. "How did you get it?"
He didn't bother to ask where they'd gotten it. The prince had already claimed that Salea had never crystallized any of the Divine Eyes themselves, and there was only one other country capable of doing so – or at least, that was what Tiir hoped.
The prince turned to him, apparently too startled by the nature of Tiir's query to be happy about having gotten the desired reaction. "It wasn't easy," he finally said. "Gastark's King usually only sends his most trusted, and most capable, people after Eye bearers. Breaking into his residence and simply stealing the crystals from there proved impossible – the risk would have been ridiculous, not that that came as much of a surprise. Turns out, though, that when Gastark goes after a single, isolated Eye bearer, they might use a trusted, but not quite so skilled individual. In other words, someone not in the possession of a Rule Fragment. Lymeia caught up to him at the border and took the crystal he'd been given to cause his target to go out of control. As for the man himself... chances are Gastark will never find the body."
Tiir allowed himself a brief moment to appreciate the death of an enemy of his kind. "The Alpha Stigma bearer?"
"Hopefully long gone when Gastark realized something was off."
Tiir narrowed his eyes. "She didn't go after them?"
"She didn't even know where to find them. The soldier she'd attacked wasn't very forthcoming with information, for some reason."
Tiir snorted. He supposed the mage woman hadn't asked him for it nicely, either.
He decided to use the opportunity to get a better grasp on the Salean court's inner workings.
"You seemed close to the high marshal," he observed, hoping it was as innocuous a way to broach the subject as he'd surmised.
The prince blinked at him. "Yes," he admitted easily. "I've known him since forever. He's my mother's lover."
Tiir stared at the human. That wasn't the answer he had expected.
The young royal chuckled. "Sorry, I'm used to people knowing these things." He tilted his head to the side. "It's not a secret, especially in Valasea and among the upper class. It's not unusual, either. In Salea, marriage has another status than in most other countries, particularly when it concerns nobles – it's a way to create a formal alliance first and foremost, the most final sort of partnership, and in some ways, it's more binding than even in Runa.
"Generally, people here don't marry for love or even to simply form connections; they may even spend their entire life with one person and never marry them, or marry someone and openly have intimate relationships outside of that marriage. If the sovereign takes a spouse, it's usually done solely for the good of the country, which will then have not one ruler, but two. Because of the great potential for discord and civil wars, it's not a matter to be taken lightly – my mother trusts the high marshal, but she doesn't trust the people who would support him. Besides, at the moment, Salea has no need for a king."
Tiir supposed the whole concept should seem more strange to him, but while intellectually, he knew that this was not how humans usually did things, he'd never mixed with them for long enough to have gotten much of an impression of these matters.
Intrigued against his better judgment, he asked, "They've been together for long?"
"Since before I was born. In fact, though no one speaks of it in public, he's generally assumed to be my father."
"Is he?"
The prince shrugged. "I wouldn't know – Mother never said. She might not even be sure herself."
Tiir blinked at the man. "That doesn't bother you?" He would never claim to understand humans, but if there was one thing about them beyond their vile nature he thought he knew, it was that they were deeply concerned with parentage. They instilled the value they placed on having a 'mother' and a 'father' in many of his comrades, and though Tiir tried to see where his friends who had been lied to for most of their lives were coming from, this was one of the things he could not relate to, no matter how hard he tried. To him, there was something almost funny about how while even those of his comrades who had been raised by humans would often barely bat an eye at the fact that the inferior creatures were nothing but food to him once they had accepted the truth, learning that his 'mother' had been no exception always seemed to come as somewhat of a shock to them. But though it made Tiir want to throw back his head and laugh, most of the time he barely managed to look his friends in the eye as he smiled instead and changed the topic.
The prince hardly slowed his step. "Not particularly. I can't deny I'm curious, but not more than that. In Salea, blood isn't important. A child belongs to the one, or the ones, who raised it – everything else is secondary. Commoners can't hold certain positions in the court, but if they've been adopted by a noble, that rule becomes void as they no longer count as such. I think it used to be similar in Roland, if only on the surface – from what I hear, they still value blood ties more." The human looked up at the sky. "I like High Marshal Gareyn well enough, but finding out that I share his blood wouldn't make him any more or less of a parent to me."
Tiir considered this. He supposed it explained how the man had so easily accepted Tiir's relation to the children... rather than made a comment about how monsters apparently live in packs, like Gastark had.
He decided to drop the topic. To begin with, there was hardly anything humans did that wasn't unfathomable to him.
"Who is Lady Livarys?"
The prince coughed. "She's... a friend." Apparently, he was planning to leave it at that. Tiir kept his gaze fixed on him, making it clear that he was waiting for an actual answer. Finally, the human relented. "She's High Marshal Gareyn's adopted daughter," he all but sighed. "I first met her when I was twelve. She was almost three years older than me. I kind of... liked her."
A pause. "Let's just say that I was not very subtle about it – her friends thought it was cute, half the court thought it was hilarious, and after Livarys eventually took pity on me and told me that I was sweet, but that she wasn't interested, my sister repeatedly compared me to a lost puppy. She did so in front of Lymeia, who still calls me that on occasion. Two years ago Livarys and I got reacquainted at a ball, and we've been friends ever since. There – you now know about one of the most embarrassing episodes of my entire life. Congratulations."
Tiir marveled at how ordinary the story seemed. It felt strange, interacting with a human like this.
