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queenlua · 21 days

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what if naesala/sephiran nonsense … what if we were both beholden to forces greater than ourselves, attempting to manipulate circumstances to our own ends/advantages…… and we were both birds (although only one of us knows it)……… and we kissed. I guess that’s not really a prompt just a vibe

i tried very hard to make them kiss. alas that would take another couple thousand words. but hey i had fun with the first few k, so hey here's some Sephiran and Naesala nonsense

*********************************

The new raven king is nothing like his predecessor. An improvement, likely, Sephiran thinks, though time will have to tell.

The old king Kilvas had had a harried, hunted air that clung to him like a shadow, everywhere he went. He'd showed himself in Begnion rarely, and when he did, he was always looking over his shoulder for the door. Oily-haired, sallow-skinned, and curiously ungroomed, given how vain ravens usually were about their appearance.

(Or, at least—how vain they had been in Lehran's time, centuries prior. Maybe that had changed, along with so much else.)

When that old king had taken ill and passed, some thirty years prior, no one suspected foul play. They'd all met the man, and sensed the air about him. Born under a bad star, a heron might've said, if there were any left to say it.

(Sephiran had witnessed all that before he had made himself into Sephiran, of course. When he'd borne peasant disguises, to stand among the men at these parties, as a servant or a scullery-man or a butler, biding his time in the beorc world—watching, waiting, learning all he could before he entered into the fray himself.)

This new king, however—Naesala, he's called—stands at ease in this crowd of beorc nobles. Plucks canapés from trays passed by servants and eats them as delicately as you please. Seems to care little whether anyone here likes him or not, which, of course, is a sure way to draw people toward you. One after another, senator after senator goes to chat with him—some merely curious, some suspicious, some outright hostile—but all walk away smiling, pleased, flattered all the right ways. That laguz king, the muttering admirers say here and there, how clever! how articulate! who knew the like!

(Though, curiously, none of those senators seem to learn much about Naesala himself. It suggests he's the sort of man you can chat with for an hour, and go home to tell your spouse all about him—only to realize he said almost nothing about himself the whole while, that maybe the whole reason you liked him was because he listened so well.

(Sephiran knows the type, and knows the trick. He's done the same, many times.)

It's in the midst of all this merry chatter, while Tanas is chatting up Naesala, that Lekain sidles up besides Sephiran. The vice-minister nods toward the little ring of admirers around the raven: "His nation is very poor, you know."

Sephiran inclines his head slightly. "Kilvas, you mean?"

Lekain nods. "I had an audience with him just this morning, as it so happens," he adds, with a tone that suggests salacious gossip. "Begging for scraps from our table."

"You don't say," Sephiran says, with a smile that is sad rather than sneering—though he knows Lekain will think it the latter, and will think them allies in this, sneering at the humiliated royalty of yet another lesser nation. And Sephiran will let him think that, for now. He's has lived too long, and has too many memories all muddled up together, to believe he could sustain straightforward lies for long. But half-truths, little nudges, misleading gestures like a conspiratorial smile... those can go a long ways. Particularly with a beorc as ingratiating as this one—he's never seen the like before. Could almost mistake him as servile if you hadn't seen him on the senate floor, earlier this week, overweening and entirely assured as he struck a blow against Sanaki with that wretched speech he gave, right before the floor vote—

But that vote is past. Sephiran is still smiling. He hadn't known Naesala had anything to do with Lekain. Maybe, if Sephiran keeps smiling, Lekain will say more.

"Of course I turned him away—hardly the time for it, with the harvest we're having, and him with so little to offer in turn."

"He is to be pitied, then," Sephiran says lightly.

Lekain stiffens, and Sephiran knows at once he said the wrong thing—though he's not sure how. (He is to be pitied is the thinnest sort of sympathy, so trite as to be almost an insult. But apparently even that thin sliver is too much for Lekain to hear.) "Sephiran," Lekain says, "I'm aware we have different ideas about the place of the laguz in Begnion. But Begnion must put her own citizens first. You understand."

