Leo learns the true meaning of secondhand embarrassment. Kana tries to enjoy his lunch. Corrin holds war council.
When, earlier that day, Xander had come to him and requested his presence at the arena alongside the Hoshidian royals, Leo had vehemently refused. Numerous times. He couldn't easily forget the times training with Xander had rendered him a motionless pulp with a bruised ego.
"I hate training," he'd said, "and I won't have you make a fool of me in front of the Hoshidians."
Now, as he trailed behind his brother and the high prince of Hoshido, he had no one to blame but himself. Himself and—
"What's the matter, Nohrian scum? Out of breath?"
I'll see you hang for this, Leo thought but couldn't say. The threat shriveled up inside his aching lungs.
"You do know this is just the warm up, right?"
Leo bared his teeth at the Hoshidian. The other boy chuckled and then increased his pace, inching forward. Leo strained to close the gap. His feet were leaden. His breaths were filtered through gritted teeth and stung his raw throat.
As Takumi drew farther and farther away, Leo's stride became more and more erratic. Layers of sweat glued his clothes to his skin. With each step, the weight of his clothes worsened, the damp fabric digging into his skin. He grabbed at the collar of his shirt, intending to yank it over top his drenched head, but it clung to the undersides of his arms.
His pace slowed as he clawed at the wet fabric and quickly became trapped inside the stinking, sweaty threads. By the time he could see daylight from the underside of the shirt, he had come to a complete stop. He wrenched the shirt overtop of his head and then hunched over top his knees as the exertion of his run caught up to him. A breeze froze the sweat on his exposed torso. He shivered violently.
"Feeling perky today, Lord Leo?"
As Niles' biting laugh sounded, Leo hunched over farther, sliding his arms across his chest to hide the source of Niles' observation from sight. With a blush, Leo thought, This morning just keeps getting better.
Then, he choked out, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Is the High Lord of Hoshido around somewhere?"
Craning his neck and peering through long strands of sweat laden hair, Leo took in his retainer's devious smirk, the malicious glint in his eye, and the unfamiliar book clutched in his hand.
"No."
"So that's not Lord Lobster running this way?"
Shit.
Leo forced himself to stand upright with a wheeze, sure to keep his arms crossed over his chest. His stomach bubbled with dread as Ryoma and his brother approached.
"Don't embarrass me," he spat at the archer, but knew it was pointless to say anything. It was easier to count the times Niles hadn't embarrassed him than the times that he had. It had only gotten worse since they'd arrived here.
In the past few weeks, Leo had reprimanded Niles for so many things that the archer's antics had become one massive headache. There had been the time that Niles had so thoroughly demoralized and emasculated the troops that he had been summarily banned from the barracks. Or the time that he'd convinced the Hoshidians that certain vulgar slang terms were colloquial Nohrian greetings and had been slapped by no less than thirteen women and four men. Or the time Niles somehow managed to teach Elise and her cohorts several "sentence enhancers" that had culminated in her telling Camilla that she was the "best fucking sister in the whole wide world" and then Leo had had to defend Niles from his sister's wrath even though Niles probably deserved to be ripped apart. Or the time Niles had felt so pressed for mischief that he'd approached Azama to propose an alliance between them but then had spent the rest of that day sprawled on Leo's floor and bemoaned his own mortality and the implications of free will and human consciousness so loudly that Selena, who occupied the room beside Leo's, had confronted Leo the next day and told him that if he was going to fuck Niles, could he at least have the decency to gag him first and Leo was so bewildered and stunned by her brazen misunderstanding that he could only capitulate to her demands.
Such a pain in the ass, Leo thought as he watched Niles bow deeply and dramatically to herald the arrival of the heirs apparent. As he straightened, Leo caught sight of the book's spine and the words Royal Relations stitched in red thread were vaguely familiar.
It sounds the sort of thing Camilla might read.
His skin began to crawl.
Whatever it is, this isn't not going to end well.
Niles' expression was feral.
"Lord Ryoma! I bring news!"
The High Prince regarded Niles with cool disdain.
His reputation proceeds him, Leo thought just as a hand clasped tight around his shoulder. He turned to his brother's well-intentioned expression with a searing glare. Then, he shook the offending appendage off with a grimace. Niles coughed into his fist but the edges of his smirk forked out behind his curled fingers.
Kill me.
A snicker sounded. Leo turned to find Takumi fast approaching.
Kill me fast.
"Well Niles?" Ryoma said after inclining his head to the younger prince. "Out with it."
"Ah, right," Niles mumbled. Then, he held up his finger, wagged it, and announced with a tsk, "Corrin's been a naughty girl."
The resounding still that followed would have been too much for a monk decades into a vow of silence. Leo could hear individual blood vessels die within his veins.
Ryoma, much braver than Leo had ever given him credit for, blustered, "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about your sister's penchant for public exhibition and my having been an unfortunate witness."
At the plethora of dismayed expressions, of which Leo's was surely the reddest, Niles continued, saying, "I mean, honestly, she's a grown woman, the leader of this little crusade, and a member of the nobility. She should know that certain things are to be done in the privacy of her bedroom, not the path outside the mess hall."
Leo was in no means a prude. As an active young adult, he frequently entertained lewd thoughts, hundreds of them every day in fact, and having Niles as his retainer simply didn't permit him to be a prude for more reasons than one, but the sheer indecency and absurdity of Niles' proclamation kicked him square in the chest. There was soup where his brain was meant to be.
Takumi surged forward, shouting, "Watch what you say about my sister!"
"It's no fault of mine that your sister's such a w—"
"Niles!" Leo shouted as simultaneously, from across the arena, another voice yelled, "Niles! You dastard!"
