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synergetic2023-10-09 02:49 am
senselessness) wrote in synergetic2023-10-09 02:49 am
Entry tags:
Prince of Fire Emblem: Gray Waves
A princess with a poker face, Yukimura thought, as Yanagi took away the tea cups and retreated to where the rest of his entourage waited near the doorway.
He had open across the small negotiating table a letter from Princess Azura's stepfather, promising him that he would make her marriage as valuable to him as if she were his own flesh and blood. King Garon had a reputation that his own children shrank from, even as they bowed to his every whim. Azura didn't have the same fawning, wincing air as Garon's own children, from what Yukimura remembered of the spy reports. She looked placidly into his eyes.
"You pushed for this?" he asked, bluntly.
"No, milord," said the princess calmly. "Having just returned to Nohr after a long stay in Hoshido, I was as surprised as you."
Was she lying to him? She'd appeared at the gates of his castle alongside a delivery of flowers and wine for the ball celebrating Marui and Lissa's engagement, accompanied by her stepfather's offer of her hand and a ne'er-do-well with an axe as large as his body.
"He's this eager to get rid of you?"
"Or to gain your goodwill," she answered delicately.
Was she lying to him? The timing angered him immensely.
"By sending you here? Customarily, the pleasure of the bride's company is withheld until the marriage has been satisfactorily arranged."
"Your refusal is noted," she said, not without a certain heaviness.
His eyes narrowed. An outright refusal, in front of the man with the axe... his head burned. Could he afford to refuse Garon's offer without at least the pretense of consideration? Was she simply manipulating him into making a mistake?
"I said no such thing," he answered tightly. She inclined her head apologetically. "But my concern is with the engagement of my own princess, which you're interfering with."
She didn't contest his choice of verb, and his blood boiled.
"Like your princess, I am at the mercy of kings," she said. "I mean no disrespect to Lady Lissa."
But do you mean her harm? he wondered. Did Azura mean to displace her? The king's wife was necessarily given more authority than the king's sister. Yukimura didn't want that. He didn't want a wife for his own sake, there was nothing left within him that could love or cherish the princess before him nor any other, and he certainly didn't want a queen, who'd expect to see her own child on his throne in due time.
A queen would displace Lissa in the hierarchy of the court, and an heir would do the same in the line of succession. A perfect sabotage of his failsafe. A waste of Marui's and Lissa's sacrifices both-- not to mention the hints he'd tried to give them during their dance practice for tonight.
He had to play this intelligently-- even if he was starting late. He swallowed back the venom and vitriol he felt for this interloper and, hating himself for the debasement, stood, only to bow to her gallantly.
"Enjoy with us the festivities already planned," he said, more instructing than inviting. "We can talk more when I've discharged the business already in front of me."
"Yes, milord," she said, opaque as an iron wall.
Felicia -- delighted to be visited by a princess of her native land -- quickly escorted Azura and Hans, the axe man, to their lodgings, and Yukimura turned to his friends, pale and glowing with displeasure.
"I want to know why Nohr chose now to do this," he said, "but I will settle for what I should do to them in retaliation."
He had open across the small negotiating table a letter from Princess Azura's stepfather, promising him that he would make her marriage as valuable to him as if she were his own flesh and blood. King Garon had a reputation that his own children shrank from, even as they bowed to his every whim. Azura didn't have the same fawning, wincing air as Garon's own children, from what Yukimura remembered of the spy reports. She looked placidly into his eyes.
"You pushed for this?" he asked, bluntly.
"No, milord," said the princess calmly. "Having just returned to Nohr after a long stay in Hoshido, I was as surprised as you."
Was she lying to him? She'd appeared at the gates of his castle alongside a delivery of flowers and wine for the ball celebrating Marui and Lissa's engagement, accompanied by her stepfather's offer of her hand and a ne'er-do-well with an axe as large as his body.
"He's this eager to get rid of you?"
"Or to gain your goodwill," she answered delicately.
Was she lying to him? The timing angered him immensely.
"By sending you here? Customarily, the pleasure of the bride's company is withheld until the marriage has been satisfactorily arranged."
"Your refusal is noted," she said, not without a certain heaviness.
His eyes narrowed. An outright refusal, in front of the man with the axe... his head burned. Could he afford to refuse Garon's offer without at least the pretense of consideration? Was she simply manipulating him into making a mistake?
"I said no such thing," he answered tightly. She inclined her head apologetically. "But my concern is with the engagement of my own princess, which you're interfering with."
She didn't contest his choice of verb, and his blood boiled.
"Like your princess, I am at the mercy of kings," she said. "I mean no disrespect to Lady Lissa."