And suddenly he was painfully aware that this wasn't how he had wanted the conversation to go; but he forced down his dismay, telling himself that it didn't look like the human would mind further inquiries into what he considered public matters in the future, and that there was nothing else about this worth worrying about.
So he caught the prince's gaze and nodded gravely. "Human mating behavior," he said with a straight face. "Pitiful business. I wonder if the point is that you'll go extinct all by yourselves eventually."
Next to him, the human choked and stopped walking. "Yes, I'll go extinct. I hear others of my kind are managing just fine – but thanks for rubbing salt into the wound. I'm sure you are a true ladies' man." Tiir had no idea what to say to that – he'd never had the time for that kind of thing, or much of an opportunity, or even an interest –, but before he could try to think of an appropriate reply, the prince peered at him. "Then again, with those looks, I wouldn't be surprised. The world just isn't fair."
...Had the human just told him that he found him attractive?
"What?" the prince asked. "You're allowed to comment on the texture of my brain, but if I voice the obvious, you look at me strangely?" The human paused, and leaned in a little closer. "Wait, are your eyes blue? I thought they were black."
Tiir blinked at him. "Do you have a point?"
"Not really." The royal stepped back. "But ugh, even your eyes are pretty. No wonder you won't get off your high horse. I bet you just have to smile at people and they swoon at your feet – or run from you screaming, but that's another matter."
"Did you honestly just inform me that you consider my eyes to be pretty?"
"Did you honestly tell me that my brain tissue looks 'appetizing'? You have no right to sound so disturbed, really. At least I don't want to eat you."
Tiir sniffed. "I've since told you that I wouldn't touch your head with a ten foot pole."
"No, just my spleen. Would you rather I complimented your nose?"
"What?" Tiir swore that if the human thought his nose was pretty, he would do something drastic.
The prince coughed. "Never mind. Let's talk about something that is actually less awkward than persistent silence." A pause. "So. Do you like chocolate cake?"
Tiir stared at the human, and slowly shook his head in wonder. "Not with a ten foot pole," he resolved anew.
The prince laughed.
x x x
For once, the prince wasn't reading official-looking documents while waiting for the Council meeting to begin, but a book. It appeared fairly plain, but whatever it contained, it seemed to be utterly captivating, for the human didn't even notice when his giant wiping cloth of a dog jumped onto the bed and proceeded to drool all over it. Tiir didn't bother to inform him, either – he had resumed sleeping on the floor the previous night, and he intended to keep doing so.
When the prince finally became aware of the animal's ventures, cushion and covers were already sufficiently wet. He scowled at it. "Truffles! Down!"
The creature in question just wagged its tail happily.
"Bad dog," the human said, but without much emphasis.
"Even your pet thinks you are beneath it," Tiir couldn't resist saying.
"Lord Truffles also thinks urinating at trees is the highest of activities, so I'm not sure that says much." The prince got up and gave the dog a shove, and it reluctantly returned to the floor, throwing the human a reproachful look before lying down again, this time to the man's feet.
Tiir snorted.
"You know," the prince said, returning to the desk and picking the book back up, "I figured Gastark was creepy, but I swear I'll never set foot in that country. Have you ever concerned yourself with their religious beliefs?"
Tiir narrowed his eyes. "Why should I?"
"Because their mythology is kind of nuts and I'm beginning to wonder if that means anything. To start with, they have those goddesses and you'd think they'd be benign since they are about the only deities mentioned anywhere in their religious and historical texts, but at least officially they don't worship them, and then they have stories that would make you assume those goddesses are either not benevolent, or they're just extremely incompetent. I remembered reading one in particular that sent shivers down my spine – recommended to me by, who would have thought, Lymeia, the Queen of Questionable Taste –, and I just found it again. To be fair, I'm sure it's not the original version, and I don't think it's very well-known by the general populace, either, but it still gives me the creeps, especially since it's written somewhat like a fairy tale. Oh, but there's one good thing about it: it involves people getting eaten!"
Tiir gave the man a look.
The prince coughed. "All right, sad attempt at humor, I get it. Anyway, it goes somewhat like this: there was a Black Hero who fought against the entire world, who finally went mad. Therefore, the Goddesses sealed him away far in the South.
"However, in their great wisdom, they had forgotten to consider that there was already someone living in that region: the Lonesome Devil, who was – let me quote –, 'hideous and ever so lonely, so lonely that he seemed to be dying'. The Hero, wanting to get back to fighting against the world and probably smelling delicious brain tissue, asked the Lonesome Devil to let him eat half of his body – because come on, that's a perfectly reasonable request to make! The Lonesome Devil told him to go ahead and that it was no big deal, because the Hero was his first friend ever." A pause.
"And perhaps also because the Goddesses were assholes," the human finally added. "My theory was that they simply liked sealing people away in Nowhere and just couldn't keep track of them all, but Malyrei suggested that perhaps they didn't look at hideous things out of principle and therefore had never noticed the guy. She was strangely interested in this considering it doesn't have anything to do with magic – though I guess her idea of entertainment isn't much less bizarre than Lymeia's when it comes down to it. Anyway.
"The devil called All Formulas was split into the Solver of All Formulas and the Weaver of all Formulas, and the latter was devoured by the Black Hero. The Hero went back to happily breaking the world into pieces, but at its core, he found despair, pain, loneliness and Hell itself – 'and darkness and darkness and darkness and darkness'. Realizing that he was going to die before he could destroy the world for good, he begged to have someone bear the pain in his stead. Of course, it was the Lonesome Devil who volunteered, offering the other half of his body, and once the deed was done, he suffered in the Hero's place for all eternity.