Corrin limped towards them. Her hands were clenched and her eyes promised murder.
Despite the bloodlust, she looks rather well composed for someone who was just caught in such indecency, Leo thought as she drew nearer.
"I see you've found an audience," Corrin said. Her tone was light but her expression twisted and churned, in flux between anger and anxiety.
I'm surprised Silas isn't—
The thought withered and a new one erupted in its place as Leo caught sight of the silver haired knight clad in training fatigues making a fast approach from the other side of the arena.
Who the hell was she with then?
His eyes darted immediately to his brother but Xander had been dragged off by a red-faced Peri. She spoke with her hands. Her fingers were sticky with blood.
She's finally snapped and murdered someone, Leo thought with a sneer just as Niles announced, "I thought it pertinent that your brother be made aware of your indelicacy."
"No, you sought to humiliate me because I didn't invite you to join me," Corrin snapped. Niles shrugged. Leo scowled as something tightened in his stomach.
"Really, the Hoshidians should have raised you better—"
"How dare you!" Takumi interrupted. He stormed forward and then shoved his finger in Niles' face. "If my sister's been corrupted, it's you Nohrians that—"
"Whoa, wait, that's ridiculous," Corrin said, turning on her brother. She pushed his finger down. Niles nipped at the empty air. His teeth were impossibly straight and white behind his full lips. Leo became incredibly aware of the cold air on his skin.
Takumi grimaced at Niles as Corrin continued, "Camilla may have been the one to introduce me to it but—"
"I knew it!" Takumi shouted, backing out of Corrin's grasp. "Sick freaks! All of you!"
"Takumi. That's enough," Ryoma reprimanded. Takumi virulent posture and expression withered just as Silas entered their group, saying, "Now, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'm afraid I can't help but take offense to that."
"Oh great. I was just thinking this couldn't get any more embarrassing," Corrin muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. Leo scowled.
It's her own fault for being so brazen, especially while engaged in a courtship.
He had little patience for cheating. It was because of it that he had been sired and endured so much misery.
"Corrin, I have to say that I'm disappointed in you," Ryoma said. He crossed his arms over his chest. Leo rolled his eyes. He'd been in the vicinity of more than one of Ryoma's holier-than-thou lectures to know what was in the works.
"Silas is a fine man and it's shameful what you've done to him."
Silas' eyebrows shot up in a comically fast fashion. Leo thought, Oh, this is just painful.
"What are you talking about?" Corrin demanded.
"You know what I'm talking about," Ryoma said with a shake of his head. "It's a dreadful thing to cheat on someone, let alone in such a public space."
Silas' expression was one of pure bewilderment and hurt so Leo stared at a particularly interesting rock on the ground instead. He rolled it beneath the toe of his boot. It poked the underside of his toes. Beside him, Niles bounced with malicious energy.
"What? No! I wouldn't! I didn't! Just no!" Corrin protested. Leo looked up at her just as she trailed off, saying, "Why would you even think..."
She turned to Niles. Leo saw anger in her eyes that he hadn't seen since they were preteens and he'd lobbed the head off of her favorite stuffed animal.
"I only said that I caught you in the act. They supplied the act themselves," Niles said with a shrug.
"Then what—" Silas began but fell silent under Corrin's venomous glare.
"She's reading smut," Niles announced, holding up the book for them all to see. The cover illustration showed a young couple engaged in a passionate embrace with thorns encircling them both.
"Oh, thank gods," Silas muttered, deflating and running his hand through his cowlick with a sigh.
Leo rubbed at his face. This had gone on long enough.
"Just give it to her Niles," he said, but Niles held the book aloft, just out of reach of Corrin's grasping fingers. She cursed him with vehemence as the book bobbed out of her reach again and again. Silas stepped forward but then Niles spoke.
"Am I supposed to be frightened of a sniveling wyrmling?" he teased, tapping the spine against the crown of her skull. Corrin stilled and then Leo thought, Gods, she's going to kill him.
He took a step forward with a cry for peace on his tongue, but the chance to give it life was snatched from him. Corrin dropped her shoulder and drove it into Niles' chest. With an expulsion of mingled spit and breath, Niles rocked backwards. The book flew from his grasp. Then, he and Corrin were falling to the ground. There was an extensive thump and then they disappeared into an explosion of dust and dirt. When the dust had cleared, Niles was a foot into the ground. Blood dribbled from his nose. Corrin knelt over top of him. Her chest heaved. Her arms and legs were covered in a fine mesh of glinting silver. The dragonstone around her neck shimmered.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The entire arena had quieted around them. Niles' wet rasping intermixed with Corrin's hulking breaths scratched at the crisp air. Leo stared at Corrin. His fingers itched for Brynhildr. He chanced a glance towards his hip to see it hanging there.
When he returned his gaze, Corrin had moved. Within a split second, she had darted to the offending novel and now, with her bare hands, she tore it apart. She dropped the halves and then the wind caught the covers, flipping them open and rippling through all the pages. She looked down at her hands.
Leo expected her to fly into a murderous rage as the monstrous blood that had lain dormant within her suddenly awoke in ravenous hunger as he had feared she might since he first saw her take dragon form. He did not expect her to yelp and fall over like a pup seeing its reflection for the first time. When her tumble didn't solve her problem, she began to swing her arms around as if the wind might cure her ails. Leo removed his thumb from Brynhildr as Corrin caught sight of her legs affected by the same malady. She shouted in broken proclamations and then she was on her feet and shaking her hands in his face and demanding, "What the hell is this?"
Up close, Leo could see that her fingers had curved into deadly claws and that her arms and were now covered in thick scales.
"I don't know."
"You don't—?"