(Sephiran still imagines, sometimes, that he can feel other hearts. But he can't, and it's caused him to misread a room more than once—hey may think he he feels some hidden surge of pity or generosity from the heart of a senator, only to later realize that that feeling was his own, and the senator had felt no such thing, judging by their callous speech the very next day.

(He's made that mistake with many senators, these past two years. But never with Lekain.)

"Of course," Sephiran says, and he could mean anything, anything at all.

*********************************

Sanaki is rather taken with the raven king, as it so happens.

She arrives at her own party fashionably and tactically late, as she often does. (A choice Sephiran at first allowed as a concession to her childish moods—she didn't want to go now, fine, but they must go later—but then he encouraged her tardiness, when he noticed the effects it had on their court. How they watched and waited for their arrival. How deferential they were, when she finally came to them.)

When she does finally arrive, Sephiran goes to walk alongside her. And as she makes her rounds through the crowd, he nudges her toward dignitaries of particular import, the ones she must speak with—but he catches her eye slipping toward Naesala, many times, as the night carries on. Watching him in some animated conversation and furrowing her brow.

Or maybe it's just his wings she's taken with. Naesala's audience with her this morning had turned on that little detail, near the end.

The whole meeting had gone nearly perfectly. He bid her his belated congratulations for her ascension as Apostle; she paid him all the compliments befitting a foreign king, and hoped for peace between their nations. He wanted to trade; she wanted the same. They'd secured some rudimentary terms, to be worked over by councils on each side. And they avoided all talk of piracy, for now. (No need to fuss over a few ships here and there Not when they were just getting to know each other. Not when Begnion could likely pay whatever price was needed to turn that raven looting elsewhere, when the right moment came.)

Then, near the end of that meeting, Sanaki did something Sephiran didn't anticipate: "I like your wings, King Kilvas," she'd blurted, with the sort of impulsive frankness only a child could have. "I have never seen the like."

Well, Naesala would be the first bird laguz she's seen, wouldn't he. Hawks, never keen on Begnion to begin with, have altogether refused to grace the nation's shores ever since the massacre, and of those few ravens who chose live apart from Kilvas, scraping together a living in the streets of Sienne—well, none could ever hope for an audience with an empress.

(And the herons, of course, were gone.)

"May I touch them?" she added.

Sephiran's mistake. She couldn't know how rude that question was; he ought to have warned her. Sephiran was about to step forward, then, to apologize on her behalf and smooth things over—a thing he'd had to do less and less, as of late, but she was still so very young.

But Naesala seemed unbothered. "Well, you shouldn't ask that of just any raven, empress," he said, striking that subtle note between indulgent and ingratiating. "But, yes, just this once. You can touch." And then he knelt down to proffer a wing. Spread it wide, so she could touch the primaries, and the downy bits, and the other feathers in-between. Which she did, fingers gentle, looking over at Naesala every few seconds to make sure she was doing it right.

"You should come to the banquet tonight," she said, after she pulled those fingers away. "It's a party in my honor. On account of my having been apostle a whole year." She strikes a haughty pose for a moment: "Ordinarily these parties are very boring, but you may make it interesting."

Naesala's lip quirks. But his eyes do glitter—he's considering it, and not just out of politeness. "I'll have to leave before midnight," he says after a moment. "Duty calls. But yes, empress. I'd love to join your feast."

And so he came; and so he's here. And so she's watching him, now, though she's other, more urgent matters to attend. (Naesala's nation is poor, and of little import—Lekain was right about that much. Their chat this morning was more than enough time spent on the matter.)

So she's the first to notice, when he tries to make a quick exit—and the first to follow. Which, of course, means Sephiran follows her.