"'The Lonesome Devil didn't regret it much at all'," the prince read out, "'because he had made a friend, even if just for a moment. Because he was able to live for his friend, even if just for a moment. The Lonesome Devil is a fool – a fool until the very end.'"
Tiir had no idea what the point of the tale was, but he had to admit, it did make his toes curl.
"What I find most interesting about this, though," the human said, closing the book and setting it down in front of himself, "is that there exist stories originating from the South in Salea's libraries about heroes who fought an army of demons that had been terrorizing humanity. To do this, they used weapons that sound a lot like Rule Fragments. And then there are texts that link the Alpha Stigma to those demons - while others link it to the Lonesome Devil."
Tiir looked at the human sharply.
"It could just be coincidence," the human said with a shrug. "But Gastark's lore also deals with the Rule Fragments, and it is strange how much information they have on the Magic Eyes when pretty much no one else can even tell an Alpha Stigma from an Iino Doue."
"Are you implying the Alpha Stigma is demonic?" Tiir spat.
"I'm not implying anything," the human replied easily. "Even if there was some truth to them, I'm well aware those stories are myths – the demons could just be a metaphor, or the author could have added them to make the story more dramatic. And even if the demons and the Goddesses were both real, and the demons had something to do with the Lonesome Devil, then the Lonesome Devil would be proof that the demons can't be all bad, right? The true villain could as well be the Goddesses... or the Hero, who seems like he might originally have been human. Lymeia even mentioned something about versions like that of the story existing, though I don't quite recall."
Tiir wasn't wholly pleased with the flippant clarification, as the human most certainly had implied that it was somehow difficult to tell the different kinds of Divine Eyes apart from each other, like the issue wasn't that his wretched kind couldn't even be bothered. However, taken aback by the prince's assessment nonetheless, Tiir considered the man's words more carefully. There was probably nothing to be learned from this, whatever truth the stories might once have had already distorted by the humans who had kept them in circulation, but if according to legend, the Alpha Stigma had originally been the power of the existence called Lonesome Devil, then that myth indeed fit all too well as a metaphor, at least. Bearers of the Divine Eyes devoting themselves to humans, being betrayed, having their eyes stolen.
No wonder the tale had left a bad taste in his mouth.
In an instant, he was next to the human, picking up the book.
"You can read?" the prince asked, sounding astonished.
Tiir shot him a glare.
"Ugh, that didn't come out right. Sorry. I just assumed that since you prefer not to get involved with humans... but that was stupid of me, wasn't it? You must have your own schools."
"We manage," Tiir returned curtly. They did not have schools (what did the human think, that they had an entire country hidden somewhere?), but they did do their best to give the children an education. Some of his comrades even spent their free time with literature, though Tiir himself tried to avoid anything written by humans – the only non-practical bound texts he had touched before this were fairy tales he had reluctantly read to the children.
He decided the human appeared earnest enough, and turned his attention to the book, which seemed to contain fantastic stories from all over Menoris. Many of them actually were fairly tales, with captured princesses and brave heroes – he even came across one with a talking horse –, and if they were anywhere as grotesque as the one he had just heard, then it wasn't apparent at first glance. It didn't take him long to find the tale from Gastark, and the prince, whose summary turned out to have been fairly accurate, waited patiently while he read over it for himself.
"It's obvious the Black Hero is the villain," Tiir declared as he put the book back down. His eyes became slits. "For using the Lonesome Devil."
The human threw him a curious glance. "At the very least, he doesn't sound like a nice kind of guy," he agreed. "Though it's probably worth remembering that he supposedly went mad before he and the Lonesome Devil even met. And that this story originates from Gastark, which just so happens to be the most northern country – even if they don't worship the Goddeses, they could have wanted to make them look good for propaganda reasons. Provided they even existed in some form, of course, but something about this feels just a bit too real, and then I find it suspicious that even though the Goddesses aren't portrayed in a bad light for sealing the Hero away and were supposedly trying to save the world, they apparently completely overlooked the Lonesome Devil... and how at the same time, the story refers to both him and the Hero as 'monsters'."
Just who are the real monsters here? Tiir remembered his own words with a sudden chill.
He shook off the memory and snorted. "What did you expect from Gastark?"
"I don't know," the human said. "Non-religious fanaticism maybe? A bit of variety would be nice, at least. Having theological discussions with that priest from Runa was bad enough." He fell silent for a moment, then conceded, "Though I suppose that has little to do with the theology part and all to do with the fanaticism part. Still, have you ever tried arguing with one of those people when you have to rely entirely on worldly observations? Salea so needs a state religion again if this goes on." The human suddenly snapped his fingers. "That's it! Finally, I know what I will do once I become King. I will have another, even more awe-inspiring temple built, in which people shall worship the most magnificent of all beings – the Great Cat. No doubt my sister would volunteer for High Priestess!"
Tiir tried not to stare.
Eventually, he said, "I'm sure Gastark will tremble in fear."
"They should," the prince said with a nod. "Anyway," he went on after a moment, "I'll look into this – the stories might just be stories, after all, but if there's a connection between them and Gastark's interest in the Cursed Eyes, that would be good to know."
"Divine."
The human blinked at him. "What?"