Her screech trailed off as her eyes darted around him. A crowd had gathered and murmured quietly. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. The scales disappeared. When she opened her eyes, she looked just as surprised by the change as he was.
Behind her, Niles began to stir.
"Take her to my chambers," Leo said to Silas. The knight nodded and then Leo turned from him. He knelt by the Niles-shaped-hole in the ground.
"That bitch," Niles swore. Leo tsked and then lowered his hand to him saying, "It's your own fault."
Niles scowled at him, but he took his hand.
"You should put your shirt back on," Niles said as Leo began to pull him out. "You're going to blind everybody."
Leo's eye twitched. He released his grip on Niles' arm. The archer tumbled back down with a slew of curses. Then, Leo left the arena, heading for his room.
I have better things to do than stand around and be insulted, Leo thought as he pulled his shirt on over his head and tried very hard not to question why Niles' cruelty cut so deep.
Kana was in the mess hall and he was trying very hard to enjoy his bowl of thick soup because there was actually meat in the soup for once and he had been craving beef for so long but hadn't had any since he'd left home and the thought of it made his mouth water and here it was right in front of him but Soleil refused to leave him be. Every time he brought a spoonful of sweet, meaty soup to his mouth, she nudged his arm until all the soup had spilled from his spoon.
"Just go say hi to her!" she whined. "And then talk about how great and special and wonderful I am so that she'll realize I'm a good catch and not a creep like she may or may not have heard from her skink-faced friend who I did not harass and is a complete idiot for thinking my heartfelt letters were direct threats on her life."
"Yeah, it's not like you explicitly said that you'd watch her take her last breath," Siegbert mumbled. He didn't like Soleil's flirting, Kana knew. He said it made them all look bad and that Soleil was a noble and she really needed to start acting like it because chasing skirts was bad enough, but chasing skirts and striking out tremendously was the most embarrassing thing he could think of and could she please just stop for the sake of his sanity? Kana was often embarrassed by Soleil's flirting too, though it was usually because she tried to involve him in some way, but he thought Siegbert was being a little too hard on her because she really seemed to enjoy it even though she was never successful and was it really so bad that she expressed herself through doomed acts of love? To him, her romantic advances were a hobby in the same way as Shigure's singing or Forrest's sketching or Sophie's stretching and Kana realized that he really missed home. It didn't help that Corrin had been dead for a brief, terrible moment. He had heard and he had broken down and he had been sedated and quarantined in the infirmary because his grief had been so tremendous and alarming.
Now, he was elated that Corrin was very much alive, but it had never occurred to him before that his mama could die and the thought created an all-encompassing dread that stayed in the pit of his belly. He was scared that something had happened to his mama at the same moment something had happened to Corrin and there was no way for him to know if she was alright until they went back home. And none of them, not even Siegbert, could tell him when that would be.
"It was a pledge to stay by her side until the last and very romantic!" Soleil protested. Siegbert rolled his eyes, but he didn't say anything.
"C'mon Kana," Soleil said with a sharp nudge to his shoulder. "I'll owe you one! Please? Please? Please?"
Each please was accompanied by harder nudges.
Siegbert looked at Kana with scrunched eyebrows and Kana knew this meant that Siegbert was going to say something to get Soleil to stop and Kana also knew that it would make him look even more like a baby in Soleil's eyes so he had to act fast. Kana threw his spoon down. It was very dramatic. Or rather, it would have been if the spoon hadn't been brimming with soup and if that soup hadn't then splattered both the table and everyone sitting around it. It mainly just hit hands, but one guy sitting close to them got a faceful of beef.
"Sorry!" Kana squeaked. The guy glared at him as he wiped his face clean. Kana was scared that the guy would say something and then Shiro would flip the table and punch the guy in the face like he had when the soldiers had made crude comments about Soleil but the guy didn't say anything and Kana sighed in relief. Siegbert offered to get rags from the kitchen but nobody took him up on it. They all just stared and Kana felt a twinge of embarrassment for Siegbert. Then, he remembered what had caused the whole thing. He turned on Soleil.
"Why do I have to do it?" Kana shouted. "If you think she's so great, then why don't you tell her?"
"Kana, I've told you this a thousand times. You're cute. Cute makes girls vulnerable," Soleil explained, clapping her hands in time with her explanation.
"That sounds pretty shitty," Shiro commented. He pointed his spoon, freshly out of his mouth, at Soleil. A little bit of soup hit Kana in the face. Kana didn't mind. It seemed fair considering he'd doused them all with soup and it was the closest he'd been able to get to tasting the soup yet.
"Don't even bother," Shigure sighed. "I've been trying to tell her that for years and she's never listened."
"Shut up Shigure!" Soleil shouted, standing suddenly from the table. "You'll never understand the pain of having your heart torn into a thousand little pieces by the agony of loving from afar!"
"You're so melodramatic," Shigure huffed, yanking her back down to her seat. A few people were staring. Kana blushed and tried to ignore the mean murmurs that were starting up around them. Shiro stood up and Kana was really worried that he was going to start fighting every mean person in the hall but he wasn't worried that Shiro would get hurt because he knew Shiro would be the one hurting everyone else. Shiro was the strongest person he knew, well besides his papa, and even though Kana really liked Shiro, Shiro kind of scared him a little. Soleil didn't seem to notice or care that everyone was staring or that Shiro had left.
"I am not melodramatic! I'm in love and I… where's Shiro going?"
Shiro approached the girl and her friend. When he was at their table, he turned to Kana and mouthed, "Watch the master work."
Kana realized he was probably mouthing that to Soleil and not to him, but Shiro hadn't really looked specifically at Soleil so Kana wasn't entirely sure who Shiro was talking to so he watched anyway.
