Drunken Lullaby
Prologue: Stuck in a Drink
LLLLLL
"So let me be,
And embrace this,
Take my heart,
Don't get rid of it.
For we all,
Are stuck in the middle,
For we all,
Are dancing with the fiddle,
For we all,
Are gone in a wink,
For we all,
Are stuck in a drink."
–'For We All'-Kuri
LLLLLL
Within the light of the grand mess hall tent, the ale was being passed around freely. It had been a great victory only that afternoon against a rebelling army. All three of their lords had gone to bed earlier than most of their warriors though. Despite the late hour, a group of stragglers were still there in the mess hall tent, playing a game of "Who said that?" The game consisted of a moderate amount of drink to be swallow when someone won the round. For each round, the person who called out the correct person and whomever was "it" did not drink the round while everyone else would have a gulp of their warranted brew. The person who won was now it for the next round. This normally went on for about five to six rounds. Usually everyone after that become unable to understand the other for good reason.
At least that's what usually happened. This time, Serra surmised, that their ale wasn't as strong as it usually was, either that or hers was watered down like usual. She detested the fact that everyone thought she was a child. Sure she looked like a child, but no one should underestimate her age simply because of what she looked like. 'Or act like,' she thought to herself as she took another sip. The game was becoming annoying now than usual merely because of her slight buzz compared to the men near her.
Matthew was obviously winning again. Erk was worse off than both her or Wil. His drink compared to hers was probably stronger if the cleric could judge by the scent of it. Serra sighed and saw a rare look upon Erk's face, one she only saw drawn out through the liquid bread on occasion. The look was a lopsided grin upon his usually frowning lips and a shimmer of light in his dark eyes that did nothing but grow a boiling of heat in her stomach from nervousness. It was a look meant to set off alarms but it only made her breath short and face hot. He barely showed it to her, and even that was extremely rare as he rarely drank. He only seemed to do it at times when he was completely drunk around her.
The mage laughed hard as he tried to get out whom Matthew's line belonged to originally. His body nearly toppled over to land against Serra's side with a smoldering grin on his lips as he looked at her. The cleric could only blush heavily as the dark haired mage rarely set any amount of physical touch upon her. She moved a moment later, common sense chiming in that this should be time he needed to sleep from his sloppy movements. 'Oh, common sense, how I wish you weren't such a moment killer," She thought.
"I think it's time Erky went to sleep." Serra's voice came out slightly slurred. She was a tiny bit buzzed, which was better off than Wil and Erk, both of whom were failing to stay on the benches. Seeing at Matthew's shrug towards putting Erk to bed, she knew she would have to do it herself. Matthew and Wil shrugged as she took Erk by his arm despite his protests at wanting another round before leaving, unable to gather the strength to get out of her soft grip. Her arm held him up as he leaned on her, his face brushing against her cheek as they walked out of the tent.
They stumbled this way and that through the numerous tents and guards wandering, some of them even chuckling at her predicament with Erk's soft baritone voice singing off key about the Lusty Ostian Maid, Ms. Spredshurligz. Blushing at the roots of her pink hairs down to her toes, Serra was regretting ever teaching him the naughty stanzas, though Matthew, Legault, and Wil hadn't helped by singing it as well.
"Serra..." She looked up from what she was concentrating on, nearly falling against a barrel before stopping them both. His lips rested against her ear, grazing the sensitive skin as he spoke her name softly, in a clear tone that made her toes curl from the dark sound of it. The cleric would secretly admit that if this was a way to die, she would be in heaven from it. With a soft tongue licking her ear, a near screech almost escaping her lips, Serra de Ostia moved like a soldier having just been chastised. Erk needed his bed and she needed to leave him there and take a really cold dip in the nearby lake.
It was making her feel awkward but flushed. His attention on her was unusual and she knew that it was because of the drink more than who he was. Erk treated Serra as if she was a nuisance, in which she knew that her actions, however innocent or good intentioned made her that way. This attention on her made her happy though. It was no fault of her own that she knew that she harbored a place in her heart for the mage. In her heart though, she knew he would never go to her. His attentions, even when he was sober, was meant more for the likes of Priscilla's gentle words and his books.