"Divine Eyes," Tiir said sharply. "They're not cursed."
"Ah. My apologies." A pause. "Wait, divine? As in..." The human waved his hand elaborately. "Divine?"
Tiir decided to ignore the intelligent phrasing of the question. "Yes," he said. He wasn't going to say anything more on the matter.
Narrowing his eyes, he waited for the human's mockery.
Once more, the prince blinked at him. "This is part of the 'humans are but inferior creatures' thing, isn't it?" he asked. Then, to Tiir's surprise, he grinned brightly. "Oh, this is perfect! Who needs an almighty cat when there are sublime red-glowing eyes around? Have you ever thought about founding a cult?"
"...What?"
"Come on, it would totally piss Gastark off! And just think about the possibilities – humans all over the continent would become susceptible to your cause. You could create an army of religious fanatics!"
"Are you finally acknowledging your pitiful species' inferiority?" Tiir inquired, managing to sound bland rather than bewildered or amused. "I'm impressed. I didn't believe you capable of that amount of rational thought."
"No, actually, it's all part of my evil master plan: if you're too busy converting people to eat them, that gives me time to convince you that not only can humans be useful, we're not all assholes, either! I'd still support your cult, though. Maybe we could include cats somewhere." The human nodded to himself.
Tiir decided the man was just strange, and that there really was no point in trying to figure him out.
"I should probably get going," the prince said. "You'll be all right?"
"Yes." That was to say, if the magician kept her mouth shut and minded her own business. Otherwise, the next few hours weren't going to be pleasant.
He would live, though.
"Good," the human said. "Hopefully, this will be the last one of those meetings."
Tiir didn't comment, but as far as this matter was concerned, he and the human were in complete agreement. With every day that passed, he was missing the children more, and he had to force himself not to think about them too much – because whenever he did, worry rendered him unable to breathe, and rage he couldn't afford to indulge in made his blood boil.
x x x
The magician entered just a moment after the prince stepped out of the door – apparently, she had already been waiting. Tiir wasn't surprised.
She sat down at the desk, looking more relaxed than the soldier had, but Tiir wasn't fooled. If the colonel had been a guard dog dutifully following the orders of its master, the half-Gastark woman was a snake ready to strike. Her eyes were trained on him, frosty, unblinking, and her right hand was resting on her belt in a manner that would have seemed casual if not for the accursed weapon placed right next to it.
Tiir seated himself opposite of her on the floor – although he would have preferred to remain standing in the mage woman's presence, the less she viewed him as a threat, the better.
The magician didn't even twitch, and when she kept gazing at him with a face unmoved as that of a stature, Tiir firmly quashed the desire to taunt her like he had the soldier. He knew better than to invoke her wrath.
Instead, he watched the dog, who looked like it desperately wanted to go over and greet the woman, but didn't quite dare. Apparently, there was a human the animal respected, after all.
Tiir suppressed a snort.
When he returned his attention to the magician, he found that the woman had picked up the book the prince had left lying on his desk. "And here I thought he had forgotten about it," she said, her eyes still fixed on Tiir. "You two didn't happen to have a chat about this, did you?"
Tiir didn't reply, and she nodded, letting the book slide from her hand back onto the desk. "Well, I won't blame you for humoring him. As long as you don't forget your place."
He resisted the urge to hold her gaze in a wordless challenge, and instead forced himself to glance away.
"Come here," the human ordered after a moment.
Tiir looked back at her in surprise, but after an instant slowly got up. He approached her not without wariness, but knew that whatever it was she wanted, refusing her would be more dangerous than doing her bidding.
"So," the magician said when he came to a halt in front of her, "what did you do that Colonel Arsan repeatedly asked me to convince His Highness to get rid of you?"
Tiir froze, then shook himself and narrowed his eyes. "He didn't say?"
"You're not supposed to ask questions, but answer them," the human informed him coolly.
Tiir regarded her, trying to appear unconcerned although he was trapped and they both knew it. He had no doubt the magician was well aware of what had transpired between him and the soldier – even if the man had been under orders to not speak of the incident, which Tiir wasn't so sure about, he wouldn't have been vague enough in making his request that she wouldn't be able to fill in the blanks.
Tiir inwardly cursed him, the half-Gastark magician and his own carelessness. Why had he even done what he had?
Because he hadn't expected any consequences? He knew better than that. To cover up his weakened state? The man would never have guessed, anyway – and it wouldn't have mattered even if he had. Because mocking the human had given him a sense of normalcy he had desperately needed?
Pathetic.
In the end, he remained silent. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't make things worse.
"Well," the woman said, "at least you don't have the audacity to try and worm your way out of this."
She raised her hand, and Tiir tensed.
The magician scoffed. "My Prince asked me to feed you, not skewer you. Closer – I'd hate to burn down the royal chambers."
Carefully concealing his surprise, Tiir took a step forward.
The human fired her magic at him without further ado, and he was startled by the power behind the spell – it wasn't a great amount, exactly, but enough that being confident it wouldn't destroy any of the furniture in the process of being absorbed required a degree of precision Tiir hadn't expected her to possess, despite everything. She really was a very skilled magician... for a human.
He allowed himself to enjoy the unexpected meal for the duration of a heartbeat and then quickly let the red fade from his eyes. For once, doing so didn't take much willpower – he hadn't run low on energy yet, though he supposed it wouldn't have been much longer with his body still recovering from whatever illness he'd had.