Shiro leaned down towards the girls and Kana focused on his deep, rumbly voice in the chatter of the mess hall.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch, ladies, but I saw you from across the hall and I just have to ask, do you remember me?"
Both girls shook their heads. Kana could hear their nervous laughs and felt their nervousness in his chest. He wondered where Shiro knew them from.
"What's he saying, Kana?" Soleil hissed, nudging his poor tender arm again. He swatted at her and then shushed her. His shush was a little spitty, but he didn't really feel bad about spraying her. She wiped at her face and then crossed her arms with a glare.
At the other table, Shiro shook his head and then brought his hand to his face. Kana couldn't see his face, but he guessed Shiro was probably doing the doofy little smile he did when he was trying to be charming. Kana had seen it only once before, when Shiro had tried talking to a pretty archer a few days prior, and he was glad he wasn't at an angle where he would be forced to see it again.
"Oh, that's right, silly me, I've only met you in my dreams!"
"What's he saying Kana?" Soleil demanded. She didn't nudge him, but Kana could tell she wanted to. He could feel the phantom pang on his arm.
"He said…"
Kana lowered his voice to better mimic Shiro's timbre, but dropped too low and his impression sounded more like a gross caricature than an authentic replication.
"Oh, that's right, silly me, I've only met you in my dreams."
Soleil looked dumbfounded.
"He did not."
"He did!"
"Did it work?"
Kana shrugged and then they both turned to look at the other table but the girls weren't talking to Shiro anymore. The girls had turned to look at Kana's table and they both pointed at Siegbert. One of them curled her finger towards her when Siegbert looked up. Kana watched Siegbert turn the color of an overly ripe tomato and hold up a hand to rub at his forehead. Kana knew that he was really just trying to hide his face from the girls.
"Damnit Siegbert!" Soleil shouted. "Stop stealing girls from me!"
"I didn't even do anything! Shiro is the one trying to steal them!" Siegbert protested. Soleil looked like she wanted to say something else because her face was all scrunched up and angry, but Shiro began to yell really loud except Kana didn't hear what because Soleil shouted, "Oh shit!" in his ear and then the redheaded girl threw her bowl of soup on Shiro. Shiro held his arms up, and yelled, "Are you kidding me?"
Soleil sprang to her feet and then ran across the mess hall. She pushed Shiro aside as she began chatting animatedly with the girls. Kana didn't care what she said because the terror left with her and he could finally eat his soup in peace. He popped a spoonful into his mouth and was horrified to discover that it was lukewarm and grimy.
"Have you noticed that Shiro and Soleil are eerily similar?" Shigure wondered. Siegbert scowled. Kana watched them both and swallowed another spoonful of the gross soup.
"This isn't another ill contrived attempt to convince you to befriend Shiro," Shigure announced. Kana trailed his spoon through his soup and watched the bits of meat bob in the thick liquid. Shigure said, "Sometimes, it just seems like my sister is more like Shiro than she is like me."
"They're both hotheaded," Siegbert said, "but not all siblings are alike."
"Yeah," Kana piped up because he felt like he should contribute, "Just look at my mama and her sisters! They don't even look alike!"
"I know, it's just that sometimes—"
Shigure was cut off by an ear-piercing shriek. Kana looked and then saw Soleil was storming towards them. Her shirt was covered in snotty strings of soup. Shiro followed after her, laughing, with a similar stain on his shirt. When they got to the table, Soleil announced, "We're leaving."
Kana shoveled the rest of his soup into his mouth as Shigure and Siegbert got up, shaking their heads. They started off without him so Kana drank the rest of his soup straight from the bowl and then chased after them. He fell into step beside Shiro as Soleil huffed, "The women of this time are ridiculous."
"Because you had so much luck back home," Siegbert said. Soleil spun around to glare at him and she stopped looking where she was going. She collided with another group and then fell down in a mess of limbs, taking somebody from the other group with her.
"Shit!" Soleil cried from the ground. The boy she'd tackled removed his elbow from her stomach and then said, "Wow, if you wanted to feel me up, you could have just said so instead of running into me."
Kana watched Soleil's face strain pink and then bone white. Beside him, Shiro coughed into his fist, trying not to laugh. Kana looked at Siegbert and saw that he was rubbing his face and Kana hoped that Soleil wouldn't start a fight but then Shigure pulled Soleil to her feet before she could swing at the boy.
"I'd leave if you know what's good for you," Shigure said to the boy and his friends. Soleil bared her teeth at them. Kana laughed because he knew she thought she looked intimidating but she really looked like a puppy that didn't know it was little.
When the other group had left, Soleil dusted herself off. Siegbert said, "Let's get out of here before you cause any more damage."
Before they could leave, a lady approached them. Kana heard her coming closer before the others noticed. She had super long, blue hair and big gold eyes. Kana thought she looked a bit like the porcelain doll that Sophie had and that he'd never been allowed to touch because everyone thought he'd break it. But this lady wasn't a doll and she looked a lot like Shigure if Shigure were tall and willowy. Kana wondered if she was Soleil and Shigure's mom but he couldn't really be sure. He'd never seen Soleil and Shigure's mom before. They barely talked about her either. Sometimes Shigure would bring her up, but Soleil never did.
When the lady came up to them, Soleil went really still and tense and Shigure's lips were pressed together so tight that they were only a thin pink line and then Kana was pretty sure she was their mom.
"Are you alright?" the lady said. "That looked like a pretty nasty fall."
Soleil stared at the lady with an open mouth. Her eyes bulged. Then, she snapped her mouth shut and her eyes narrowed. Siegbert touched Soleil's arm, but she jerked free and then she turned and then ran through the doors, disappearing from sight. Shigure rushed after her.
