[oog: long. long post, long overdue.]

[oog2: The format was a bit messed up, so I had to "fix" the paragraphs. Sorry if they're not quite right. ^.^]

summary: the weight of destiny. the sting of memory. and a most unlikely alliance in the end.

MARIEN

[Rivian's crying. I feel like I'm 12 again and he's hanging off my leg, thinking I'm his uncle, waiting for me to kiss it and make it better.

But I'm not Uncle. His Uncle is sitting in front of us, telling the part of the story I never knew...

....

I feel sick.]

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"I was supposed to bring you here. To Nisan." Alain sat back, turning the silver cross over in his hands again, twirling it through his fingers. "I ...was afraid. They would look here for you. So.. so. I turned south when I should have turned north... and I kept going until I found the B'shair nomads. They may not live in our cities, but they have always been loyal to the Fatima crown."

He turned the cross over in his fingers again and looked at Rivian through pewter-green hair. "I.. left you with them. Knowing they would keep you safe. I buried Furis and I headed north... leaving a trail for them to follow me.. and not you."

Rivian's face had moved from a blank, dumbstruck stare, to one of growing curiosity... tinged with sadness. His hand hadn't moved from Marien's cloak since he sat down.

"go on." he finally whispered, seeing Alain had fallen silent, staring at the cross.

"I should have returned for you, after a time... but I kept thinking... you would be safer.. if you never ... truly knew." He paused. "But, the truth. Really..." He looked past Rivian for a long moment at Marien. "is... I am a coward."

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[Coward. The First Knight of the Fatima. These are not things that should be in the same sentence. I can't imagine that the General.. Lord Alain... is..]

"A coward. I failed. I failed to prevent the coup. I failed to protect the crown. I failed to stay by your side. I left you with the nomads as much for myself as you."

"Alain... Uncle.." Rivian reached out for him, in a moment, something other than a scared kid or cocky pirate. Something... older.

"How old were you? When this happened?"

"Thirty." He looked at Marien again, then back at Rivian. "I should have been able to handle it.."

"I don't blame you." Marien watched Rivian intently. The boy sounded entirely too grown-up with those words. "I don't blame you." Rivian repeated, his hand loosening for the first time from Marien's cloak. "I've... run away... more than once on my own." He looked back at Marien with a brief, apologetic smile.

"Rivian..." Alain started, then bowed, clasping the boy's hand. "I think you've grown better than any of us could have hoped. And for the two of you to have found each other... how?"

Marien cocked his head at the strange catch in Alain's voice. "We... ended up imprisoned in Bledavik together, actually." Marien shook his head, unable to stop the small grin cracking on his face. "It was quite an adventure."

Alain looked at the two of them for a long moment, then his blue eyes widened hugely in his dark face. "You... still don't know, do you?"

Marien and Rivian narrowed their eyes in a similar suspicious look, simultaneously. "Know... what?" He started feeling the same dread that had accompanied Cyril's words.

[You look just like *him*]

"No." Marien started to get up, stopped by Rivian's hand gripping his cloak again.

"Marien..." Alain got up too. "I suppose I should clear all my past, then." He smiled, a thin, tight little smile. "You're.. I'm your...."

"No. I don't want to hear this." Marien blurted out, taking a step out of the pew.

"Marien.. you're my son." Alain continued, looking down at Rivian, then back at Marien. "Your mother..."

"Was a woman named Faima... she died when I was born...." Marien murmured out of rote.

"Your mother was Marian Annwfyn Ap'Cedwellen... General Cedwellen's daughter... my... brother's wife."

"So, you *do* have a girl's name!" Rivian suddenly babbled out, voice cracking. "You're named after... my mother?" the boy wheezed out the last word. "Wait.. waitwaitwait...."

Marien felt as if he'd just been hit in the back of the head with one of enormous wrenches from the geardock. Cyril, god damn his bony hide, had warned him just enough.

"CHEATING BASTARD GOOD FOR NOTHING SAND-SUCKING DUNESMAN!" Cyril howled from over his shoulder, causing Marien to jump, in turn startling both Rivian and Alain.

Marien tried very hard to ignore him, and focused on the man sitting on Rivian's other side. "How... is that possible?"

Alain looked at him strangely for a long minute, his jaw twitching. "Marian was 17 when she was married off to Cyril. I was 18... and constantly getting in trouble. The King... Cyril.. my older brother.. was always... off campaigning against Kislev." Alain's hands moved in a futile gesture.

"Well, we were at WAR! WAR, you bastard!" Cyril roared, and Marien tightened his jaw.

"Marian... was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Just.. beautiful. Intelligent, charming... it infuriated me that she was stuck with my brother."