The magician was watching him intently, but Tiir noted that her right hand was still resting next to, not atop of her weapon. It irked him more than he would have thought.
"I hear you conducted yourself perfectly at the Council meeting," she said, "so I will overlook your insolence this once. Consider yourself warned, though: I don't care what my Prince lets you get away with, you will not disgrace him in front of his subjects."
Biting his tongue, Tiir inclined his head.
"Glad we have an understanding." She smiled a small, satisfied smile he would have liked to wipe off her face – preferably by ripping off her head –, and motioned for him to get back to his end of the room.
For once, Tiir was happy to oblige her.
The rest of the evening passed, surprisingly, without incident. The magician went back to feigning indifference to his presence, and Tiir returned the courtesy. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the human amusing herself first by finally acknowledging the dog's presence, and later by half-heartedly petting the female cat when it came in to inspect the visitor.
He knew the magician was watching him just as carefully as he was watching her, but as long as he didn't have to talk to her – or worse, listen to her talking –, he was content to act like she didn't exist.
After what couldn't have been more than three hours, the prince poked his head through the door. "You both still alive?" he asked cautiously.
The magician scoffed. "What do you suppose I did to it – eat it?"
"Well..."
The woman snorted. "You can keep your pets," she said, getting up. "I have no interest in them whatsoever." Walking over to the royal who was now closing the door behind himself, she asked, "Did you achieve your goal?"
The prince grinned. "If by that, you mean: 'did the highly venerable members of the Council finally give in and rid me of themselves for at least the next two weeks?', then yes, I achieved my goal all right."
Tiir pushed down his own anticipation at the news and kept his attention on the humans' conversation with some effort.
"Good," the mage woman said. "I was afraid I'd have to waste another evening looking after your animals."
One day, Tiir would kill her.
"Lymeia...," the prince began, but the magician interrupted him.
"Speaking of pets," she said. "You do realize your cat is expecting, don't you?"
Tiir blinked.
So did the prince. Then he stared. "What? But... why- how-"
"I don't really have to explain that to you, do I?" the woman asked dryly. "After more than a year of training as a healer, that would not just be sad, but downright pathetic."
The young royal spluttered. "I was going to ask 'how do you know?'" he finally managed. "Not how... that!"
"That," the magician repeated. "Forgive me, Your Highness, but I believe you are not yet old enough to be having this conversation. If you'd excuse me..." She inclined her head, and left without waiting for a reply.
The prince stared at the door she had so nonchalantly shut in his face, mouth agape. "She's... she's..."
"A human?" Tiir suggested helpfully.
"Evil!"
"That's what I said."
The prince turned to him, finally closing his mouth. "All right," he agreed after a moment. "She's human, you're impossible, and I'm an individual whose sister's cat is apparently pregnant!" He started pacing. "What do I do?"
"Take a deep breath, realize it's not you who is pregnant but the cat, and calm down?"
The human glared at him.
Tiir smirked at him briefly, but then shifted his attention to the cat who was slowly making its way towards him. He carefully scratched it behind the ears, and curiously watched it climb onto his lap a moment later. Nothing about it seemed different, but then again, it might already have been with young when he had first laid eyes on it.
"No, really," the human said. "What do I do? When Malyrei finds out, she will go around proclaiming that 'Her Majesty' is pregnant!"
Tiir blinked. "Are you serious?"
"I wish I wasn't," the prince said. "Once, when Mother was late for a banquet, she went about telling the story of how 'Her Majesty' had been attacked by a vicious dog twice her size. The only reason the whole thing didn't end in a panic was that she wouldn't let anyone leave before she was done, and after ten minutes or so would always finish with, 'and then she chased it off and ate the head of the freshly killed mouse she had been so bravely defending'. Most people drew the right conclusions, the rest... well, I'll admit their faces were hilarious."
Amused despite himself, Tiir snorted.
The human grinned at him, then apparently caught himself and shook his head. "But I'm forgetting the most important thing – sorry. As promised, I talked to my mother right after the meeting. You'll be able to see one of the children in five days."
Tiir froze.
He hadn't expected a concrete time-frame just yet, and suddenly, he wasn't sure what he felt anymore.
There was elation, certainly. But his heart was also clenching painfully, worry and fear making it hard to actually be happy about the information he had received.
He had been concerned about the little ones all this time, but he had also allowed the human's words to put his mind at ease more than once. If he had been lied to, if his captor had just been making a fool of him...
"Is something wrong?" the human asked, stepping over to him and looking quite troubled. "Was it something I said?"
Tiir regarded him for a long, drawn-out moment, and finally decided that the man probably wasn't trying to deceive him – putting on such a convincing act once or twice was one thing, doing it non-stop for half a fortnight another.
More importantly, though, it would be completely without sense – no less so than the notion of a human who was almost tolerable. Tiir would find out the truth within days, and even if the human thought he could continue to hide it from him infinitely, Tiir still couldn't see how it would benefit him. Going to such lengths just for the sake of cruelty would be an unnecessarily long-winded approach, and Tiir couldn't imagine why someone who had nothing to gain from it that he couldn't get in a simpler way would be willing to go through with it, why even a human who was foolish enough to think he could make Tiir trust him and hoped to get something out of it would act like this one.
Tiir had never doubted that he could recognize humanity's loathing for his kind from miles away, never mind after spending day after day in its company. He knew perfectly what hatred and resentment looked like, what it meant to wish for someone to suffer, and this wasn't it.