"She's okay… just having a rough day," Siegbert said. "Thank you for your concern."
His voice was far off and dreamy. Kana thought he looked a little sick.
"Of course, I hope your friend's day gets better," the lady said. "Have a good day."
Then, she walked away. Siegbert powerwalked for the doors. Kana glanced at Shiro. Shiro glanced back. He wondered if he should tell Shiro his suspicions about the lady.
"Weird," Shiro said. Kana nodded silently, deciding not to share his thoughts. Then, he followed Shiro through the doors.
Outside, Soleil and Shigure were arguing. Siegbert stood between them like he always did when they argued. Soleil and Shigure's arguments could get really nasty sometimes.
"I don't care if it was rude!" Soleil shouted. "I don't want anything to do with that hag!"
"How can you say that? This is our one chance to get to know her…"
Kana thought Siegbert might interrupt and say that they didn't actually have a chance to get to know her because they were all supposed to stay away from their parents, but Siegbert didn't correct Shigure.
"And you don't want to—"
"I don't care! What part of that don't you get? She didn't care about us so why the fuck should I care about her?" Soleil screamed. Her fists were balled at her sides. She and Shigure were very close now. Siegbert wedged himself between them. Soleil's cheeks were white as marble between the vibrant splotches of anger. Her hands shook. Her teeth were bared. Shigure's nostrils flared. A vein pulsed in his neck. Shigure's face was red beneath his swoopy blue hair.
Before Shigure could scream back, Shiro asked, "Wait, was that was your mom?"
"I know who it was!" Soleil shrieked. Then, she tore off down the path, towards the arena, kicking up a cloud of dust behind her. Shigure chased after her, yelling, "You're such an idiot!"
"Shit, sore subject?" Shiro asked, turning to Siegbert. Siegbert sighed. Then, he said, "Soleil is very, uh, sensitive about her mother."
Shiro rubbed at the back of his neck and then announced, "I figured she was dead but I guess that's probably not the case?"
Even though Kana could hear perfectly well, he leaned a little closer to them because the conversation was interesting. Despite his years with Soleil, Shigure, and their dad, he had no idea what had happened to their mom. He only knew never to bring it up. He'd tried asking his mama about it once, but she'd gotten really sad and told him that it wasn't good and then his papa had told him not to ask again because it really hurt his mama to talk about it.
"She abandoned Shigure and Soleil when they were young," Siegbert explained. "It's complicated."
"Shit," Shiro said lamely. His hand fell away from his neck. Kana felt sad. Because Soleil and Shigure never really talked about their mom, he'd always kind of figured that they were okay about the whole thing, but he didn't think that anymore. He felt like a bad friend.
"We should probably try to get them to cool them down before they destroy the whole camp," Siegbert suggested quietly. Shiro nodded and then he and Siegbert started down the path. Kana trailed behind. None of them said anything for a really long time.
Torches blazed on the stucco, casting long shadows across all of their faces. They huddled around the war table, about thirty of them in all, in a room within the fortress that had been deemed unsuitable to house anything but a large gathering of people. Silence damned the room. There were cracks in the stone that shrieked anytime the wind blew. The Nohrians clung to watery fears of sirens heralding their doom while the Hoshidians held that the shrieking belonged to a dead soul begging to be let in.
Corrin's reasoning in picking the room to house the war council was simple. She explained it to Jakob, who maintained that he didn't believe in something as ridiculous as wayward spirits but admitted he would rather not mess with them, by saying, "If everyone hates the sound then they'll be that much more willing to find compromise if only to be free of it."
Now, as she stood at the head of the table, Ryoma and Xander on either side of her, waiting for the stragglers to file in and staring out at the amassed crowd, she thought, I hate that shrieking more than anyone.
The combined might of supernatural trepidation from the Nohrians and Hoshidians alike had broken through the veil of her dreams and then spilled out into her waking thoughts. She couldn't hear it without thinking of Lilith. Her nightmares were getting steadily worse even though the general premise of them remained the same. She was always in a colorless, nondescript room. Lilith was always across from her, smiling serenely. Corrin always tried to call out to her, always tried to warn of the looming danger. There was always a blast of light and smoke and fire and then Lilith always lay on the ground, eyes wide and unfocused.
When the dream ended, Corrin always awoke with the sense that Lilith could have been saved, but she'd been to weak to do so. Orochi called the notion absurd.
"Your dreams are those of grief, not of guilty inaction," Orochi had said when Corrin had proposed as much.
Now, as she looked out over the table, Corrin caught sight of the diviner leaning against the wall and chatting amicably with Kagero. They both laughed at something Orochi had said. A twinge of fear bobbed in her throat that maybe they were laughing over the secret things Orochi had seen in Corrin's dreams.
Orochi had told Corrin how it all worked, that she could only observe the dreams that Corrin was aware of and had no way of delving into her subconscious, but it all sounded like the nonsense Leo spewed when he tried to explain the functioning of magic and so she harbored anxiety about the whole thing.
The last thing I need is Orochi telling everyone how I wet myself at fourteen because a spider crawled on my foot, Corrin thought, staring unabashedly at the diviner.
She strained to pick up on their conversation, but she could only hear snippets over the babbling of the room. There was something about a carrot. Orochi cackled. Beside her, Ryoma cleared his throat.
"Corrin, about the incident in the arena today," Ryoma asked. He had kept his voice quiet but, in such a small room with a captive audience, his question carried. Expressions shifted into masks of casual disinterest and gazes shifted to irregularities in the table or to the dust shimmering in corners for the sake of civility. Conversations trailed into nothingness. The walls shrieked.