"STUCK!???? I WAS THE KING, YOU SANDWORM!" Marien flinched, and no one noticed.

"We'd been schooled together, being of the same age, and she was the highest General's daughter..." Alain put his face in his hands.

"So. Cyril was on the frontier... and Marian and I..." he looked back up at Marien, who couldn't remember how to form the words swirling inside of his head. "You were born, here in Nisan. She faked a pilgramage, when we realized she was..."

"Then, everything..?" Marien thought he said weakly, but he couldn't be sure anymore.

"Faima... was Marian's nurse. She promised to stay with you... but no one realized.. not even her... that she was dying. When Grace sent the news..."

"Grace? Sister Grace... she knew?" Marien felt the shock evaporate into a startled anger, and even Cyril stopped his incessant background ranting.

Alain nodded. "Marian and I returned to Aveh, and I pretended you... never existed. Cyril came home, and she confessed to him.. to a point. She'd told him of our affair.. but not.. you. Josua was born nine months later. She managed to talk Cyril out of beheading me. Years later, and who does Hediard bring back from his tour of duty in Nisan, but.. you? I couldn't acknowledge you, and not clue Cyril in. And we couldn't let Cyril see you. He wasn't *that* stupid..."

"HEY!" Cyril screeched, but this time, Marien ignored him.

"And you and Josua... you became such good friends... and...then everything happened all at once.. the coup.. your unit, Hediard, disappeared.."

"We were attacked outside of Bledavik. Solaris... Gebler came to aid the coup... they took me because... I was... different." Marien's voice had gone flat. He wondered why he didn't feel anything. "Riv... let go of my cloak, please."

Rivian's hand dropped.

Marien looked hard at Alain. "Feel better now... dad?" His voice was tight. "I... have to go think about this. Help Rivian learn. Cyril said you would." He wheeled around, cloak snapping as he stalked out of the Sanctuary. Where he hadn't felt anything a moment before, he was feeling dangerously close to screaming now.

Outside in the cool green air, Marien stumbled down to the lake, kneeling by the shore, hands flat on the smooth sand as his shoulders shook in some hysteric laughter.

"Josua... Rivian.. my brothers." He said to his reflection in the water. "My little brothers..." Cyril was standing over him and Marien smacked one hand against the water to shatter the image. "Did you think this was a good joke, you fucking ghoul? Did you??? It's not my fault!!!"

"No. It wasn't your fault, kid." The dead king's hand rested on Marien's shoulder as the hysterical laughter dissolved into sobbing. He didn't think anything of it, too numb, until warm arms closed around him from behind.

Not Cyril. Rivian.

The young pirate didn't say anything, but simply held on to his newfound sibling until Marien stopped shaking.

"I ... think I hate him." Marien finally said after he regained his voice.

"I can see that." Rivian offered in response, coming to sit next to him. "Mari...."

"I can't even ...." Marien began at the same time, and the two young men looked at each other and started to laugh.

"Riv...He can teach you what you need to know." Marien drew sand-covered legs up, hugging his knees as he looked over at Rivian.

"Yeah. I know. But you're my First Mate. You're... my friend." Rivian gave a little smirk. "You're my big brother." He added wryly.

"So that means, you have to actually listen to me." Marien joked, weakly.

"As if. I'm still your captain.. AND your king." The pirate nodded firmly, but the blue eyes were full of something hopeful. Marien wondered at that for a moment, then ruffled the braided black hair. "Fine, My Captain, My King." He snorted. "It's time I stopped moping and did something useful. See you back at the Ygg?"

Rivian nodded as his First Mate stood. "Right. Big brother." He said it with an air that spoke volumes of future trouble to Marien, and he couldn't help but laugh as he made his way back down to the docks.

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ELLY

The rest of her conversation with Mother Grace went by in a blur.

The history of Mother Sophia was well known throughout Aveh because of her involvement with Roni Fatima, and Elanore had heard the story from Kyoko and the old woman down at the convenience store. Grace's version was a little more detailed, slanted a bit away from Aveh, but ultimately the same thing. Elly's mind only half-listened, far more absorbed in trying to make sense of what she was looking at.

Oh, there were differences - quite a few, when she really looked. The Sophia in the painting had paler hair, slightly darker eyes. She looked frail even under her formal robes, and Elanore knew that, if anything, /she/ was a bit on the chubby side. Especially since her arrival in Aveh.

//Not me.// Surely that was what the sister had meant, but... //I could never be like that.//

As she made her way down the first floor hall, away from the library where she escorted Mother Grace after their return from the portrait room, she found that her mind kept wandering back to the portrait. Even her situation with Darius slipped her mind. One all-consuming concern to another.

Was that portrait the reason everyone was staring at her?