But do you mean her harm? he wondered. Did Azura mean to displace her? The king's wife was necessarily given more authority than the king's sister. Yukimura didn't want that. He didn't want a wife for his own sake, there was nothing left within him that could love or cherish the princess before him nor any other, and he certainly didn't want a queen, who'd expect to see her own child on his throne in due time.
A queen would displace Lissa in the hierarchy of the court, and an heir would do the same in the line of succession. A perfect sabotage of his failsafe. A waste of Marui's and Lissa's sacrifices both-- not to mention the hints he'd tried to give them during their dance practice for tonight.
He had to play this intelligently-- even if he was starting late. He swallowed back the venom and vitriol he felt for this interloper and, hating himself for the debasement, stood, only to bow to her gallantly.
"Enjoy with us the festivities already planned," he said, more instructing than inviting. "We can talk more when I've discharged the business already in front of me."
"Yes, milord," she said, opaque as an iron wall.
Felicia -- delighted to be visited by a princess of her native land -- quickly escorted Azura and Hans, the axe man, to their lodgings, and Yukimura turned to his friends, pale and glowing with displeasure.
"I want to know why Nohr chose now to do this," he said, "but I will settle for what I should do to them in retaliation."
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"Yes," he affirms, and the hands that had reached to draw Yukimura's attention through a tactile connection shift to provide bracing support as he calmly leads Yukimura out, through the next room and around a corner to a secret passage they can use to retreat to the crisis room. If anyone was following to finish what they'd started, this route should shake them off.
Yukimura is not well. Whatever pushback that was, Sanada will forgive it and write it off as a product of not being in his right mind. The attack must have been a mental one. It may have impaired his judgment. That would explain the unprovoked attacks on the princess as well. One thing at a time. Get Yukimura to safety. Get to the bottom of what happened. Do whatever is needed to fix the problem.
"How is your steadiness? Do you feel your strength returning?"
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"Have I ruined everything?" he asks instead, not wanting to admit how unsteady he feels. What did Lissa see? What is Princess Azura going to tell her people?
He drops the tome from under his arm, letting it crash to the floor.
"Tell me what you think, in all honesty."
But he smiles as he says it, thinking the last part is probably not necessary.
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"The situation has become complicated. But it is not unmanageable. Yanagi will attend to Princess Azura. We will take the evening to strategize how we address Nohr."
He simply has confidence in that much. They were an impossibly strong team, and they were all fiercely loyal to Yukimura. They all knew how to provide the support the king needed, often without instruction.
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Yukimura did know that, and was grateful for it. But even without any lies, sugarcoating, or deflection, Sanada's own steadfastness and unwavering belief in their strength still colored what was, to Yukimura's ears, a "Yes, but."
"You were wise to send Yanagi to her," he said quickly. He would have to capitalize on that; if he'd truly meant the princess harm, Yanagi and Sanada would not be trying to help her.
His eyes fall to the tome.
"Someone has to talk for me at some point," he said. "I don't know what they'll say yet."
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"And... who's the messenger?"
He means whose face, of course.
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"Someone more credible than I am right now," he said wryly.
He was lucky, he thought, to be surrounded by so many people who would do so much for him. He'd wasted the work they did for him, taking a chance on that tome. If he'd only let the disease take its course...
But that would have been too much of a burden for Lissa; he had a chance now to better prepare her for what he was slowly beginning to see as inevitable.
"I had no intention of harming Princess Azura," he said, just in case that needed clarification. She was probably trying to help him, using her abilities to try and purge the tome's magic from his body.
Was it safe to tell his friends that? Or would it make the tome -- make him -- want to attack them?
"You might have to go as me..."
But he also wanted them both to stay at his side; it was easier not to fall under the spell if he could focus on the people who mattered to him.
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"That's true... Then, what's the situation with the princess? I don't remember her on the RSVPs."
And there had been that private meeting with her earlier...
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What indeed. "Nothing I say -- or Niou says for me -- is going to matter if Princess Azura just stands up and contradicts it immediately after," he said, thinking out loud. He reached a hand out to Sanada and Niou both, with a rueful smile.
"Trust in me a little longer," he said, too proud to beg but too beaten down to command. He pulled the magic to him, around the three of them, and found Yanagi and the princess in one of their conference rooms with a teleport spell.
Yukimura turns his head when he hears the tome fall to the ground behind him, disappointed because he'd hoped to have left it behind, and staggers, both with the effort of using so much magic and the surprise of Princess Azura pointing a Blessed (and sharpened) Lance directly at his throat.
"She would not come with me unless I allowed her to be armed," Yanagi said mildly, and Yukimura supposed he'd earned that, and made sure that he lost his balance in Sanada's direction-- if Sanada had to catch him, he couldn't wonder if he was supposed to be pointing a sword at the princess in retaliation.