"Was Leo able to determine the cause of your…?"
Outburst? Deformity? Corrin thought with a sting of venom. Her brother wasn't an idiot. She knew he brought it up so that she could easily dismiss the concerns of the masses in a single, jovial response. She knew how the game worked, but she had no desire to play.
But what I want is secondary, she thought and then shrugged, saying, "He said it's probably just a manifestation of my dragon blood. I'm meeting with him tomorrow so he can investigate further."
The air lightened, but not to the point of comfort. Breathing stirred the delicate peace. Another group entered. Their easy chatter invigorated the atmosphere and then easy conversation arose. Corrin glanced around the room, counting heads and identifying those present.
Leo, Takumi and Silas are still missing, she thought. Leo had told her to expect him to be late and Takumi was temperamental about whether or not he made an appearance, but Silas always made a point to be early.
He should have been back hours ago, Corrin thought. She turned to Jakob, who hovered behind her shoulder, and asked, "Has the scouting party returned?"
"There had been no word before I arrived here," Jakob said. She gnawed at her lip and then continued to do so despite Jakob's withering glare. She turned back to the table.
"We should begin," Ryoma said. Corrin nodded and then found her concern for Silas compounded with the dread of enduring the verbal jousting that was about to commence. War councils had become an increasingly combative affair. Reports of ruins, desolation, and the occasional missing scout held no sway over Ryoma or Xander. To them, there was no war against Anankos and they even refused to call their weekly meetings war councils. For all their differences, they both clung to the notion of escape, refusing her even the smallest victories towards increasing their defenses.
But that works both ways. I haven't given an inch towards increasing scouting parties. We're at an eternal standstill, Corrin thought. She longed to pull rank over the both of them, but knew that the momentary satisfaction would only worsen tensions between them. Their continued cooperation was imperative, both for the soldiers that remained loyal to them and the divine weapons they wielded.
"The divine weapons are intrinsically linked. They cannot stray from each other lest your mission be damned," the Rainbow Sage had told her and she'd done her best to keep them together, but their wielders only seemed to resent her for it.
"I call this council to order," she announced over the chatter. The conversations silenced at the sound of her voice. It had taken a bit of practice, but she'd finally managed to deepen her voice so that it both carried and commanded. She was still working on carrying herself with significant authority befitting a leader.
Gunter stepped forward to deliver the general news about the camp, announcing birthdays, improvements to buildings, crop yields, arrests, tournament rankings, and anything else that could possibly be of any importance. As he announced the tavern's profit for the past week, Corrin noticed Leo among the crowd.
He must have snuck in when I wasn't looking, she thought. He stood at the forefront of the group against the table. His attention was fixated on a book laid out on the wood. With a lazy flick of his wrist, the page turned on its own and then revealed an illustration of a monstrous skeleton. There were marginal notes accompanying the drawing in a penmanship that was too delicate to be Leo's. The longer she stared, the more notes she saw. Arrows pointed to various appendages and bones with incomprehensible notes scrawled beneath. They weren't written in any language she recognized. Beside her, Gunter concluded his announcements and then stepped back into the shadows.
"Are there any other announcements?" Corrin asked. The crowd exchanged silent glances. No one came forward. From the corner of her eye, Corrin saw the pages of Leo's book flip. A new illustration, rendered in full color, popped up of two men with silvery hair and pointed ears standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Only a single note, made in the same strange language, accompanied the illustration.
"Any updates from the infirmary?" Ryoma asked. Corrin scowled, but said nothing.
You can't let yourself be distracted, Corrin chastised. It was a lesson she'd learned well enough the week before when a momentary slip during Gunter's rambling announcements had led to Xander dominating the rest of the meeting. She'd confronted him afterwards, but that had only led to a near shouting match in the corridor with too many onlookers.
"Only two serious injuries this week, but neither were from any fighting," a healer said. Corrin didn't know their name. Usually, Sakura gave the report as Elise provided moral support at her side. Neither were present.
Probably waiting for Silas' party to return.
"Good," Ryoma said and then, before he could say anything else, Corrin said, "The scouts continue to report empty settlements and sterile land. Three scouts are still missing."
Restrained rumblings floated around the table. Leo's thrumming fingers captured her attention as they rapped against the wood.
"Then nothing has changed from your last report," Xander said dismissively. Corrin clenched her jaw to stop from glaring outright.
"Yes," she conceded, "But the whereabouts of the missing scouts is still our top priority. The first went missing four months ago and there's been no trace of her."
"These things happen," he said. His blasé tone tightened her lips into a thin line and his impassive stare tinged her sight red so she turned her gaze to the other end of the table. She watched Camilla press the tip of her manicured finger into the corner of her mouth, pulling it upwards in a lopsided smile. Camilla's eyes were fixated on Xander, the gesture directed towards him. Corrin grimaced.
How delusional is she? she thought and then announced, "They happen and they're cause for alarm. These continued disappearances demand we fortify our defenses and increase our patrols."
The room shuddered in apprehension at her proposal. The wind shrieked within the brief silence, weaving itself into the fractures in her resolve. Her nightmares of Lilith's death clawed at her spine.
Not now, Corrin thought as the feel of phantom sweat draped her brow. Ryoma sighed beside her.
"Are the wards no longer functioning?" Ryoma asked. His voice was calm and even. He liked to play at being the voice of reason when arguments between her and Xander threatened to get out of hand, but he never spoke a word towards her benefit. Corrin thought, Just admit your desires are in line with Xander's and drop the saint act.
"They're still functioning," Corrin answered. Her face hurt from fighting to keep it even. "But we don't know if they can survive an assault."
"What would assault us?" Xander demanded. "You said yourself the scouts have found nothing."