Of course, being a human, the prince's idea of the little ones being 'just fine' was unlikely to have much in common with his, but not for a second had Tiir expected that there would be no damage done. Like this, though, if it turned out that there was something severely wrong with the children and he still couldn't think of a way to safely get them away from the humans, instead of doing something radical that was more likely to get them killed than out of the enemy's reach, maybe he could talk to the man. As difficult as it was for Tiir to comprehend, at least for now the human really didn't seem to want Ren and Karda harmed.
"Nothing's wrong," Tiir told the prince calmly and went back to petting the by now dozing cat. "I was just thinking."
"Oh," the human said, not looking entirely convinced, but quick to return to the original topic of conversation. "The point of rendezvous will be a clearing about two hours from here," he went on. "We'll depart in the late evening. Aside from me, only Lymeia and one other person will be coming along on our side – perhaps Colonel Arsan, but that's not certain yet."
Tiir held the human's gaze for a moment longer, then glanced away. "Will I be allowed to speak with them?"
"Of course," the prince assured him. As what appeared to be an afterthought, he added, "Though I'm afraid I won't be able to give you much privacy."
Tiir snorted softly. "I didn't expect you to." Fixing his gaze on the human again, he asked, "What if they let something slip?"
"They're children," the prince said. "We won't hold them responsible for acting accordingly. There's not much they could let slip to begin with, and while they'll be told not to reveal certain things, it's no big deal even if we should feel they've said too much. The child staying behind will always be brought to a different location beforehand, so at worst, they'd both end up having to resettle. They would still be treated well, but I do believe they are best off where they currently are, so perhaps you could try to avoid talking about geography." The human winked at him.
"Pretty much everything else is fair game," the man continued. "They don't know the real name of the person looking after them, and you may as well know she's female. Her occupation isn't at all unusual in Salea, so that's not an issue, either." He smiled at Tiir. "Just relax and don't worry about that kind of thing too much."
Easy for the human to say – still, Tiir did feel some of his anxiety dissipate. The prince seemed to have put a lot of thought into the matter, and his considerations appeared to go beyond simply wanting to make sure Tiir would stay put.
He tried to remind himself that he was only setting himself up for betrayal if he believed even a single word out of a human's mouth, but at the same time knew it was already too late for that. If he were to question the man's every action, it would drive him mad.
Gods, he wanted home.
But even if he returned to his comrades, it would never be the same, would it? Lafra was gone, and so were too many others. Tiir was sick of it – disgusted by his own weakness.
"Tiir?"
The sound of his own name startled him, and he looked at the human in surprise. Despite having asked his permission to do so days ago, it was the first time the prince had addressed him this way.
"If there's something the matter, you know you can talk to me, right?" the royal asked with a concerned frown. "I know we can't be friends, but I do care."
Now that was enough to distract Tiir from his bleak contemplations. He blinked at the human, certain that he hadn't heard correctly. "What?"
"Well," the prince began slowly, "I know you hate me and all, but I respect how far you're willing to go for your siblings, and I do enjoy conversing with you. Besides," he added with a grin, "you're the first person to ever compliment my brain tissue. That has to count for something, right?"
Tiir knew he was giving the human the oddest look, but he couldn't have cared less.
"Er," the prince said, suddenly flustered. "Never mind. I really don't think before I talk. Just... if something is bothering you, even if it's something I wouldn't be able to do anything about, I could at least listen." A pause. "If you want."
Tiir took a deep, shaky breath. He wished the human would stop doing this. Why did he have to be so confusing?
Not that he wanted the man to start acting exactly the same as the rest of his kind – as things stood, that would be disastrous –, but couldn't he behave a bit less like... like someone who mattered? Tiir was beginning to feel that attempting to make the royal suffer for his actions would not only be unwise or pointless, but wrong.
It was ridiculous. He was a human. Even if he wasn't unnecessarily cruel, when it came down to it, Tiir and the children were just tools to him. If they ever stopped being useful, he would have them killed in the blink of an eye.
Maybe not all humans enjoyed causing his kind pain, but in the end they still feared them, used them, held them in contempt. In the end, it was still a fact that there could never be peace between their races.
"I don't," Tiir said sharply, causing the cat to jump and run off with an indignant hiss.
The human flinched, but for once, Tiir couldn't derive any pleasure from the sight. Still, he refused to feel guilty – why should he care about the feelings of the enemy who was holding him captive?
The look of hurt disappeared from the prince's features almost as quickly as it had come, leaving behind an expression that lacked emotion. "I'm sorry," the man said, strangely formal. "I spoke foolishly. Please forget I said anything."
The prince turned from him without waiting for a reply, and walked towards his garderobe.
It didn't feel like simply a prematurely ended conversation. Something had shifted in their relationship, and not for the better.
Tiir fought down panic. This was bad. He should just have kept his mouth shut – and now of all times.
But he hadn't thought this, of all things, would be what crossed the line.
"Wait," he said hurriedly. The prince halted, but instead of facing him, he just looked over his shoulder quizzically.
Tiir forced out the words before they could choke him, "I didn't mean to offend you."
The prince stared at him in confusion for a moment – then he gave a short, brittle laugh. It was a reaction Tiir found rather unsettling.
