If the formatting or text is weird it's because I wrote and sent this on my phone while at work.
Aleksei's gaze swept first over the training ground, and then the sky above. It was a bright summer day, but with relief Aleksei noted it was not too bright. Clouds were overhead, a bank of solid white that gave the impression of a thick woolly blanket. The sun was a smear of light behind it, and Aleksei felt that perfectly fine, even ideal. Exalt of the Sun he may be, but even he felt shamed by its rays often lately. God could not understand. Would not understand. Did not have the means to comprehend understanding. To God, the world was black and white. To Aleksei, he knew that shadow could not exist without light.
Those were concerns for another time, though. Ahead of him stood four armed men, while Aleksei stood alone. This is how he liked to spar. Aleksei held a greatsword as blunt as a round stone, while the four men held a motley of weapons. One a mace, one a polehammer, and two longswords of their own. Aleksei let them fight with whatever they felt most comfortable with, the very weapons they would bring into battle if possible. Once there had been a man at arms in his employ who tried to exchange the weapons of his sparring partners with blunt counterparts, thinking Aleksei wouldn't notice. He let that man go. He did not understand the old ways, and Aleksei trained himself in the old way even if he didn't expect anyone else to.
The four men charged, and Aleksei allowed himself a fleeting grin. Only fleeting, because his visor was raised and he did not want them to think he was mocking them. Clad from head to toe in solid steel, he waited until they were a few feet from him before beginning to flourish the greatsword and cut off their charge. In his mind, everything from that point on seemed to slow into a predictable rhythm. Fools called battle a dance, as far as Aleksei was concerned. In no dance would a single misstep mean your death, and in no battle would a single mistake embarrass your counterpart. Still, after having fought often enough like dancing it fell into a flow of repeating patterns that was like the individual steps of a dance.
These patterns were learned in blood and remembered in scars.
The man with the polehammer thrust forward with the spike of his weapon, and Aleksei remembered a scar from a similar thrust on his arm. Aleksei countered the thrust, stepping out of line toward the man and hitting the man's hand, too far forward on the polearm. The cry of pain told Aleksei he would remember his mistake too.
Aleksei saw the man with the mace begin to sprint around him, intending to circle while Aleksei struck the other man. At the same time, one of the swordsmen lashed out. Once Aleksei thought it was impressive, watching knights train in this style. Fighting multiple men at once looked hard. In truth, it was hard. But you trained not to fight them all as one man, but in the style of the greatsword, the weapon made for this sort of combat. He stepped away from the swordsman, and in doing so turned to face the one with the mace. The greatsword swung out, and hit the man hard in the thigh, knocking him down with a shriek. The greatsword was blunt, but a thin bar of steel hurt even if it didn't amputate.
It came as a shock when the fourth man struck Aleksei across the back, and toward the swordsman he contemptuously ignored moments before. Aleksei stumbled, and he felt pain lance through his forehead as the other man slammed his sword into the side of Aleksei's helm. He would be dead without the helmet, and even with it that hurt. For a moment he felt angry that the man didn't take the more reasonable approach of stabbing his face through the open visor, and then realized that was absurd. As much as these men had been told to fight as if they meant to kill them, he was their Tsar. They would not.
"You're unworthy of that armor you wear!" The shout came as a shock to Aleksei, who whirled. Suddenly the other three swordsmen were gone, and he stood face to face with his mirror image. Silver enameled armor adorned with gold, beaten into shape roughly and black cloak across his shoulders. Aleksei knew who it was, with the suddenly one could have only in a dream, before the man rose his visor.
"Begone, illusion. James has been dead for generations." Aleksei felt a numb sort of shock at seeing the man. He felt overwhelmed with surreality. He could not fear, fear had been stolen from him and not returned with the rest of his soul when he abandoned Dranoden. Still, being suddenly face to face with the face of his mentor unsettled him. He had never seen the man, so gentle in life, so angry now.
Just then the clouds broke overhead. The others revealed themselves. What he had thought were his own people, his own men, revealed themselves then to be wearing the armor of the Kaiserwache. All perfectly uniform, all of a height, all equally in splendor. His own armor felt ill fitting now. His own greatness diminished by their presence, and he did not have to look at himself to know he lacked the radiance of their armor on his own. The sun had never shone on Aleksei Ivanov, least of the Kaiserwache, without wincing first.
