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A Castle of Silence and Bones

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022.
bats are still hurrying
(we were created for the purpose of being destroyed)

Shell-shock was what the soldiers from the Great War called it. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was what doctors in the middle of the battlefields of the second Great War called it - in the middle of losing all humanity and hope and being blown to pieces in the midst of it.

It is a human ailment, Feliciano knows, as his older brother has told him many-a-time with an all-knowing grin.

Now that grin is a sneer and his once-daring eyes have been dulled. It is a human ailment - they are nations, they are not humans, and as a result, they are not supposed to suffer from the the same things. In fact, if Ludwig is right (and Ludwig is always right), then it is not possible for them to suffer, not when they are at the cusp of another golden age, another Pax Romana.

But if Ludwig is right, then how are all the beautiful old buildings - of the Greeks and the Romans, of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment - how are all these beautiful buildings being torn down, whether by enemy bullets or allied fighters? Feliciano is no fighter, does not want to be, makes no effort, has only been out on a front once.

He has not been fighting. Ergo, he is not a soldier.

All the same, shellshock is the only word he can use, when his eyes are too sore and dry and coated with grime and dust and misery to even blink, much less cry, as the last hinge of the Colosseum, that glorious marvel of his people, crashes to the ground, dejected - rejected. Everyone is helping the effort, everyone has been helping the effort for years.

There is no end, there is no hope of an end; they must keep fighting, Ludwig says, cold blue eyes that burn with hatred for a brother he lost, against three entire countries of people - men, women, children, mothers, husbands, friends, lovers - shot and burned and bombarded to the ground. They must keep fighting, even when it is Feliciano's people crying, begging, wanting change - willing to throw away their lives to not -

Here, he has to close his eyes, because it is reality, and it has been decades and nothing has gotten better and -

Feliciano knows he will be called a coward. He knows that there are alternative choices. But he is also tired of fighting; of the smell of rotting corpses mingled with the burning ones, of the neverending cries for mercy, for food, for god-given salvation, for death. He is tired, and so, he stops.

Stops everything - and even then, it will never be alright.

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"Herr Ludwig - " Kiku tries.

"Ruhe!" the other nation cuts in, sharp eyes and sharper tongue, and Kiku does not need to be fluent in German to understand what his ally has said. No one could have expected it, is what he should say, it was completely foolish, and now they will simply add another four or five cities to their list of targets.

"What we must do," he starts up again, "is simple." And he licks his lips, impatient and impassioned (but alas that is Ludwig and it is a dangerous mix for anyone to feel).

"He... Feliciano... Italy is an ally," Ludwig responds, as his dirty nails tap an angry melody on the edges of the desk.

"Italy was an ally," Kiku dully repeats.

"We will not - " Ludwig starts, and then revises himself, "The Republik of Deutschland will not be the one to bomb Italy." His eyes, for that moment, finally stop racing through all four corners of the room and fix themselves on Kiku. The other nation bows his head, not in aquiescence, but as close as mute words will allow.

"But what of - " Kiku starts - again - but then the door to the conference room opens, and both sets of eyes narrow.

Their respective delegates (military leaders hastily donning the thin veil of diplomacy: fake smiles, sharp glances, analyzing every single movement) stiffly each others' shake hands, and it is the way neither of them tremble which makes Kiku - falsely - at ease.

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The jolted clack of military-issue boots over the ceramic floors of the palace are a mockery, standing testament to the raging silence of the stroll from the meeting room to the central council chamber. Everything it seems, from the emperor to the councilors to the generals to the intellectuals (the few that are waiting to be silenced - like the rest), has been moved to Akasaka, placed tenderly within Kiku's reach - within Asahiko's reach.

He refuses to ask any questions of the tight-lipped man, forces himself to fade to the background when they enter the inner chambers of the emperor himself. The general drops to a single knee, and pronounces a declaration of war against both Germany and Italy in a tone that seems neither apologetic nor dignified.

Kiku thinks of the pipes and guns and bullets and bombs that were all influenced, in some way or another, by the other two countries.

Asahiko, he notes, seems to mull this piece of information over, placing a hand under his chin, as if this were some interesting problem, as opposed to an issue of pressing national security. It is his youthful appearance, Kiku immediately tries to rationalize, but stops himself from making the same mistake the previous general in charge of diplomatic relations made.

The emperor blinks slowly - once, and then again, before snapping his wrist, in a careless wave.

With a gait similar to a rat, the military general runs away.

Kiku stays, because for the first time in years, he remembers this room, with its high ceiling and low balcony, how the workers cleaned away both body and bloodstains overnight, and how, in the following day, there was no trace, save for a silent unnamed child, of the empress. Asahiko, too, has most certainly forgotten. He was not more than a couple days old at that time, it is ridiculous to think that he would have any sort of conciousness before the age of three.

It is a languid gaze that Kiku takes, that stretches from the bottom corner of the ceiling to the separate ends of the grand room, still furnished in draping silks of the imperial colors, still strangely traditional in the midst of such a modernized dwelling. He ends looking at, moreso observing, Asahiko, who looks back, with tinges of a challenge, and something darker in his eyes.

'I will love him,' - and in this room that he has been in so many times before, he can hear her voice and the dripping hatred she held - 'when his power and will bring your nation to ruin.'

He leaves without a word, returning to his end of the palace, where Yao will be - sitting, sleeping, perhaps walking aimlessly around, pacing like the beautifically trapped mockingbird he is. And even now, Kiku can hear the wrong name being whispered in the dead of the night, a smile that he has all but forgotten, and a desire that even Ludwig will be sacrificed in order to take.

Small talk is unnecessary, is a weakness.

And he is weak - he is a nation, he is better than a human, and yet, he is still weak - because his hands tremble just that noticeable amount when Yao smiles (wicked with teeth) after Kiku accidentally reveals the current state of international affairs.

An entire wing away, Asahiko muses over the situation, fingering withered petals - lily, rose, camellia; desire, love, perfection - from some smiling, bumbling courtier or another. 'Marry her,' the generals, the council, had suggested, lewd grins and feral smiles, 'Or her or her or her or her - ' any of them would have been acceptable.

And they are acceptable - perhaps even beautiful in their own right. They are simply unacceptable for him.

He is the emperor of a nation and still his heart is weak.

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