At that thought she paused, 'He'll never like me when he's sober.' The thought only made her attempts to help him talk and be generally more social with everyone become diminished before she noticed that they were right near his tent in the male area of the camp. Reaching for his tent entrance, she snatched the flap open to a space filled with notes and books lying about, a small tea set off to the side, and a sleeping cot ready for its burden. Awkwardly moving through the mess of papers, Serra and Erk moved to his cot before she was able to sit him down. He looked up at her once she got him to sit down. His fingers reached up to the curve of her small waist, thumbs running in circles around her stomach.
"Serra…..Thanks." She looked down at him, having started putting her hands to his to remove them, relunctantly from her hips when she paused at his words. The pink-haired cleric felt a soft glowing smile grow on her lips before she leaned down to his forehead, giving it a soft kiss of her lips. His skin was pink from the alcohol, brushing fire against her mouth. She rested her head against his for a moment, savoring something she knew she wouldn't get otherwise.
This was her moment alone with him.
Laying the mage down with her hands on Erk's shoulders, she tenderly put his hair back from his face. Erk smiled, a genuine one, as she began to draw away from him, only to yelp from his sudden strength at pulling her on top of him with his hands still on her hips. Landing over him at a strange angle, Serra tried to move in a way to get back up when his lips started kissing her neck, nipping at the soft feel of her throat. His purple hair fell around his pillow as his arms fully wrapped around her waist, locking the slim woman against him. Serra's cheeks blistered into an inferno, unable to move her hands in a position to lean away from him, trapped against those sensual lips of his.
All sense of control was slipping, especially when he found her ear again and whispered her name in a way that could only make her drain any want to get away from it, enthralled by the dark promise that was enraptured in her mere name of pleasures she had yet to share with any man or woman, desires she had sated to keep to herself ready to spill over into the cusp of his lips.
All she knew as she moved her head to meet his lips, tasting the elderberry drink briefly on his lips, in a searing kiss, was that tomorrow would be different for her at the least.
LLLLL
Slowly waking up, the first thing Serra noticed was that she was quite warm and content at that. The second was the fact that she was naked, a occurrence that alarmed her as she moved the naked arm wrapped around her stomach off to sit up. Upon looking down from the nice soft arm that had been around her middle, Serra's eyes followed the arm to the shoulder to only gasp softly at the dark purple hair. Had she bedded Canas? She paused for a moment, scrunching her nose in thought before reaching over to lift a few pieces of dark purple hair. 'By Elimine's holy pantaloons!' The cleric exclaimed in her thoughts.
She didn't understand for a few minutes just how that happened until her mind processed what happened the night before with taking him to his tent, feeling his lips against her neck and her name. Shudders racked her body both from the desire it brought forth from memory alone to panic.
Her mind checked over her body with the training of a normal soldier. Her nether region felt tender along with her hips being sore, understandingly, she knew just what they had done. Taking a look back down at him, Serra knew she had a choice now. He could wake up and see them together and swear she was nothing to him and was the worst thing since sliced bread or she could leave, keeping this night for herself and never have him know that he bedded Serra, the most annoying woman on this side of Elibe. Serra bit her bottom lip as she thought before mind was made up.
'The best thing is for you not to see us like this, right?' Serra thought to herself, moving slowly out of his bed to find her discarded clothing. Her hair bands were snapped in half and her dress was wrinkled beyond all intentions. She had no idea where her underwear had landed, but she did find her maiden's slip. Slipping on everything that she found quickly, Serra knew she needed to keep her mind busy from thinking over last night and to keep busy, she knew best where to go.
Once her shoes were on, sneaking to the medical tent Serra dodged and hid from wandering guards more so to not have anyone see her 'walk of shame,'. Despite the tenderness in her body, she knew she had enjoyed last night and had slept tremendously well in his arms.