"Covered in mud again, boy?" Aleksei's heart tried to leap into his throat. He turned again, and where a moment before there had been no one, there stood Peter. Not Peter in his old age as Aleksei dimly remembered him, but Peter the Great. Peter the Conqueror. Peter who took a people made of mud, and cast them into the fire to harden them into a people as hard as stone. His own sword was in hand, and Aleksei felt dead as he had never known in life. All the resentment he felt for the man felt laid bear, as open as if Peter could peer into his soul.
"If you will not listen," and as he spoke the man donned the visor only Charlemagne. The ugly, mousy visor with its wicked point. The visor that made Aleksei's face itch where it in once tore open his cheek. "Then perhaps you feel worthy of this defiance. Perhaps you should be made to listen."
Peter brought the sword to bear, and Aleksei's mind raced. He knew it was naked steel, not steel for sparring, steel for killing, steel they sparred with in Anhald, steel that would cut you deeper than any blow. They taught you, they taught you to read. They taught you to fear them so badly you would run into any foe, better than face the wrath of one of them. He had nowhere to run.
Only he did, through the other Kaiserwache. The great men he imitated, but never matched. He turned and saw them all, all of them who had ever wore the black. His sword felt so heavy. How could anyone lift a blade of such size? He thought he would cry. He felt like he couldn't breathe.
He closed his eyes, and he really couldn't breathe. He was a boy now, with his arms pinned down and his face smothered in a pillow. No matter how much he thrashed and squirmed, he couldn't free himself. He saw the man for only an instant before the attack began, his sister's butler, his sister who was in the other room now with her knight. If only he could scream, they would….
And he was himself again, in a Grafjell of a past age. Looking wistfully out onto the docks, wondering if the ship to save them would come first, or the undead crawling through the sea who drowned the south in blood. He was here now only because his brothers were dying in the south. Brothers? What a strange word. They weren't his brothers anymore than he was theirs. They held no love for him, it didn't matter that the treated him no differently than any other man. They mocked him with their eyes, and behind his back. He felt the touch of his love then, gorgeous and young, black hair framing her green eyes. She murmured that her brother had been dealt with, and for a moment Aleksei wondered what sort of beast he was. This woman would kill a boy out of pure greed. Not even greed, but out of fear he might one day claim her throne. Her city. The city she only held because of men like him, men who would butcher an entire country rightfully resisting her illegitimate claim, and then crucify the living who remained. Aleksei felt good he saved at least one true knight from that fate by taking him hostage. He said none of this to her. Like so many nights, he just kissed her and held her. Then he did more hold her. The brothers he betrayed were cast out of his mind, and alone with her in Grafjell he could almost imagine they were really husband and wife together at the end of the world.
The last thing he remembered was his eyes opening, and Alison was gone. Instead he was on the ground, bruised and bloody, and he saw Vladislaw stab the blade through his eye. That is what roused him finally, flinching in bed. He must have been breathing hard in the stillness of the room, for he felt Melarue stir beside him.
"Mmm… are you alright, Aleksei?" Her hand reached out to him, and he took it. It felt small in his. So small, so vulnerable. He kissed her knuckles.
"I need to relieve myself. I'll be back to bed soon." It wasn't a lie. It wasn't the truth either, but it wasn't a lie and that's all that counted.
"Alright," she murmured.
Then she rolled back over in bed, and Aleksei stroked her back until he heard her breathing change and her falling back asleep. Only then did he rise and pad quietly out of the bedroom. He did not go to the chamber pot as he implied he would, but instead went to his study. There he concerned himself less with the running of his state, he has stewards able enough for that, but more with efforts to fill the hole he felt inside. The nothingness even now he sometimes longed for, the release of all his earthly responsibility. Sometimes it visited him like an old friend, and when he felt it coming sometimes that alone could drive him into a full panic.
He sat down in the chair heavily, and remembered his dream with shame. He hated shame. With fear gone, he felt it more intimately and often than he ever thought a man could. As if it wanted to replace the emotions he had lost. Aleksei took out various papers from inside his desk. Attempts at writing, and attempts at art. Aleksei knew he was not a creative man, he was not someone suited for this kind of work. Still, sometimes in his desperation to escape despair he took the advice of others. The advice to make art he decided was bad, and so he burned the papers like he wished he could burn the shame.
