A/N: Oscar and Soren as surrogate parents what is wrong with me
I've already written ahead in this fic (hint: Daein), I swear this is eventually going somewhere. Too long...too much not about Soren...
~~ Chapter Four: Gallia ~~
They didn't exchange a word as they strode through the hallway. Oscar tried to distract himself from worrying by thinking of how much he had missed Castle Gallia. There was something about its layout, the spectacular inner gardens, and the unhurried efficiency of its inhabitants that trumped even Melior.
A sudden nostalgic longing filled him as laguz politely nodded to them: he missed his brothers, and the other Mercenaries. He missed Rolf's raging, uncontrollably childlike cheerfulness... the belligerent confidence that belied Boyd's shy and romantic heart... Oscar missed Titania perhaps the most of all the others. Her inherent, parent-like trust in those she commanded gave the whole group a sense of being home.
He glanced over at Soren. The tactician's face was inscrutable, as always: did he ever miss anyone, think about them and wish they were present? Did he ever think about the Mercenaries as being a home? Oscar doubted it.
Some little voice in his brain was sneering that Soren didn't care much about anyone or anything... that was not just unfair, but also untrue, and Oscar wanted to blush for even thinking it. Considering what he had seen in the last week (especially the last twenty-four hours), he was beginning to suspect there were surprisingly strong emotions and attachments thrashing to escape from beneath that calm exterior. Still... it was difficult to imagine Soren thinking of anyplace as home.
As they turned into the reception room, a lanky figure gracefully loped toward them. Ranulf did not look happy to see them: in fact, Oscar couldn't recall a time when the usually cheerful warrior had looked so entirely glum. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" he asked, sounding as if it were the least pleasant thing in the world.
Oscar turned his face away, restraining a smile. Ranulf's tail was actually flicking back and forth, as if they'd needed yet another indication of his irritation. Wow, he thought in amusement. I knew these two didn't like one another, but really?
Soren, of course, was just cool enough to be infuriating. "Ranulf. Good morning. I've come on a personal matter, and have asked to see the king."
Ranulf's eyebrows rose, seeming to say Yes, I knew that. Soren sniffed disdainfully, and went on. "There's something I should tell you first, though. You're aware that Ike has left Crimea?"
Oscar could sense just how much it took for Soren to say that name: but naturally, since they were in front of Ranulf, the tactician would be doing his damndest to appear unaffected. In the meantime, Ranulf's tail had stopped flicking, and his mouth was a little open in bafflement. "Er..." The cat cleared his throat, eyes unsteady. "No, I didn't know that. He left... for good?"
Then he caught himself, putting a casual hand on his waist. They all three stood silent for a moment; Ranulf eyed them, giving Oscar only a brief glance before his thoroughly uncomfortable gaze returned to Soren. That gaze was now clearly saying something else: Oscar couldn't quite tell what.
Soren finally replied, quite coolly, "Probably. It's been almost two months, after all."
"Huh," was Ranulf's only response: terse, rather than thoughtful. Oscar suddenly understood what was running through the cat's head. So Ike was gone... why wasn't Soren?
The thought was maddeningly like the one he'd had a week ago, sitting beside that comfortable fire with Rhys. Probably it was no different for anyone. Even Mist had confessed that, even before realizing just how much Soren had been emotionally affected by Ike's departure, she had no idea why her brother hadn't taken the tactician. The two were almost never seen apart: it was taken for granted that if Ike was doubtful about any matter, whether tactical or personal, he would simply turn his head and ask Soren.
Oscar had a sudden vision of Ike, standing at a crossroads in the forest, opening his mouth to ask Soren which way to go and suddenly realizing the tactician wasn't there. Oscar wondered vaguely if Ike had only been gone this long because he was completely lost.
Ranulf seemed about to say something else: but the clatter of small beorc feet arrested him. They all turned: it was the child, running full-tilt towards Oscar. She was followed hesitantly by one of the castle guards, his face a mask of chagrin. "I'm sorry, sirs, but she seems scared of us. The healer got a chance to see that she's all right, though. Just a few bruises is all."
Oscar reached down to pick up the child before she could ram her face into his shin-guards; immediately she nestled her small, tear-stained cheek against his collar, twining delicate little hands into the fastenings of his cloak. He patted her back, looking a bit helplessly at the guard. "Thank you. Perhaps she's never seen laguz before... she's probably just scared of everyone right now."
The tiger grinned sheepishly, showing a charmingly sharp pair of eyeteeth. Except you, his smile said. Oscar shrugged in response; children, like horses, just tended to trust him. But that was sort of difficult to explain, unless he wanted to go into the long story of having practically raised two brothers. Oscar suspected the squint had something to do with it, too.
More simply, though, he thought it was perhaps the circumstances of his meeting the child that made her like him. Oscar noticed that Soren was assiduously studying everything else in the room, and felt a pang of sorrow.
It had been less than twenty-four hours since either of them had first laid eyes on the child. He and Soren, practically able to see Castle Gallia on a distant hilltop, had finished packing up their makeshift camp in the forest. Oscar had just put one foot in the stirrup when a high-pitched wail, echoing from not far away, had caused his horse to shy, almost yanking Oscar off-balance. When he finally retained his dignity, the hair on the back of his neck was still standing up; looking at Soren, he'd seen the tactician's face was likewise frozen.
"Should we see what it is?" he asked uncertainly.
After a moment, Soren turned to him; his expression was unreadable, but he nodded in response. Oscar retied the horses, and they strode toward the sound of the eerie noise.