Finally, upon seeing the sign for the infirmary, Serra entered between the large flaps to the sight of Priscilla, the red headed troubadour. The troubadour seemed to holding a letter in her hand for a moment before quickly hiding it away from Serra's view, smiling up at her hastily.
"Hello, Lady Serra! It is good to see you up so early." The flame-haired beauty blinked in question before schooling her face at Serra's hair being down. Priscilla had yet to see her hair away from the pigtails so that it came as a slight shock. The soft pink hair fell in soft waves to the cleric's shoulders, slightly messy but altogether looked rather becoming on Serra. To Priscilla, a woman who learned of Serra's age early on, having the cleric's hair down made it visible to her for the first time of how old Serra was underneath all the giddy youth she used around everyone. "Your hair is beautiful when it is down, Lady Serra."
"Huh? Oh, um...Thank you, Priscilla! Why wouldn't it be? I mean this is me after all, you know!" She exclaimed, guiltily trying her best to look as if she hadn't just been deflowered the night before, as if there was nothing to hide such as the red hickeys and love bites on her neck. "Any chance I could get a small amount of headache relief? I was up with Matthew, Erky, and Wil late last night doing that game Matthew invented, you know, the drinking one and got a bit off the rocker with the drinking part of it."
Priscilla, smiling ruefully at the other woman , only nodded as she concentrated on healing the minor headache that Serra had. With a wave of a slim silver rod, the troubadour placed the rod away while the cleric sighed. If anything good was to happen out of today, it would be a hangover relief. Serra smiled, thanking the soft spoken noble before heading towards the other side of the room where her group of ill soldiers laid in wait for her to attend the morning routines and check-ups. Despite knowing Serra for only a month or so, Priscilla knew that this was not the jovial, talkative, yet utterly annoying Serra she often had to deal with. Something subdued her.
"L-Lady Serra?" Serra looked up from a patient to the other mender's soft question. Priscilla forged on with her question despite the surprised look from Serra's face. "You are acting out of the normal, Lady Serra. Are you sure you're well?" There was a moment of pause between the two before Serra's cheeks spread wide in a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Don't be silly! Of course, I'm all right! It's so wonderful for you to be worried for me, but there's no need to be!" Another well placed grin of forced cheerfulness only made Priscilla frown before she continued with her side of the infirmary. If Serra wanted her to know, she would tell her, Priscilla supposed. The cleric only kept her smile up until she knew that Priscilla was near the very end of one of her rows, unable to see her face too clearly. Sighing, Serra forced her thoughts inward as she began healing her next patient, keeping in mind each man's wounds while Erk wheedled his way in the background of her thoughts.
It wasn't until late afternoon that the medical tent's flaps opened to his gloved hands, revealing his form as he stepped into the warm tent, heading straight for Serra, as Priscilla relatively had more of a workload of soldiers, many who preferred her demure manner to Serra's chatty one, who was nearer to the men who were sleeping off hangovers. He stopped right behind the long-haired cleric, taking a moment to admire the fact that her hair was down.
Despite his initial thoughts of asking Serra just what he had done at another of Matthew's drinking games, the mage could only grasp at straws for his thoughts when she turned around, blushing at him. Her mouth opened up under his tentative gaze, trying to find a word or anything as she forgot to realize that he would have likely come into the medical tent for his usual raging hangover after Matthew's drinking games.
"Will you cast a spell on my hangover?" She nodded numbly, uncertain she could get words out to him. 'Does he even remember?' she wondered as her fingers took a slim healing rod to his forehead, muttering the incantation. He gave a soft sigh as the pounding behind his temples abated for clearer thought. Enjoying the silence for a moment, Erk frowned. He at least expected a high-pitched admonishing for cracking his head into his mage books again or something more for drinking too much.
Instead of her usual chattiness and mothering that she always forced on Erk, he received little more than a wave of the wand before she started working on another soldier. He eyed her warily. This new creature that sat in Serra's seat was most definitely not the demon witch herself. Did he say something terrible to her, more so than the usual, last night?