When they find Naesala in the foyer, he's already traded out his fine eveningwear for traveler's clothes. (Eveningwear that must've been procured on short notice, come to think of it—he must know Sienne well.) He's nearly ready to go, from the looks of it; the only thing left is tying his boots, which he's presently occupied with.

(The other nobles leaving around this hour, of course, make no such change. They came here in carriages, attended by servants, who would sooner throw down rugs before letting their masters mar their shoes with a single puddle. But Naesala has no such coddling. Laguz leaders travel by wing and claw, by their own two feet.)

"Kilvas," she calls, after he's finished tying the first boot. "Surely you are not leaving in a storm such as this."

(There is a storm outside—loud, relentless, sheet-thick rain. Easy to miss in the shelter and fuss of the party; less so, out here.)

Whether Naesala allows her brusqueness because of her age, or because of her high office, isn't clear—indulging and acquiescing look rather the same on his visage. "We fly in rain all the time, empress," he says, smooth as silk, leaning over a little to look her in the eyes. "The water rolls right off our feathers, you see."

It's a lie; Sephiran knows it to be a lie. Heron feathers are oiled, and thus bear up against water, but raven feathers soak right through. If Naesala goes out now he'll be drenched within minutes. But Sephiran can't exactly say that, can he.

Then: a flash lightning, with the roil of thunder right after. Even Naesala winces at the sound. They all do—Mainal has all those chambers and vaults that echo the sound within it, and the thunder seems to snap within every single one.

"Your feathers won't help if you get struck by lightning," Sanaki deadpans. She raises a brow as though this raven king is a mite slower than she'd expected. "You should stay."

"I'll take my chances," Naesala says, with rather uncourtly snappishness. He pulls the other boot on and rises to leave.

Then: "King Kilvas," calls a voice from across the chamber. Lekain's smiling hugely as he enters the foyer. "I could convey you to my own abode, here in the city, there's plenty space in my apartments for a guest, and this storm's expected to last all night—"

"No," Sanaki says, her little eyes narrowing to slits, "I offered first. He'll stay here." She tilts her chin upward, imperious. "Won't you, Kilvas?"

Naesala looks between the two of them with a faint air of exasperation. But he does relent. "As you wish, your highness," he says, nodding toward Sanaki. "I'll be gone at first light."

*********************************

Sephiran rises early the next morning, as is his habit—or his gift, or his curse, depending on your perspective.

Sephiran is an early riser because he hardly sleeps at all. It's something about Ashera's blessing on him, he suspects—ever since that battle with Yune, he's hardly ever been able to sleep more than a handful of hours at a time. He'll lie down well after midnight, wake well before dawn, and he'll feel as rested as though he'd slept twenty hours instead of two.

And that curious new tendency had been only a curiosity, a source of amusement, when the blessing had first been bestowed upon him. It gave him a few hours' rest aside Altina, then a few hours to watch her sleeping form, in the quiet, by lamplight—the best of both worlds, he thought. Thought it an unmitigated gift.

Of course he'd think differently, later. Bad enough, he'd been denied death for so long. To be denied its nearest thing—blessed sleep—when he hungered for those scant hours, savored them as a man dying of thirst savors water—the thing he only ever had for a few hours at a time, no matter how many sleeping draughts he swallowed, no matter how much he wanted to simply not wake up—

But there's no escaping it, whatever it is. So he's awake, well before dawn, and so he's wandering the halls of Mainal when he runs into Naesala. Catches sight of him when he's poised over the ledge of the ramparts, just about to fly—

"King Kilvas," Sephiran calls, from the other end of the ramparts.

Naesala pauses. He's still poised, ready to leap.

"Sanaki will be very unhappy if you don't at least stay for breakfast, you know."

Naesala flexes his wings at that, angling them to catch the breeze. "Pass along my regrets, then. I don't mean to disappoint, but I do have a kingdom to run, you know."

And Sephiran thinks he's lost him, then—things he'll spring over that railing and fly straight away—but he pauses, just long enough to give Sephiran a passing glance. Then another. Then he tucks those wings in.