Before long, it came again; now they could hear a raised voice, berating. There was the sound of a hand on flesh, and a shriek: this time it was of pain, rather than misery, and Oscar could tell it was a child's voice.
He was startled when Soren broke into a run at the sound, flitting through the trees with his hair flying wildly. Oscar was tempted to call after him, but his own stomach was wrenched into knots at what they might find, and he quickened his pace. Was it simply a parent disciplining their child? Some sense was telling him no: Oscar had been whipped by his father more than once for doing something stupid, but neither he nor his brothers had ever made a noise like this.
The trees parted briefly, revealing a half-collapsed cottage, hidden in brush. A ragged woman and a toddler were in the yard beside the house; the child had fallen to her knees, one hand held in the air by the woman, ostensibly her mother.
"What is wrong with you?" the woman shrieked furiously, delivering a blow to the side of the child's head. "Why am I cursed with such a stupid child?" Her face was twisted in fury, the pockmarked skin and sunken nose standing out clearly in the morning chill.
Before Oscar could say or do anything, Soren—his weakness evidently vanished in anger—leapt the front fence and seized the woman's arm. "Stop this," he said, voice quiet and deadly serious.
"What the—?" The woman seemed utterly taken aback, head moving wildly as she tried to figure out where two strangers had come from. Oscar realized what this must look like: he wasn't wearing his armor or any insignia, and both of their clothes were travel-stained. Though they carried no weapons, to this half-crazed woman they probably looked like bandits.
She struggled momentarily with Soren; one of her eyes was dead and white, while the other flashed with fury and confusion. Trying to thrust away the sickness in his stomach, Oscar took the moment to vault over the fence, dashing to kneel before the child. One side of her pretty little forehead was swollen in a bruise; tears and mucus were freely mingling in pathetic helplessness, sticking to the silky black hair.
"Don't you touch her, this isn't your business!" screamed the woman, finally yanking her arm free of Soren's grip and jerking the girl upright.
There was another pitiful wail of pain from the girl, as her shoulder was almost jerked from the socket. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" the woman shrieked, aiming another blow at the girl's head.
Her hand never made contact; Soren quite literally shoved her backwards, and as she lost her balance, she let go of the child's arm. Staggering back against the fence, the woman stared at him, gaping.
"Don't," Soren said, even more quietly. Menace, anger, and sorrow strove for control in his voice.
The woman closed and opened her mouth; before she could say a word, the child picked herself up off the ground and took off, clumsily running away as she cried. "Get back here," the woman roared, glaring half at the child and half at Soren. She started moving as if to chase the girl.
Oscar couldn't think fast enough, couldn't move fast enough; the woman's hands were stretched out as if to grab the girl by her hair; Soren was reaching into his robes to pull out something; the little girl tripped, and Soren's hand came up with a throwing knife in it.
"Soren, no!" was all Oscar had time to yell, before the tactician's hand flicked and a whirling blur sped toward the woman.
Oscar stood, momentarily paralyzed in disbelief. Then the little girl's crying went on, galvanizing him into running forward. The woman lay stretched out on the ground, her wasted frame hardly large enough to make an impression on the wet earth. Soren knelt down next to her, but Oscar averted his eyes.
The small girl looked up at his approach, eyes huge and wet in a round little face. "It's all right," he said softly, holding out a hand. It was anything but all right, and he had to keep himself from shaking. Everything had happened so fast. "It's okay, no one's going to hurt you."
He tried to smile, tried to appear as harmless as possible. Evidently it worked: the girl sniffled miserably and allowed him to pick her up, her plump little arms circling his neck.
As soon as she was nestled against him, it all came back, as if a child in his arms were the most natural thing in the world. It was cuddling baby Rolf by the fire, comforting a three-year-old Boyd who'd injured himself for the hundredth time. Patting the toddler's back and speaking to her—nothing particular, just whatever came to him—Oscar lost track of where he was for a moment, bathed in the pure joy that was giving comfort to a child.
At last a quiet voice at his shoulder broke the trance. "Is she all right?"
Oscar whirled. An unexplained fury rose up, and seeing Soren's hard, composed features did not allay the anger. "You—" He didn't want to say anything specific with the child in between them, and glared down at the poor woman, her limbs still askew. "Why did you do that?" he hissed. "There was no need to— we could have stopped her some other way, Soren."
The tactician was silent; his expression wavered momentarily, showing just enough regret for some of Oscar's anger to fade. "I know," was the dull response. "I know. I would say she was—" Soren looked at the child, obviously restraining himself from saying that the woman had been about to die anyway. "It's no excuse."
The little girl, done crying, turned her head to peek around at the other stranger; looking back up at Oscar, she shyly buried her face in the fur of his cloak again. The last of his fury dissipated; he sighed, prepared to say something palliative.
But Soren interrupted, as if trying to hastily amend. "This was just... it..." He took a deep breath and finished, "I'll explain. Later. But this happened to me. I couldn't just..." His eyes were fixed on the little girl; she had closed her eyes and stuck a thumb in her mouth, unaware.
Oh. Well, that explained the total irrationality of the situation. Oscar felt a little guilty for his impatience: it had, after all, seemed very unlike the usually level-headed Soren to simply kill an unarmed woman. The last time Oscar had seen him this out of control had been just after Greil's death, when he had been ready and willing to attack the laguz who'd just rescued the company.
He sighed again. "She's all right, I think. Let's get out of here."
Continued in the next chapter.