Finally, the human turned around. "You're worried you hurt my pride and I'm going to be an ass about it, aren't you? I should have taken more care not to give a wrong impression – again, I apologize. It's not like that. I just realized I wasn't conducting myself appropriately, and that I should keep my distance from now on."
Tiir bit his tongue – that was exactly what he had been afraid of; or at least, part of it. He wanted the human to stop pretending to care, but he also wanted to be able to discuss the treatment of the children with him. Like this, though, any attempt to do so would hardly get him anywhere – he didn't have anything left to bargain with.
"That's what I should have done from the beginning," the prince continued, and Tiir balled his fists. "It's not fair of me to expect you to act like I'm anything but the one keeping you prisoner, away from your family, your people. I didn't even realize how arrogant I was being."
...Wait, what?
The human was giving him a lop-sided smile now. "Of course, whenever you feel like commenting on my intestines, feel free to do so. I'd be delighted."
All right, that was it. Tiir would never understand this human. "Don't you think that if talking to you bothered me, I wouldn't have?"
The prince stared at him. "Well, I just thought..."
Tiir narrowed his eyes. "That I was trying to curry favor?"
"What? No – nothing like that!" The human looked positively horrified by the assumption. "I just... I don't know what I thought, all right? You're obviously not walking on eggshells around me, but I'm not sure you'd tell me to piss off and go bother someone else, either. Clearly, you're worried about setting me off – and who wouldn't be?" Raking a hand through unruly locks in frustration, the man declared, "This whole situation is just so fucked up."
Tiir regarded him.
So that was the problem? The human had trouble reading him?
Tiir wanted to laugh at the irony.
"In that case," he said instead, moving in front of the human in an instant, "explain yourself." His voice was almost a hiss. "Tell me why I shouldn't expect you to change your mind at any moment. Despite all your pretty words, at the end of the day, we're just monsters to you, aren't we? Monsters who devour lives, monsters who could go out of control any second, monsters who might be useful now but won't be forever. Why bother feigning concern when we both know you can hardly wait to wash your hands of us?"
The prince was staring at him with wide eyes, and Tiir was already beginning to wonder if he might have frozen in fear, after all, when the man's expression suddenly changed. "You're wrong," he said, the soft tone of his voice a sharp contrast to the way Tiir had addressed him. "I don't think of you as monsters. I never should have – believing rumors and myths without question isn't what I was raised to do. It's true that I'm using you, but that's because I believe it's necessary for the sake of my country. I'm not proud of it, but there's no going back now, and if it's for Salea, for my loved ones and my people, I'm willing to go this far."
"You think your people care who rules them that much?" Tiir scoffed. "They'd probably prefer Gastark over a war that is likely to get them all killed."
"They wouldn't," the prince said, calmly and without hesitation. "Maybe if my mother backed down willingly, but she won't, and neither will I. Not from Gastark."
"Isn't that just an excuse?" Tiir asked, not even trying to hide the scorn in his voice. "What does Gastark matter to you?"
The prince gave him a wry smile. "They matter – because they are willing to sacrifice too much. Even if their intentions turned out to be as noble as they claim, someone who starts war after war, who conducts the kind of experiments Lymeia believes would have been necessary to learn about the Magic Eyes in such detail, who creates crystal after crystal when it's so obvious you suffer just like humans do, is not someone I will ever let lay hands on this country if I can help it.
"I know Gastark's King is hailed as a hero by his people, and I'll admit he doesn't sound like a bad ruler by most standards, but even if it turns out to be true that he's not just interested in conquest, I wonder what he could be thinking. A king willing to kill his heart and wade through a sea of blood to reach his goal might be able to create peace, but he won't be able to maintain it – because those who witness his actions will always remember that if push came to shove, he would sacrifice them, and their friends, and their families, and everything they care about in an instant. The idea of serving something bigger than oneself can support a soldier in battle, but it will never be enough replace people's every day lives. That's what I believe."
It sounded nice, and like something that had been spoken in earnest. It also sounded like the foolish belief of a foolish human who failed to consider that killing each other to achieve their goals was all his abominable kind ever did.
Perhaps because he hadn't managed to keep his lips from twisting in disdain, before Tiir could decide whether he wanted to bother pointing out something that was so obvious, the prince added, "Though I guess Lymeia might be right and that's just a fancy way of saying that I don't like his methods and don't trust him, so if you're asking why I think a war is preferable to trying our luck with him, the simplest answer would probably be that Salea is not Gastark. Someone from such a vastly different culture shouldn't presume to subject us to his laws – like that could ever be a good thing rather than a disaster. Just breaking with minor traditions tends to be a very delicate matter in this country that can get people killed; the last thing we need is outside interference in the form of conquest." The human crossed his arms, and holding Tiir's gaze finished, "Whatever way you look at it, Gastark's King can't have Salea because at the end of the day, this country and its people wouldn't mean anything to him."
Well, Tiir thought as he stared right back at the human, perhaps the man had thought about the issue for more than three seconds before deciding to throw so many of his own kind's lives away.
And though it was still foolish, still proof of how despicable humans were that they would kill each other over their arbitrary rules and customs, Tiir had to admit he wasn't unimpressed by the man's reasoning, or entirely unaffected by the conviction behind his words. From a human's standpoint, perhaps he was doing what was necessary to protect his own.
Still...
"We're not your people, though," Tiir said, "so why would you care?"
"You may not be my people, but you're still people. Why wouldn't I care?"
"We don't even belong to the same species."