Art of that place in Grafjell, letters to people long dead he could not longer send, and the worst of it was attempts at poetry he would never show Melarue. That was the worst of it, really. He could never leave her long from his mind. When he thought of her, he thought of the person she had been. The delicate librarian he met so many years ago. She'll never be that person again, he thought bitterly. Then he thought of the Kaiserwache in his dream, and it was too much.
"They have been dead longer than I ever knew them, I have been to Hell, I am the prophet and arbiter of God, why do they still rule me!" It did not begin as a shout, but it became one in the end as he cast his arm over his desk, and scattered everything on it to the floor. His breath came ragged, and he fell silent as he listened. His office was not far from Xandar's room, and he did not want to rouse the boy. When silence reigned for several moments, he decided his outburst did not rouse Xandar.
Am I lying to myself? he thought. I must be. There is a truth I do not know that is trying to come out.
Sighing, Aleksei leaned back in the chair. He let his mind wander, let it drift to thoughts. Aleksei wanted them. He wanted them so badly, as badly as he wanted Alison. To live a contented life with Melarue and Xandar, even with Jaz'gil but as he imagined as a girl, not the woman she was now. He couldn't save everyone's souls, but he could save theirs. Were they even worthy of it? Xandar yes, but Melarue… the thought of having to give up Melarue made him uneasy. He wanted love. He wanted to love her, but he couldn't love her the way he wanted to. Not the way they were now. He wanted to raise their child, and it be his child. Not Dranoden's. There was a time when he thought Xandar was his son, but Aleksei wasn't sure anymore. That he knew it was his fault did not make the truth any easier to bear.
Melarue would never change, he knew that. She was in too deep. She scoffed at him ever suggesting she were wrong, and she still mingled with her sycophants more than any decent people. He couldn't stop her. He couldn't save her. Maybe the demon really did love her, and all he did was rip her away from her true happiness. The thought brought tears to his eyes, but anger made them recede before they fell. Yes, it was easier to be angry than sad in his case. He could deal with anger. Sadness would turn to despair and destroy him.
That's what the nothingness was, he realized. Despair, the old ball and chain come again. He sighed, and not for the first time considered going back on it all. In that moment he knew everything he had worked toward was wrong. Ignis was wrong, law was wrong, everything he had ever done was wrong. Yet how long would this certainty last? Would it be gone when the moment passed, or would this certainty stretch on forever and consume him as so often despair did? His moods were coming on more frequently now. It was easy enough to jump out of bed to avoid an unwanted conversation with Melarue, but getting out of bed to confront the work of the coming day became harder and harder. No matter that it was summer and soon the sun would be shining, the brighter the sun the darker the shadow it cast on his heart where Melarue lay. Melarue, and for now Xandar.
He felt sickened for a moment as he thought of Ruckus spontaneously. Aleksei's thoughts almost never touched on Reinhard or his sycophant, but in that moment he felt such a strong kinship with him and all the demonic sycophants. Artesia, Ruckus, Bernard, and many more whose faces he recognized but names he did not know. It would be so easy to give in. His loved ones were committed to selling their souls. He bartered his own away once. It would be so easy to do it again, and to be able to join her in polygamous love, of her, of Dranoden, he could share her devotion he knew. On the same hand, he envied the cold unemotive contempt of the angels. How easy it would be if he had no heart on which shade could fall. How easy it would be to kill them all. He wanted to kill them all. The desire sickened him, but he felt it anyway. If he were still the man he was in Grafjell, a heartless killer seduced, he would have. Everyone but Melarue, unti he grew to resent her and left. If I resent her, he thought, why do I still have her wedding ring?
He did, he realized. He had forgotten he had the wedding ring of his first wife, the first and only Lady Ivanov. He took it out of his drawer and examined it. Alison had changed for him. Had tried to. Did he make her change too much, or not enough? He didn't know the answer. It didn't matter, since her soul was consigned not to heaven in the end, and no amount of bartering or begging on his part could ever save her from what she had done in her lifetime.
Aleksei was the man that Anhald had made him. He wished very much in that moment he were dead with Anhald, and beyond the need to make any decisions. Wish that as he may, he had to make one. He could not bear to live without love. Even if the love were tainted. If Melarue could not change for him, he would change for her. The rest of the world could burn for all he cared.