"Not sure I've ever seen you without your charge before," Naesala says slowly.

Ah. So that's what's caught his interest.

He crosses to Sephiran's end of the ramparts, and says in a low voice: "That was an interesting maneuver of yours in the senate, the other day."

"Beg pardon," Sephiran says, his smile unmoved. "I don't know what you're referring to."

"That motion to offer Begnion citizenship to laguz on equal terms as that of the beorc. It can't be too popular among your peers." He tilts his head. "That is, if they still count as your peers. Does prime minister mean you're above them, now? The finer points of Begnion politics escape me."

"That motion was the empress's alone. I am but her advisor, and her voice within the senate."

"The empress," he says flatly, "is six. I understand beorc years are reckoned a bit differently than laguz, but by any measure she's a hatchling at best."

"You've spoken with her yourself. I think you'd agree she is quite self-possessed."

"She's precocious, sure," he says with a dismissive snort. "I've got a nephew who does sums and figures better than half my so-called bookkeepers. Doesn't mean he runs the country."

Sephiran lets that statement, the implicit accusation, simply sit there. Stands in silence so long that Naesala's wings twitch a little, that anxious tic so many bird laguz share.

And then he shakes out the whole wing, as though after a long stretch, to hide that little twitch. "That's what your senators would say, at least."

"By senators, you mean Lekain, I suppose?" Sephiran ventures—and when Naesala's eyes flicker, Sephiran ventures even farther than that, a little bluff: "I did notice your departing his offices yesterday morning. Are you his dogsbody, now?"

And that bluff strikes too—too true, truer than Sephiran imagined. For a moment there's a flicker of the old king on Naesala's young face: harried, hunted, pale as bone. He looks at Sephiran as though Sephiran has stabbed him, and Sephiran can't make out why.

Can't make out why Naesala would beg favor from Lekain in the first place, come to think of it. The man's notoriously stingy when it comes to his own subjects, let alone some foreigner's. And if it's money he needs, that Tanas has more than enough, and seemed charmed enough by him last night.

And Sephiran feels a stirring, then—unbidden but wanted, the way you can want to press on a bruise or tear at a scab—the same possessive impulse that stirs him whenever Zelgius comes mewling. Because if Lekain has some hold on this foreign king, some pull that can make him go haggard and harried in a breath—then maybe Sephiran can grasp it, too—grasp him, wring something from him the same way—

"Please," Naesala says, with a dismissive wave, a half-second too late to be convincing. He's still a little pale, but that easy smile is back, fixed in place. "Lekain and I talk sometimes. That's all."

And like that, the stirring's gone, replaced by an inchoate sort of shame.

"Ah," Sephiran says, with an easy smile of his own, easier than Naesala's by far. "If that's all, then. I assure you again: the will behind Sanaki's initiatives is her own."

"And how long have you been in the senate, Sephiran?" Naesala asks after a moment. "Two years?"

"Two years next month."

"Well," Naesala says darkly, "you'll learn. They all do."

Sephiran's not sure what he means. But staring at him now, he feels a different sort of stirring. Sees Naesala, his wings once again angled into the breeze, and thinks of the little girl, still asleep, who likes wings and feathers and doesn't like how Begnion treats them.

He should harden his heart against such a stirring. There can be no peace, from what Sanaki is doing. No justice. He has lived a hundred of her lifetimes—quite literally over a hundred—and has seen how this plays out, time after time.

But then she'll declare what she will do, in one of those impetuous little fits of hers—and for a moment, precious minutes, once the length of a whole and sacred hour—Sephiran will believe her. That the world can be fixed, maybe, and so can he.

Never longer than that. Still not even as long as his scarce little sleeps. But not nothing.

#fanfiction #lehran #sephiran #naesala #tellius #prompt fill #attempting to write each these fills in one sitting. let's see how that goes lmao

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