"So?" the human returned glibly. "I don't care about blood, so why should I care about whether someone has red-glowing eyes?"
"Or about whether someone could crush you in a heartbeat?" Tiir asked.
Strangely enough, this seemed to amuse the prince. "A whole lot of people could crush me in a heartbeat," he informed him, "and I'll take a guess and say that the vast majority of them does not have red-glowing eyes. My sister certainly doesn't." A snort. "Not that it stopped her from trying to eat me."
Tiir narrowed his eyes. "Would you take this seriously?" he all but snarled.
"I am taking this seriously," the human retorted. "What I'm trying to say is: I'm not afraid of your powers."
"Then you're a fool."
"Am I? Fear can be useful, but I don't think there is anything particularly desirable about falling into a state of terror every time I encounter something that could hurt me. I'd never be able to set a foot outside this room again. I don't fear your powers, and I certainly don't fear those children. I don't want you killed, or hate you, or even am indifferent to you."
The prince smiled at him, but it looked more like a grimace. "And yet, when it comes down to it, I'm just one more asshole human hunting you down because of your eyes. I suppose I'm no better than Gastark in this regard. Still, I won't go back on my word, since no matter how much I love this country, there are lines I'm not willing to cross – because that's not the kind of person I want to be, or the kind of king I would want to become. In fact, if the only way I saw to advance Salea's interests involved breaking my word and killing children who aren't hurting anyone, I'd take that to mean I'm probably not the kind of person this country needs in the first place."
Tiir considered the human. He sounded convincing. In fact, he almost made sense, which was as off-putting as it was persuasive. Just for an instant, Tiir found himself enthralled by the prince's words, wanting not only to believe them, but to keep listening to them in hopes of finally figuring out the peculiar creature in front of him.
But the moment passed, and all that remained was the feeling of wary acceptance.
He stepped back, and decided that if only for the sake of his own sanity, he would content himself with the human's explanation for now.
Once more, the prince smiled at him, but although it looked a bit more heartfelt this time, his expression still seemed pained. Tiir could have told the man that he detested him nowhere as much as he detested Gastark, but he didn't see why he should bother. There was nothing he detested as much as he did Gastark – it didn't erase the truth behind the royal's self-deprecating statement: he was no better than Gastark, because he was a human, and that was a fact no amount of pretty words was going to change.
"Does it matter to you which one of the children you see first?" the prince asked suddenly.
Tiir blinked at him. He hadn't even thought about that.
Did it? A part of him believed that Karda would be fairing better – they were both strong children, but Ren wouldn't take well to being shunned; he was too outgoing for that, too eager for others' approval. The humans might be careful not to cause the children lasting physical injuries, but for Ren, just being met with scorn could have similar effects. Karda was the more confident, practical one out of the two, and probably the kind of person less likely to succumb to despair while she had someone other than herself to look out for – but she was still a child, and it was impossible to tell how she would take having to live through so many catastrophes in such a short period of time, when she had only just been beginning to recover from the cruelties of her old life. And she was surrounded by humans, whose mere presence would be enough to terrify her.
Therefore, what Tiir eventually said was, "No, it doesn't."
If he was honest with himself, he was much too glad to be able to speak those words in good conscience – he didn't want to feel like he was putting one child over the other, or to make a decision only to find out later that he had been horribly wrong.
His own selfishness repulsed him, but he couldn't help it. He already couldn't forgive himself for having failed to protect them once.
Twice.
"All right," the prince said. "I'll leave that part to other people, then." He tilted his head. "Anything else that would need clearing up?"
When Tiir remained silent, the man nodded. "Just ask if you have any questions."
He turned around again, and this time, Tiir didn't stop him.
.
.
Author's Note: One day they will be on proper speaking terms and it will be glorious, I'm sure.
Or maybe they'll just spend all day talking about awkward things like Tiir's pretty eyes.
...And about how people should worship them. What did I write.
I had fun with Ecylan being clueless as to what's really going on in the world, even if discussing Gastark and the Goddesses in that context felt weird. (Yay for wild speculations! Originally I just wanted Tiir to have a go at this, but to get there I had to poke everything a little... and I have absolutely no excuse for the cat cult thing.)
And of course Tiir would think Sion sucks in all his quasi-incarnations - Team Lonesome Devil all the way! You just don't eat your friends, okay. it's the height of failiness. That's why you teach kids table manners. And if Tiir had realized what's going on in episode 18, so help him, he would have done it retroactively!
And Sion would have gone full troll mode on him. "Hmmm. Does this also go for half your friend? What about just a thigh? Oh, all right, but I wasn't being literal..."
No, I'm not writing crack fic in my head about why you should never lock Tiir, Sion and Ryner in one room together. Not at all.
Echem.
This chapter was difficult for me to revise mainly because more so than usual, I had to get Tiir's thought process to make sense without actually making sense, if you know what I mean. I'm not sure how well I did at that, but at least I could re-read without wincing by the end, so I decided to just post it before I lost my nerve again and changed words back and forth for another week. Chapter 6 comes with the same problem, only worse, but it's shorter and... different, so I hope I'll manage to edit and upload it much quicker.
The title comes from "Live Free or Let Me Die" by Skillet this time. I wanted to go with another song at first, but that part just fit too well.
Next time we'll see: Tiir, uhm, not dealing so well with the situation and the lack of his usual coping mechanisms. But all's well so long as he can still rationalize things! Probably.
Till then!