"Serra, did I do anything last night, while drinking?" Serra paused in her healing, looking up at him with a face between astonishment and fright before fiercely shaking her head. He caught sight of a purple bruise on his neck and immediately felt shame in him. Had he accidently fired a spell while drunk and Serra had just been in the way? Reaching down to her chin, he pulled her face gently back up to his eyes, noticing that she hadn't flinched at his touch.
"Serra, did I hurt you?" The priestess only laughed at his honestly concerned question, shaking her head with mirth and what resembled relief in her eyes. He knew he enjoyed her silence if only for a moment, but he missed the exhubarence for which she would mother him and he knew he wouldn't forgive himself if he hurt his friend, despite how often he had the urge to stuff his dirty socks in her mouth to get her quiet.
"N-no! Erky, you would never hurt me and you know it! Now don't be silly and go get some breakfast! In fact, you should have gone to the mess tent before coming over here. You'll miss out on the good food if you don't hurry and it will help keep the hangover at bay after the spell wears off." She smiled at him before Erk seemed to become satisfied with her reply taking a moment to let his hand slide to the visible hickey on her neck, feeling her take a sharp breath before his hand returned to his side. The man turned on his heel back out of the tent, intent on listening to her good advice for once.
He did not like that Serra acting so out of character for him, supposing she would come out of whatever sickness she had sooner or later to annoy the hell out of him.
LLLLL
'This is it.' In a tent, cleaned down to the last crevice, Serra looked down at the knife she had in her hand. The silver knife was sharp. She had made sure of it, taking it from Rebecca's knapsack the night before after the green haired archer had whetted it. It was another crime on her slippery slope. She kept her eyes on it, paler than what she should be on her sickest days. Her own reflection mirrored the weariness she had been occupied with.
Her fingers gripped the hilt tightly, reaching the weapon to her neck. It was going to hurt. She knew having kept things the same for so long it would be different when she took that knife and sunk it home. Scrunching her face up tightly, taking a large breath, she knew she was as ready as she was ever going to be.
Serra had seen the signs. This was the only way that Erk was going to be alright with who she was. It was the only way that she would ever let herself be. She would no longer belong on a battlefield. She would no longer watch the stars on occasion with the apprentice of Etruia. She wouldn't get to do a lot of things with him anymore.
Biting her bottom lip, Serra's hand, shaking in trepidation, slid to its target with ease, sinking into the pink silk of the body she was so proud of, giving only a moment of resistance before freeing itself from her person. The hand holding the dagger fell limp to her side, tears flowed only silently on her face.
Her long hair resided in her other hand, cut off from her head after almost fourteen years of growing it out.
It was a sacrifice she knew she had to make. Slipping the knife into a sheath on her belt, the pink haired cleric dropped her long cut-off hair on the towel behind her. Taking a heady breath of air, she turned around to view the sight. Her head felt lighter, that was certain, but did she look different enough was the real question.
Her hand took out a small mirror she had kept from the first time she had been away from Ostia's church. Looking into it, she noticed she looked a bit younger, but her hair was cropped, messy, and made her face seem like she was a young soldier boy from the army. Satisfied, her fingers traced over the image for only a moment. She knew she didn't have long to linger. The morning mess crew would be waking up soon and she had to leave within her window of opportunity.
Placing the mirror back in her saddle bag, Serra looked over to her cot. The bedding was pristine and without wrinkles, much like the rest of her tent. Envelopes were waiting on top of her pillow, waiting for their turn to be claimed by people whom she wrote to. Her tomes were in her bag along with a rod of healing. Her clothes…..
She looked over to the side of her saddle bag. They would be tossed into a fire as she left. Her bishop's ring was on a rope necklace in her saddle bag, hidden by a night tunic and leggings. The clothing she wore she had bought off a villager who was desperate for the coin, hungry and beleaguered from the war campaign.