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"Yukimura!" Sanada instinctively moves to once again brace the king, staying his tongue as well as his sword in the face of that aimed lance. Niou takes ten seconds to survey the situation and make a decision.
The princess is understandably on high defense. Four on one in a foreign territory right on the heels of an attack, and her assailant right there in front of her. If this was going to have any hope of being smoothed over, a rebalancing was needed. The first step would be helping her not feel so threatened. Now, who should stay with the king as a support? What did he most need right now?
Sanada had the advantage of having been in that earlier meeting. Yukimura would be able to speak freely with him. He was an intimidating presence, though, and he was ill-equipped as a wingman in psychological tactics.
Yanagi suffered neither of those drawbacks, but he carries the unenviable baggage of having been the one to isolate the princess, quite plausibly without her consent. And he was the only one who could really control Akaya, who might be in the mood for some violence of his own after the spectacle.
He had the advantages of Yanagi, the drawbacks of neither, and the bonus of being the most socially charming and the least physically intimidating. Primary downside: he was going to miss so much of the fun out in the ballroom. Oh, the sacrifices he makes.
"Ahhh, this room is too crowded. Yukimura, what do you think? How about I create a little breathing room?"
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It takes Yukimura a moment to answer because his head is still swimming-- and because he isn't above using the weakness he already feels as a shield against Azura. It's underhanded, but he keeps his weight on Sanada.
"Do what you like, Niou," he says, careful to keep his voice neutral.
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"You're first. Get out."
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Azura's eyebrows rising is the only crack in her defensive wall, while Yukimura manages to keep his composure only by reminding himself that Niou did follow his orders to the letter when it suited him.
"I calculated an eighty-six percent chance it'd be this versus a farewell kiss for your ice-breaking distraction, and I can't tell if I'm disappointed or not."
But Yanagi departed before anyone could rob him of the last word.
"Your retainers are as badly behaved as those of my siblings in Nohr," said Azura calmly.
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For now, he doesn't respond to Azura. The show isn't over yet, after all. Without missing a beat, he rounds on Sanada with a dark smile.
"You're next."
Sanada stiffens and shifts to face Niou more frontally. "You wouldn't dare."
"That's right, I wouldn't. And that's why you angled that tight ass as far away as you could, isn't it. You get out too."
Sanada, seemingly without any solid comeback to that, hesitates, and looks to Yukimura for a confirmation. Is this really okay?
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Yukimura hesitates for a single second, in the middle of his own calculations, but in the end... Niou realizing what's going on is easier to face. His disappointment won't sting as much as Sanada's.
"Sanada, you made sure I was safe. Thank you. Now I need you to do the same for Lissa and Marui."
Reluctantly, he pulled himself free of Sanada's support, nearly tripping over the damn tome as he stepped away from Azura but towards Niou, beckoning him closer.
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Once the door closes behind Sanada, Niou exhales with pleasure.
"Isn't that better," he comments to no one in particular as he moves towards Yukimura and assumes the place Sanada vacated. "Now then... I think I'd like a cup of tea. Princess Azura? How do you like yours?"
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The king felt no animosity from her. Rather, she seemed resigned. She wasn't looking at him, exactly. Her gaze veered just a little over his shoulder, and he followed it to the Trance tome.
Just the same, he couldn't bear to look her in the eyes. His attention was captured instead by the pendant hanging from her neck.
"Niou, do as our esteemed guest asks," said Yukimura. He'd been infuriated by her existence eight hours ago; now he was afraid she would take his mistakes and drag Lissa down into a war he'd never prepared her to wage. "There should be supplies in the cabinet hidden behind the portrait of my father... you know how Yanagi arranges things."
He waited for Azura's eyes to rest on the portrait warily.
"The weapons cache is within the conference table; it's hollow," he added, speaking honestly because he needed her goodwill, and the only way to get it was to prove he had nothing to hide. "The cabinet there really is just tea and snacks for when we're working."
"I'm aware I provoked you with my song," she said. "So I will not attack while your man is occupied."
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He resists his first impulse to assert that she won't attack at all, because he wasn't going to let her. Resists the urge to get between them with his knife set to her throat so fast she'd think it a teleportation spell of his own. Proving that the preemptive strike was hers would be extremely difficult, and Yukimura was trying to smooth tensions, not escalate them. He didn't want a war with Nohr.
More to the point, what was her objective? If she meant to assassinate the king, she wouldn't give herself away like that, would she? No. Her eyes hadn't quite been on the king. They'd been on--
...