It must be. Why else would anyone look at her? She didn't look out of place, beyond the patched-together outfit the Yggdrasil's nurse had given her. And surely /that/ didn't deserve such long looks, no matter /how/ short the skirt was. But... it still wasn't her. They thought they saw Sophia, maybe, but appearances can be deceiving.

The smile felt familiar. But every mother smiled like that. If she focused, Elanore could remember her own mother with a similar expression, a long time ago. Before it went away, never to return.

An acolyte held one of the towering double doors open for her, and the bright afternoon sunlight washed over her, almost blinding like it was in the portrait room. The bridge leading back to the city stretched ahead of her at the end of the main path, but Elly turned aside into the garden, not quite wanting to return to Kyoko yet. Kyo always stabbed right to the heart of things, and she did not want to talk about this particular incident. It was too silly. How stupid, to let herself be shaken up by something as simple as a portrait. It wasn't like it was a link to her past. It was just an old painting.

"You look troubled." A deep voice startled her out of her meandering thoughts, and Elly wheeled around.

The flash of green-silver in her peripheral vision had prompted one name, that died in her mouth. "You're not.. uhm. Sorry. You... startled me."

The man laughed, turning a cross like the one in Sophia's gently accusatory portrait in his fingers. "I'm sorry. You just looked lost in troubled memory. It's a festival time here in Nisan. A young woman such as yourself... shouldn't be lost in grim thoughts when there's a city full of pleasant distraction around you." The blue eyes, like Rivian's and Marien's, crinkled in kindness.

Elly fidgeted, Kyoko's earlier barbs about her overinvolvement with Darius flitting near the surface, then squared her shoulders. "You know. You're right. Uhm..?"

"If you're looking for your friends, I believe they went back down to the sand cruiser dock." He smiled, letting her unspoken query pass by. "Enjoy every bright day you get, young lady." He said with sudden sadness, turning back into the stained-glass peace of the Cathedral.

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RIVIAN. DARIUS.

Repairs were coming along, now that Dem and the repair crews actually had access to all the tools they needed, in a safe environment. Rivian couldn't help but look at the Yggdrasil with a proprietary sense of pride that he could never quite remember feeling before.

[My kingdom. Well, it's a start.]

Ok, so the kingdom part still gave him a little bit of the willies.

Up above he saw Darius finishing up whatever patch task Dem had laid on him, the young fighter wiping sweat out of his eyes as the plasma welder sparked.

Feeling overfull with sudden good nature, Rivian scrambled up the scaffolding. "Yo~! Slappy! Daria! Whatever your name is!"

Darius let out a long-wounded sigh and turned to look at the pirate captain. "Oh. It's you." he sighed again, better nature counselling him to be nice to the other young man. "It's Darius, by the way."

"Darius, right." Rivian said in a tone that implied he'd already forgotten. "Look. You've really done alot in making amends. Thanks." he added with sudden seriousness and the two youths shared an awkward silence.

"uhm. yeah. Look, I'm really sorry about everything with Shaina, and.."

"Nah. I'm not gonna say it was ok, cause it wasn't.. but I'm learning how to forgive, if nothing else." Rivian laughed sheepishly as he noticed Darius' attention immediately shift. He turned to follow his rapt gaze to the redhaired woman striding into the dock as if she were on a mission.

Elly.

"Man, you've got it bad." Rivian muttered as Elly started to wave to someone, and Darius automatically waved back, until he realized it wasn't for him.

She was waving at Marien.

Rivian felt his jaw drop open and suddenly the two of them were leaning over the scaffolding like bats, staring.

"Marien!"

The Ygg's new First Mate looked up from the repair reports and laughed, his face obscured to the audience above. "Elly. What's up? How was your.. visit?" There was a moment of strained cheerfulness in his voice.

"It was.. ok. Uhm. I was wondering. Would.. would you be available to ....well.. what I mean is, would you show me around the festival? I heard.." She blushed and Darius made a thin, strangled sound until Rivian cuffed him in the back of the head.

"Shh! Shh!!!" the pirate hissed and the other youth glared at him venomously.

"I'd be delighted to. Thank you for asking." Marien said with genuine suprise.

Gaping, Rivian made a kobold-ish horking noise until Darius smacked him on the back.

"SHH!!!" They glared at each other until they realized that Marien and Elly were leaving.

"That snake! He's going with Elly????" Darius sputtered. "Why, I..."

"Snake? Your girlfriend has got her paws on my First Mate! Why..."

They looked at each other and nodded. An alliance must be formed to prevent this from happening at any cost.

Rivan toyed with the feather in his hair. "And I think I have just the plan....."

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summary: the weight of destiny. the sting of memory. and a most unlikely alliance in the end.