In the pit of her stomach, Serra knew she should have given him more, but…. Her fingers splayed along the curve of her stomach. The cleric had a small life that needed to be looked after before anyone else. She knew Elimine would forgive her, but the acrid taste of being unable to give as much help as she had, didn't settle down with her just yet.
The room was cold despite all the things that remained in it. Nothing was open. Even her jewelry box, usually displaying its pretty confections was closed. She had made sure to take nothing of true note from it. Turning around, her hands wrapped up her lost hair, slipping the cloth package of hair into her small courier's purse.
'Now or never, Serra!' The cleric stood, wrapping her purse around her chest, resting against the rustic vest, brown and practical, covering a long beige tunic that split on both sides mid-thigh. Her fingers brushed against her brown pants that slipped into well worn boots that looked like a stablehand owned them. Taking another deep breath, Serra slipped out of her tent, keeping an eye out for any of the patting guardsmen.
She edged out of sight as she walked, keeping to the nearest tent if she felt movement come near her as she made her way towards the stables. The courier horse, a fast desert horse that a bandit had lost to the tactician's plans, was waiting, plain as day. The stable hand was snoring softly in his dreams.
The cleric bit her lower lip, eyes coming to meet her second biggest obstacle. She needed to get the tack and bridle on the horse. Sain's advice came to her mind when she began reaching for the leather saddle. His instructions that Serra had memorized came back to her easily. Rote of scripture was one of her skills from the church of St. Elimine. It allowed her to remember the order of some things if she practiced keeping the memory intact. The courier horse didn't seem to mind her with its dark black hair shining from the previous night's brushing.
She had ensured she would get stable duty by switching with Lowen who preferred the cooking duties. Once the last strap was on, saddle bags placed under the saddle, her fingers reached for the spurs to slip on her feet.
A loud snort broke the silence of the morning, causing Serra to freeze up completely before the rustle of hay and snoring became prevalent. The stable boy was simply turning around in his sleep. A shaky breath escaped her. Her fingers found the hook for the rope, taking it off to ease the black mare out of the handmade stall. Replacing the rope end back on the hook, Serra reached over to the last piece she needed to make it out.
An enchanted cape seemed to shine golden to her eyes as her fingers silently reached up to take it off the cape rack. Slipping it around her body, she felt the instant warmth from it's enchanted inside. Serra would be warm if it were cold around her, and cool if it were warm instead. No water would leak to touch her body under the protection of the cloak. The cleric sighed, ensuring that the cape would not fall from her body nor have the hood slip from her head.
With her hands on the reins, she led the horse out of the stable tent.
She would be leaving on the gate towards Ostia, but there was a river a mile away that she would use to double back and go south, towards the dragging tail of Lycia's lands near the large and nearly impassable mountains of Bern. She wiped her palms on her tunic, approaching the guards of the Ostian gate.
"Courier! Where you headed boy?" She looked up, opening her mouth to reply readily. With a deep breath and all the muscles in her throat nearly protesting at the pitch of her voice, Serra lied as best as she could.
"Lady Seras wants me to take a letter to Ostiafor Lord Uther." She reached into the satchel at her hip, pulling out a sealed envelope with the tactician's seal on the back, unbroken. That had been one of the trickiest parts of the entire charade. The second-in-command tactician of Ostia, Seras de Talunis, guarded her seal well. A bet with Matthew, however, had gotten her the seal to use for a "love" letter to be sent to Legault in a way to cause mischief among the camp a few weeks before.
The guards looked at the seal on the envelope as if it were a great puzzle before handing it back to her.
"Elimine bless your way, courier." With bated breath, Serra moved to get on the courier horse, taking only a moment to settle on the saddle comfortably enough. Nausea would soon set in again, she knew as she spurred the swift horse past the checkpoint. With the rocking gallop of the fine mare's thighs under her, the cleric felt the sting of tears fall down her face.