"They've found no living things," she countered. "They've found plenty of bones."
An edge had unintentionally crept into her voice. She thought, I make it too easy for him to get under my skin.
"You say the land beyond this fortress is a mythical kingdom since purged by an evil dragon-king that claims dominion over it, yet you're concerned by the very wasteland you expected."
He never raised his voice when he tore her credibility to shreds. It made her look all the worse when her temper boiled onto her tongue.
"By your own admission the very evil dragon-king that purged the land is still out there!" she shouted, heat rising in her face. Irritation flickered across his face, but it was gone in an instant. He never got a chance to retort. A deafening whomp sounded. Her hand shot to Yato's hilt, but then her vision doused her instinct as she located the source of the noise.
The doors had been thrown open. Silas stood in the void they left behind. As silence resounded, Silas burst through. His hair was disheveled, his lip was split, and his hands shook around a stack of papers pressed firmly to his chest. A sheen of sweat sparkled on his exposed skin and dampened the cloth around his neck. Every head swiveled to look at him, but he didn't move from the entryway. He only stared at her, silently requesting an audience. She bid the council to continue without her and then moved to join him. Jakob attempted to follow, but she warded him off with a flat palm. As she limped around the table, the debate for fortifications continued with Azura arguing in her stead.
Up close, Silas only looked worse. His skin had the pallor of a corpse. His eyes were speckled with red and his split lip was puffed and purpled. He leaned too far to the left with his right leg barely touching the floor. The scent of battle since passed swelled in the air around him, choking her demands for an explanation and her concerns for his wellbeing. Blood glistened against the dark gray of his gauntlets.
"We weren't prepared," he said, shoving the papers into her hands. They crumpled in her fist. Silas' gaze darted to the war council, but he said nothing as he listened. Azura's voice carried above the others. She accused Xander of being blinded by his ambitions. Shouting erupted. She heard Camilla's voice above the others, calling Azura a traitor to her heritage. Silas scowled, but whether from anger or anguish, Corrin didn't know.
She tore her eyes from the torment on his face. She began to flip through the papers, expecting to find an explanation among them, but there was nothing. The words were illegible. The sloppy, scrawled images were smeared with blood and viscera. There was no indication of where they had come from.
"What happened?" she asked. His head snapped back to her sharply. His chest rose and fell in uneven swells.
"The missing scouts. And… others. They attacked us."
His voice was strained high and cold and distant. He spoke quietly, but each word blared in her skull.
"Others?" she asked
Silas shook his head. His eyes were too bright. Corrin heard Gunter cry for order.
"There was something wrong with them. All of them. They moved funny. I've never seen anything like it."
He gestured towards the papers, looking at first like he was going to touch them but then thinking better of it. He said, "Those were in their packs. I didn't know what to make of them so I brought them to you."
She looked at the papers again, staring at the bloody specks. Some still glistened.
"Are they dead?"
"I think so," Silas said. "I…Corrin I…"
Suddenly, he took hold of her forearms, staring at her with eyes too shiny and wild, and then kissed her. His kiss was panicked. His mouth tasted like salt. The rough scab of his split lip scraped against her mouth. Surprise kept her eyes open. He lingered. His fingers dug into her bare arms. Then, he lost his balance and had to shift his weigh to his right leg. He cursed against her lips and then it was over. The discussion from the council had halted. The air was stifling. The papers were brittle in her grasp. The intimacy of the moment drowned beneath a wave of scalding stares.
Silas touched her face, drawing his gauntleted fingers across the curve of her cheek. Her face burned at the sensation of the cool metal. The usual butterflies in her stomach that accompanied his touch were reluctant to soar. The council resumed their conversation.
"I need to check on the others," Silas said. He pressed a kiss into her forehead, just above the peak of her brow, and then he turned to leave, hobbling and shuffling through the entryway. The crash of the closing doors heralded his departure. She stared at the space he had occupied. Dust swirled in the soft light. She heard Ryoma say, "We need to finish the war back home before we run headlong into another," and then Azura yelling, "There's no way for you to return to Hoshido, Ryoma! And even if you could, Anankos threatens the entire world, the very fabric of reality…"
Azura trailed off on a note that was harsh and shrill. Corrin looked towards the table and then saw Azura's mouth was pinched and her cheeks were flushed.
Good to know I'm not the only one, Corrin thought. Then, she turned her attention to the gruesome papers Silas had left her. Most of the writing was nothing more than half scribbled words and uncompleted phrases, but there were a few comprehendible sentences.
Their faces are gone but they won't stop wailing, read one. Another said, I see the woman when I close my eyes, creeping on all fours.
The images were worse. Some were simple pastoral scenes, disfigured by the incoherent thoughts, but others showcased the graveyard Valla had become. One of the more distressing sketches depicted a mass grave full of bleached bones too small to have belonged to adults. Another illustrated the skeleton of a man that had been shorn in half. The break in his spine was not clean. Another still showed the entirety of a thinning tree. Four skulls adorned its bare branches in painstaking detail. They hung at odd angles with their jaws dangling.
They died screaming, Corrin thought.
Then, there were the images that went far beyond the scope of reality. There was a man whose lips had been torn away that cupped the severed, bloody head of a deer lovingly to his chest. His teeth were straight and unblemished. There were human figures twisted into inhuman shapes that crouched within the confines of the paper, scrawled in overlapping black lines. There was a tree doodled in the style of child with hanged bodies swaying from its branches. Each body had arms that were disproportionately long. There were more, but she couldn't make herself look.
She moved towards Azura. Words buzzed around her head, but they didn't stick. Formless pressure mounted between her ears. Creeping dread crawled through her veins.