Aleksei's gaze swept first over the training ground, and then the sky above. It was a bright summer day, but with relief Aleksei noted it was not too bright. Clouds were overhead, a bank of solid white that gave the impression of a thick woolly blanket. The sun was a smear of light behind it, and Aleksei felt that perfectly fine, even ideal. Exalt of the Sun he may be, but even he felt shamed by its rays often lately. God could not understand. Would not understand. Did not have the means to comprehend understanding. To God, the world was black and white. To Aleksei, he knew that shadow could not exist without light.
Those were concerns for another time, though. Ahead of him stood four armed men, while Aleksei stood alone. This is how he liked to spar. Aleksei held a greatsword as blunt as a round stone, while the four men held a motley of weapons. One a mace, one a polehammer, and two longswords of their own. Aleksei let them fight with whatever they felt most comfortable with, the very weapons they would bring into battle if possible. Once there had been a man at arms in his employ who tried to exchange the weapons of his sparring partners with blunt counterparts, thinking Aleksei wouldn't notice. He let that man go. He did not understand the old ways, and Aleksei trained himself in the old way even if he didn't expect anyone else to.
The four men charged, and Aleksei allowed himself a fleeting grin. Only fleeting, because his visor was raised and he did not want them to think he was mocking them. Clad from head to toe in solid steel, he waited until they were a few feet from him before beginning to flourish the greatsword and cut off their charge. In his mind, everything from that point on seemed to slow into a predictable rhythm. Fools called battle a dance, as far as Aleksei was concerned. In no dance would a single misstep mean your death, and in no battle would a single mistake embarrass your counterpart. Still, after having fought often enough like dancing it fell into a flow of repeating patterns that was like the individual steps of a dance.
These patterns were learned in blood and remembered in scars.
The man with the polehammer thrust forward with the spike of his weapon, and Aleksei remembered a scar from a similar thrust on his arm. Aleksei countered the thrust, stepping out of line toward the man and hitting the man's hand, too far forward on the polearm. The cry of pain told Aleksei he would remember his mistake too.
Aleksei saw the man with the mace begin to sprint around him, intending to circle while Aleksei struck the other man. At the same time, one of the swordsmen lashed out. Once Aleksei thought it was impressive, watching knights train in this style. Fighting multiple men at once looked hard. In truth, it was hard. But you trained not to fight them all as one man, but in the style of the greatsword, the weapon made for this sort of combat. He stepped away from the swordsman, and in doing so turned to face the one with the mace. The greatsword swung out, and hit the man hard in the thigh, knocking him down with a shriek. The greatsword was blunt, but a thin bar of steel hurt even if it didn't amputate.
It came as a shock when the fourth man struck Aleksei across the back, and toward the swordsman he contemptuously ignored moments before. Aleksei stumbled, and he felt pain lance through his forehead as the other man slammed his sword into the side of Aleksei's helm. He would be dead without the helmet, and even with it that hurt. For a moment he felt angry that the man didn't take the more reasonable approach of stabbing his face through the open visor, and then realized that was absurd. As much as these men had been told to fight as if they meant to kill them, he was their Tsar. They would not.
"You're unworthy of that armor you wear!" The shout came as a shock to Aleksei, who whirled. Suddenly the other three swordsmen were gone, and he stood face to face with his mirror image. Silver enameled armor adorned with gold, beaten into shape roughly and black cloak across his shoulders. Aleksei knew who it was, with the suddenly one could have only in a dream, before the man rose his visor.
"Begone, illusion. James has been dead for generations." Aleksei felt a numb sort of shock at seeing the man. He felt overwhelmed with surreality. He could not fear, fear had been stolen from him and not returned with the rest of his soul when he abandoned Dranoden. Still, being suddenly face to face with the face of his mentor unsettled him. He had never seen the man, so gentle in life, so angry now.
Just then the clouds broke overhead. The others revealed themselves. What he had thought were his own people, his own men, revealed themselves then to be wearing the armor of the Kaiserwache. All perfectly uniform, all of a height, all equally in splendor. His own armor felt ill fitting now. His own greatness diminished by their presence, and he did not have to look at himself to know he lacked the radiance of their armor on his own. The sun had never shone on Aleksei Ivanov, least of the Kaiserwache, without wincing first.