'I'm…..Erk is free of us.' She thought in pain, a heart wrenching sob escaping from her lips. Erk did not love her and she knew, she absolutely knew if she had even mentioned what happened near four months before that he would find her abhorrent. He would cast her friendship aside and demand the life she had to be extinguished.
The priestess could remember the moment all too clearly when it dawned on her that the night she broke her vows of chastity was more than she thought. She had stared at the herbs she had taken from the merchant, remembering the property of each. Her mind had recounted the signs, and then the days she had last had a bleeding. It had been a near three months.
When it came down to it, Serra had thought long and hard on what she should do, coming up with a plan a few days after to leave as a courier and run away. For her, this way she was taking….
It was the only way to keep the child that Erk had fathered without remembering and keep her safe from the mage's scorn and anger. It was the only way.
LLLLLLL
Disbelief was across Erk's soft face. A letter held in his hand that was shaking as his dark eyes stared straight in front of him. His lips moved without sound with his body leaning against Serra's crisp cot for a pillar. The room was devoid of the woman he had been seeking. Priscilla, who he was attending for a lesson in healing, was too busy with soldiers to help him, insisting that he go fetch Serra for her side of the tent.
His mind was racing over the details she had written of. The cleric had cried, smudges of ink here and there against the letter's contents. He knew she had been sick for the last month, constantly having to throw up at the smell of anything that offended her, but he had thought they had shared it since he had been getting nauseous for most days that she was. A strange flu that he had decided had skipped others in the camp.
When had she left? The question haunted him in his thoughts. Where had she gone? No answers came to him other than ' Sometime today' and 'Someplace you're not.' His heart constricted painfully, tighter than he had ever felt it, more than the day he had heard that he was without parents. He panted from the trepidation, uncertainty welling up in his fright.
She was gone because of him. The rest of the envelopes laid there on the bed as Erk stared in heart break that he had never known was coming. It stripped his body of feeling, draining his mind of thought of anything but her. Serra stayed there like a ghost, murmuring the secrets the letter he held in his hand told him.
'Erk, I love you, but I know you won't ever love me back.'
His teeth clenched harshly at the chiding voice in his mind. Her form was a wisp, moving to settle in front of him, head on his knees as her ghostly lips spoke.
'I'm leaving not because of that, but because I don't want you to hate me. A few months ago, we were playing a drinking game with Matthew and the others. I took you to bed and you took me. I'm no longer a sister of the St. Elimine. I broke my vows for you.'
Erk opened his mouth to let out a harsh gasp, chest heaving as he felt the lump in his throat settle there, unable to move from his stubbornness. A wail was waiting to escape into the air as the form of Serra in front of him leaned closer, speaking the most frightening line for him.
'That's not all though. I'm with your child. I want our child to be happy and loved. I want you to one day love him. You won't need to ever love me in return. I won't burden you so this letter is goodbye. Don't look for me. Love, Serra de Ostia."
His fingers grasped the letter, pressing his hand and letter to his leg, body curling up completely. The lump in his throat rose to the back of his mouth before he gasped harshly. The wail of a heart broken man echoed throughout the camp, causing pause amongst almost all of members of the Lycian army. Tears filled his eyes, fuzzing his sight as they fell down his cheeks like tides to the call of the sob he let out.
The mage had thought he would never feel like this in his life but it was the simple facts from the letter, echoing to him each line.
'Goodbye.'
LLLLLL
So, a girl from the Fire-emblem DA group did an extremely cute Serra x Erk drawing for my Secret Santa present. I thought to myself, after seeing the effort she put into the art, that I should put work back into one of my most beloved stories. I am retyping and editing each chapter of 'Drunken Lullaby.' For all of my already fans, I am sorry for the wait on Chapter 12. I have been busy with life for the most part for these last few years and ran into a lot of hardware crashes that resulted me into losing the steam I had for this story.
I think I found it again, so I have not forgotten my much beloved Serra x Erk story. I will also be posting up art for those who would like to see the character/environment designs I have in my head.
Please read and review!