"Is Silas alright?" Azura asked when Corrin finally arrived at her side. Ryoma spoke of the necessity for civility. Corrin wasn't sure who his words were for.
"He's alright," Corrin said. Then, she handed the papers to Azura who took them without protest. She began flicking through them, a question dying on her lips after a stunted, "What…?"
"The missing scouts found Silas' party."
The words came out in a fog. Corrin watched Azura's slender hand slide over her open mouth. The other clutched her pendant, trembling. The papers lay discarded on the table. The drawings danced in the black of her mind, conjuring the miasma. Beside her, Azura's breathing had gone sharp.
Silas said the scouts weren't alone. Are these things out there lying in wait?
All the Faceless in the world seemed like paltry jests compared to the horror of mouthless men and twisted, disfigured corpses. She shivered. She saw them prowling through the dark wilderness. The wilderness she'd blindly wondered into nearly every night. She saw them darting between the trees, their infernal bodies twisting in the shaded moonlight. Heard them hissing and snarling in tones more guttural than the snuffles of a rutting boar. Felt their bloodless hands curl around her wrists, her waist, her neck.
"Did Silas have anything to report?" Xander asked, coaxing her back to reality. She looked at him and then wishful thinking painted his eyes in hues of masked concern.
"His party was attacked."
Whispers exploded around them, but she didn't listen to them. She remained at Azura's side, watching the bright terror in the other girl's eyes.
"By who?" Ryoma demanded.
"The missing scouts."
Pandemonium erupted. Outrage and disbelief coupled together in a violent explosion of sound and motion.
"Enough!" Gunter cried. Uneasy silence settled. The combined gaze of the crowd had never bothered her until now. It threatened to unravel the steel in her tongue.
"Something out there drove them mad," Corrin explained. Azura's hand shot away from her mouth.
"Not something," Azura clarified. "Anankos."
Then, Corrin watched Azura turn to the head of the table and challenge the identical bewilderment on Xander and Ryoma's faces with a fierce glare. Azura seized the papers and then flung them out from her breast. They burst apart in the air, spiraling and corkscrewing across the table. They settled with gentle rustles. The sinister images and words they bore were stark in the uninhibited candlelight.
"This is what Anankos does. He burrows into your mind and twists your thoughts until you would do anything to be rid of the waking nightmares and terror."
Azura shouted, but she didn't have to. Nobody else spoke. The papers lay untouched on the table.
"Exposure could have driven these scouts mad," Xander said. For the first time, his voice wavered.
"It could have. But it didn't. Exposure doesn't make you see ghouls and monsters," Corrin said when Azura couldn't. The other girl's fingers strained bloodless around her pendant.
"How can you be certain?" Ryoma asked.
"All I have left of my father are his insane scribblings. They look just like these," Azura announced. Silence fell in the wake of her admission. Corrin turned to Leo.
"Leo, I want you to look into the wards. See if you can amplify them, but make sure they'll stand strong against an attack."
She saw the bob of Leo's throat as he closed his book with a furtive slam. He nodded unflinchingly.
"All patrols will be doubled from now on. Nobody leaves the fortress who isn't part of a patrol and I'm calling for a moratorium on all scouting expeditions until we know what happened."
Many around her nodded. Others did nothing. Ryoma's head was bowed in deep contemplation. His face rippled into a frown. Xander glowered at her.
"You can't cower at the first sign of danger. Recalling the scouts would only declare your cowardice and inexperience to the entire world."
Each word flared in her chest and broke through the worn lock she'd kept around her fond memories of him. Now, every minute she'd treasured curdled into something as black and foul as the malice of his accusations. She had hoped against hope that everything could be as it was. She had been civil, respectful, had cowed to his every whim and suggestion, had invited him into the fold with open arms.
And it still isn't enough.
The aura of his frigidity crashed against her and then their audience melted away and it was only him and her within a vast expanse of raw anger and pain and so much hurt. She looked at him and saw how so many could call him cruel and she wanted to scream, "How could this have happened?" but she knew it began with shattered trust and closed hands and hurt that burrowed so deep it simmered marrow. But there was no time to lament the loss so she let her fists curl and her posture coil and her seething frustration bleed into unfeeling fury.
"I won't endanger my scouts so that you can keep chasing the hope of escape. You're stuck here. Accept it. Face the threat that's in front of you."
The faces of the crowd faded back into her periphery, but they were nebulous abstracts of emotion rather than people. She didn't turn from him.
"This meeting's over," she said. The screaming wind sounded through her, through him, through the entire crowd and she thought, Let it scream forever.
A/N: In revising this chapter, I did my best to stick to the humor and absurdity that everyone really seemed to get a kick out of in the original version (i.e. Niles being a messy, drama loving bitch) while shaping it to fit the confines of the rewrite! I hope I managed it and didn't disappoint!
I love writing the Kana sections. I honestly kinda wish I could just write the entire story in his voice because its so easy to churn out, but, more importantly, so much fun to write! I hope y'all enjoy Kana as much as I do. He's such a sweetheart.
Corrin's section in this chapter has probably been one of my favorite parts of the rewrite because I really tried to emphasis her inner struggle through her outer struggle and I feel that this is the first chapter where that really starts to become apparent (that made sense in my head lol). I also am just a big horror junkie so imaging the scribbles and writings of the mad scouts was really just so fun for me.
Thanks for sitting through a late update! Life's been crazy! Also, I'm going to be pushing back the weekly updates to Thursday night/Friday morning as it works much better for my schedule and allows me the time to do the fine tuning that I put into each update! I hope y'all's holiday season was fabulous and, if it wasn't, I hope the New Year brings you nothing but love and good vibes!