"Covered in mud again, boy?" Aleksei's heart tried to leap into his throat. He turned again, and where a moment before there had been no one, there stood Peter. Not Peter in his old age as Aleksei dimly remembered him, but Peter the Great. Peter the Conqueror. Peter who took a people made of mud, and cast them into the fire to harden them into a people as hard as stone. His own sword was in hand, and Aleksei felt dead as he had never known in life. All the resentment he felt for the man felt laid bear, as open as if Peter could peer into his soul.
"If you will not listen," and as he spoke the man donned the visor only Charlemagne. The ugly, mousy visor with its wicked point. The visor that made Aleksei's face itch where it in once tore open his cheek. "Then perhaps you feel worthy of this defiance. Perhaps you should be made to listen."
Peter brought the sword to bear, and Aleksei's mind raced. He knew it was naked steel, not steel for sparring, steel for killing, steel they sparred with in Anhald, steel that would cut you deeper than any blow. They taught you, they taught you to read. They taught you to fear them so badly you would run into any foe, better than face the wrath of one of them. He had nowhere to run.
Only he did, through the other Kaiserwache. The great men he imitated, but never matched. He turned and saw them all, all of them who had ever wore the black. His sword felt so heavy. How could anyone lift a blade of such size? He thought he would cry. He felt like he couldn't breathe.
He closed his eyes, and he really couldn't breathe. He was a boy now, with his arms pinned down and his face smothered in a pillow. No matter how much he thrashed and squirmed, he couldn't free himself. He saw the man for only an instant before the attack began, his sister's butler, his sister who was in the other room now with her knight. If only he could scream, they would….
And he was himself again, in a Grafjell of a past age. Looking wistfully out onto the docks, wondering if the ship to save them would come first, or the undead crawling through the sea who drowned the south in blood. He was here now only because his brothers were dying in the south. Brothers? What a strange word. They weren't his brothers anymore than he was theirs. They held no love for him, it didn't matter that the treated him no differently than any other man. They mocked him with their eyes, and behind his back. He felt the touch of his love then, gorgeous and young, black hair framing her green eyes. She murmured that her brother had been dealt with, and for a moment Aleksei wondered what sort of beast he was. This woman would kill a boy out of pure greed. Not even greed, but out of fear he might one day claim her throne. Her city. The city she only held because of men like him, men who would butcher an entire country rightfully resisting her illegitimate claim, and then crucify the living who remained. Aleksei felt good he saved at least one true knight from that fate by taking him hostage. He said none of this to her. Like so many nights, he just kissed her and held her. Then he did more hold her. The brothers he betrayed were cast out of his mind, and alone with her in Grafjell he could almost imagine they were really husband and wife together at the end of the world.
The last thing he remembered was his eyes opening, and Alison was gone. Instead he was on the ground, bruised and bloody, and he saw Vladislaw stab the blade through his eye. That is what roused him finally, flinching in bed. He must have been breathing hard in the stillness of the room, for he felt Melarue stir beside him.
"Mmm… are you alright, Aleksei?" Her hand reached out to him, and he took it. It felt small in his. So small, so vulnerable. He kissed her knuckles.
"I need to relieve myself. I'll be back to bed soon." It wasn't a lie. It wasn't the truth either, but it wasn't a lie and that's all that counted.
"Alright," she murmured.
Then she rolled back over in bed, and Aleksei stroked her back until he heard her breathing change and her falling back asleep. Only then did he rise and pad quietly out of the bedroom. He did not go to the chamber pot as he implied he would, but instead went to his study. There he concerned himself less with the running of his state, he has stewards able enough for that, but more with efforts to fill the hole he felt inside. The nothingness even now he sometimes longed for, the release of all his earthly responsibility. Sometimes it visited him like an old friend, and when he felt it coming sometimes that alone could drive him into a full panic.
He sat down in the chair heavily, and remembered his dream with shame. He hated shame. With fear gone, he felt it more intimately and often than he ever thought a man could. As if it wanted to replace the emotions he had lost. Aleksei took out various papers from inside his desk. Attempts at writing, and attempts at art. Aleksei knew he was not a creative man, he was not someone suited for this kind of work. Still, sometimes in his desperation to escape despair he took the advice of others. The advice to make art he decided was bad, and so he burned the papers like he wished he could burn the shame.