He moves to the cabinet and retrieves the matcha, sifter, whisk, kettle, and three sipping bowls. He sifts the matcha into the bowls, then conjures water into the kettle. As he pulls his fire tome to boil the water, he removes a small packet from his hidden arsenal of tricks. The fine powder inside it joins one of the bowls.
"Be just a minute. Go ahead and have a seat."
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The longer Yukimura is in her presense -- no, the presence of the Lance, she didn't have this effect on him when she was unarmed -- the more clearly he can think. This is the Nohrian king's stepdaughter, the daughter of his second official wife, not one of the children he fathered with one of his many backstabbing concubines. This is the child who was kidnapped after the assassination of the Hoshidan king, and--
"You have nothing to fear from King Garon if you kill me," said Azura, confirming the conclusion he was coming to. "At least not immediately. He would be happy to use my death to further his plans, but the only plan he has shown any interest in is his conquest of Hoshido."
It didn't explain why he sent her here, but perhaps she didn't know.
Yukimura studied the lance.
"Niou," he said softly. "Open the cache inside the table... once you've served the tea, of course. There should be a dagger there that has the same glowing, misty aura as the princess' lance. You must keep it with you at all times, since I don't think you can sing like her."
"Not without this pendant, certainly," she agreed. "I could teach him the words to the song, and the song has a mysterious power of its own, but you have already vastly overestimated your resistance to dark magic, milord."
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Dark magic, huh? That checked with what they already knew. What's most interesting about it is that somehow, she knew about it. Useful information to keep in mind.
He carries the tea out on a tray. Azura receives the first one as the guest. He gives Yukimura the drugged bowl next, and sets the remaining one aside while he opens up the cache to retrieve the dagger Yukimura requested. The powder will take a minute to take effect, but it should put him under a deep slumber once it does.
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The best Yukimura can offer is the admission, "I had no choice."
"Let's leave that aside for now," Azura answered. Once she decides she's comfortable setting aside her weapon, Yukimura takes a seat at the table. He watches her contemplate the bowl, and wonders himself if Niou has a trick up his sleeve. Well, the existence of a trick is a given, he decides. The question is whether he's chosen to employ it.
"I'm not familiar with the particular magic you've gone and embroiled yourself in," Azura said. "Rather, it's similar to things I've seen in the past. But it has its hooks deeply embedded into you-- that it was able to overpower my song is proof enough of that."
She hadn't touched her tea yet.
"I thank you for a heroic attempt," said Yukimura, contemplating his own tea. "I don't know how safely you can speak in front of me."
She nodded in acceptance. "Weapons that have anti-monster properties appear to force it into a stasis of some kind, but I'm in no hurry to test the limits of that. And it is a part of you now-- that I don't fear telling you. You already know that much."
"Maybe it was always a part of me," Yukimura said. "It appealed to a need I've always had-- my illness only made it worse."
But it wasn't the only part of him that mattered. What he needed most was another part who could act independently of him. A second brain who could come to the same conclusions -- sometimes faster, sometimes from a different angle -- and be ready with what Yukimura needed before he even knew it himself.
"I luckily have the services of an ingenious trickster," he said ruefully, and drank deeply of the tea. The tea his friend suggested as soon as he had control of the room, and Yukimura played right into having him prepare it. "Niou, your sense of shamelessness is the only one I'll never be able to steal."
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"I wonder about that," he says mildly with a look of amusement. "It's a tight race with that outfit."
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Yukimura only closes his eyes, wanting to speed along Niou's plan and the relief unconsciousness will bring. His stomach sours at the thought of leaving Niou alone to cope with what he's done, but it isn't the first time they've saved each others' lives.
"That just means I don't have anything spare to rest my head on," he said mildly, "since I don't have any extra clothing."
2/2
"Was that a command to you?" she asks Niou, some amusement coming through.
"I should apologize -- or at least clarify -- my earlier remark. My siblings' retainers are all prone to misbehave, but they are each loyal and true."
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"Sorry, boss." He whispers, knowing he can't be heard. This is for the best, for all of their sakes. He returns to the table and settles down with his tea in one of the seats.
"Now we can both talk freely. Please don't hesitate to voice any way I can make you more comfortable. And on behalf of the king of Rikkai, our thanks for your understanding of the situation. To have already grasped it, you're quite astute."
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"I was only lucky enough to be here," she added, getting down to business. "The Kingdom of Rikkai has a vital role to play in the interests of peace. I believe Rikkai, Seigaku, and Hyoutei keep each other check. Each dares not risk attacking the others, for fear of the third swooping in and finishing them both off. It's not my ideal, but Nohr is a harsh place of harsh people, and I must adopt its mindsets or die. My power is at your disposal, whatever good it may do."
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