Art of that place in Grafjell, letters to people long dead he could not longer send, and the worst of it was attempts at poetry he would never show Melarue. That was the worst of it, really. He could never leave her long from his mind. When he thought of her, he thought of the person she had been. The delicate librarian he met so many years ago. She'll never be that person again, he thought bitterly. Then he thought of the Kaiserwache in his dream, and it was too much.
"They have been dead longer than I ever knew them, I have been to Hell, I am the prophet and arbiter of God, why do they still rule me!" It did not begin as a shout, but it became one in the end as he cast his arm over his desk, and scattered everything on it to the floor. His breath came ragged, and he fell silent as he listened. His office was not far from Xandar's room, and he did not want to rouse the boy. When silence reigned for several moments, he decided his outburst did not rouse Xandar.
Am I lying to myself? he thought. I must be. There is a truth I do not know that is trying to come out.
Sighing, Aleksei leaned back in the chair. He let his mind wander, let it drift to thoughts. Aleksei wanted them. He wanted them so badly, as badly as he wanted Alison. To live a contented life with Melarue and Xandar, even with Jaz'gil but as he imagined as a girl, not the woman she was now. He couldn't save everyone's souls, but he could save theirs. Were they even worthy of it? Xandar yes, but Melarue… the thought of having to give up Melarue made him uneasy. He wanted love. He wanted to love her, but he couldn't love her the way he wanted to. Not the way they were now. He wanted to raise their child, and it be his child. Not Dranoden's. There was a time when he thought Xandar was his son, but Aleksei wasn't sure anymore. That he knew it was his fault did not make the truth any easier to bear.
Melarue would never change, he knew that. She was in too deep. She scoffed at him ever suggesting she were wrong, and she still mingled with her sycophants more than any decent people. He couldn't stop her. He couldn't save her. Maybe the demon really did love her, and all he did was rip her away from her true happiness. The thought brought tears to his eyes, but anger made them recede before they fell. Yes, it was easier to be angry than sad in his case. He could deal with anger. Sadness would turn to despair and destroy him.
That's what the nothingness was, he realized. Despair, the old ball and chain come again. He sighed, and not for the first time considered going back on it all. In that moment he knew everything he had worked toward was wrong. Ignis was wrong, law was wrong, everything he had ever done was wrong. Yet how long would this certainty last? Would it be gone when the moment passed, or would this certainty stretch on forever and consume him as so often despair did? His moods were coming on more frequently now. It was easy enough to jump out of bed to avoid an unwanted conversation with Melarue, but getting out of bed to confront the work of the coming day became harder and harder. No matter that it was summer and soon the sun would be shining, the brighter the sun the darker the shadow it cast on his heart where Melarue lay. Melarue, and for now Xandar.
He felt sickened for a moment as he thought of Ruckus spontaneously. Aleksei's thoughts almost never touched on Reinhard or his sycophant, but in that moment he felt such a strong kinship with him and all the demonic sycophants. Artesia, Ruckus, Bernard, and many more whose faces he recognized but names he did not know. It would be so easy to give in. His loved ones were committed to selling their souls. He bartered his own away once. It would be so easy to do it again, and to be able to join her in polygamous love, of her, of Dranoden, he could share her devotion he knew. On the same hand, he envied the cold unemotive contempt of the angels. How easy it would be if he had no heart on which shade could fall. How easy it would be to kill them all. He wanted to kill them all. The desire sickened him, but he felt it anyway. If he were still the man he was in Grafjell, a heartless killer seduced, he would have. Everyone but Melarue, unti he grew to resent her and left. If I resent her, he thought, why do I still have her wedding ring?
He did, he realized. He had forgotten he had the wedding ring of his first wife, the first and only Lady Ivanov. He took it out of his drawer and examined it. Alison had changed for him. Had tried to. Did he make her change too much, or not enough? He didn't know the answer. It didn't matter, since her soul was consigned not to heaven in the end, and no amount of bartering or begging on his part could ever save her from what she had done in her lifetime.
Aleksei was the man that Anhald had made him. He wished very much in that moment he were dead with Anhald, and beyond the need to make any decisions. Wish that as he may, he had to make one. He could not bear to live without love. Even if the love were tainted. If Melarue could not change for him, he would change for her. The rest of the world could burn for all he cared.
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