#telliusweek2017

Before Zelgius pulled him aside, not even knowing his name, and revealed his most intimate secret to him, Sephiran had no particular intentions about pursuing the man as a tool. But seeing the brand on his skin, and hearing the pain in his voice as he spoke about his painful past and the isolation that he had grown accustomed to, Sephiran was struck by a sudden desire to take this man and keep him by his side, to help him, to use him, to possess him, and perhaps, to save both of them from being completely alone.

For Sephiran did indeed feel a kinship with this strange soldier, felt that their struggles created a similar pain. But unlike Sephiran, who had caused his own downfall, Zelgius was blameless, forced into a fate that he had never chosen.

And for that alone, Sephiran wanted this man by his side. Whether to protect him, or to ensure that he would serve Sephiran’s purpose rather than his own.

Sephiran’s first life was over, his previous noble causes abandoned, replaced by a single cause that had consumed him to the point of transcending concepts of nobility or morality. It was simply something that had to be done, and would be done.

And Sephiran knew with a grim certainty, than when the battle between the old and new world began, if this man were not on Sephiran’s side from the start, then he would be against him. This concept was somehow repugnant to him, as if Zelgius, of everyone, seemed to deserve a chance at a place in the new, orderly world that was to come.

So, when Zelgius said that he would have to leave Daein’s army in a few years time, an offer sprung, unbidden, from Sephiran’s lips. And Zelgius, perhaps feeling the same connection that compelled him to reveal his brand to a near-stranger, agreed.

For the first time in ages, Sephiran felt a vague sense of hope for the future, rather than a grim sense of purpose.

“I will not ask you anything about your past that you do not wish to reveal.” Sephiran tells Zelgius when he finally makes his way from Daein to Begnion. “But in return, you may not ever lie to me.”

Zelgius nods his head in easy acquiescence. “But, my lord, I do ask one favor from you. I will be yours in body, mind, and spirit, and work towards your purpose, save for one thing. There is something that I must do, someone who I must face once again. I ask that I may be permitted this one matter of my own, as long as it does not impact our shared purpose.”

Sephiran feels a grim sense of foreboding, but also recognizes that Zelgius is giving Sephiran his loyalty and his life, and he cannot bring himself to deny him this one thing.

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” Zelgius says, relieved. “Are you sure that you have no misgivings?”

“No,” Sephiran lies. “I will support you in all things, just as you support me.”

Zelgius never revealed his brand to anyone other than Sephiran, and to Sephiran only rarely.

Sephiran saw it only in hints and flashes, when healing one of Zelgius’s aches or pains, or passing by as Zelgius stripped off his armor.

It was revealed to him once, in full display, as Sephiran stood over a shirtless Zelgius, murmuring incantations to help ease the pain in his shoulders and back.

Zelgius’s armor may have protected him from injury from almost all weapons, but Zelgius often trained too strenuously, and his delayed aging granted him many more years to train than most beorc, and he had begun to feel the effects in his body more often than not.

Sephiran ran his hands gently over Zelgius’s skin in order to coax the magic to sink in, below the skin and into the muscles crying out in pain. He finished all the skin save that covered by the brand, hesitating with his hands hovering in the air above it.

“Zelgius, may I finish the treatment on the muscles under your brand?” Sephiran asked, knowing that Zelgius was skittish about his brand.

“Yes, fine.” Zelgius grumbled. “I hate it, but I’d hate it more if it were aching more than any other part of my body.”

Sephiran realized that until then, he had been subconsciously averting his eyes, skimming over the brand in his work. Now, given permission, he gazed directly at it.

“It’s beautiful, you know.”

“It’s terrible.”

“It can be both beautiful and terrible at the same time.” Sephiran said. “Just like you.”

As he finally touched his fingers lightly to the brand, he felt Zelgius shiver.

After he finished working, and Zelgius had pulled a tunic back on, Zelgius asked him.

“Sephiran,” He hesitated. “Are you...like me?”

Sephiran looked at him, and felt at once the ways in which they were painfully similar and the ways in which they were worlds apart.

“As I once said, in a way.”

Zelgius did not ask for additional explanation, and Sephiran did not offer any. The loyalty between them was not fragile enough as to require full disclosure.

Sephiran continued to ruminate on the question after Zelgius left.

Yes, they were both outcasts, doomed to solitude by virtue of existing in the space between beorc and laguz.

Yet, the difference was that Zelgius had not chosen this fate, and as such it was not just that he had to bear the consequences.

But Sephiran, Sephiran had not chosen in the sense that he did not choose to love Altina, only chose that that love was worth pursuing, was worth sacrificing for. He had chosen, and the consequences were his to bear.

Whether or not he would have made the same choice if he had known what the consequences were truly like...well, that was immaterial. Sephiran may allow himself the occasional fits of melancholy, but he did not waste time fretting over his own choices, right or wrong.

At some point, in the minuscule space between his fingers touching the brand and feeling shockwaves run through Zelgius’s body, Sephiran chooses, although he knows that it is not the wise choice, nor a safe one, not only to use Zelgius, but also to love him.

Sephiran protects himself in battle, but before the goddess is awakened, there is only so much he can do without wearing armor, and there are occasions where he gets hurt.

In the time before Zelgius, he gets himself back to Begnion and holes up in his room with vulnerabilities and various ointments and wills himself back to health.

After Zelgius comes to him, he tries to do the same thing, but is interrupted much more often by Zelgius doing what could only be called very stoic fretting.

“Peace, Zelgius.” Sephiran says on one such occasion. “I am fine, you do not have to continue pacing around my room.”

“I am simply doing my duty.” Zelgius says, and the unsaid fear that if anything were to happen to Sephiran, Zelgius would once again be alone hangs between them, unacknowledged.

“No one is going to attack me here, and the wound is already healing.” Sephiran reasons, although he does not get up from his place on his bed. “It was not the worst I’ve received, by any means.”

Zelgius takes a step closer to him and hesitates, looking pained. Sephiran has come to realized through their partnership that he is much more governed by emotions than anyone would guess.

“It will leave a scar.” Zelgius settles on, instead of whatever it is that he actually wants to say.

“It will not be my first.” Sephiran says. “Besides, my robes will hide them all.”

Zelgius steps closer, clearly displeased.

“Let me see it.” He says, the closest he’s ever come to giving Sephiran an order.

Sephiran pulls aside his robe, revealing a long gash across his chest left by a lance. It is obviously healing, but it is still an angry red, and looks obscene on the skin of someone so serene. The edges of two other scars poke out from the folds of his robes.

Zelgius sucks in a breath. Sephiran pulls the robe closed again.

“Now will you retire to your room? You’re leaving with the army tomorrow, you need to rest.”

Zelgius hesitates, brushing his hand against one of Sephiran’s where it lays on the bed, in a movement so deliberate it almost seems unconscious.

“Will you really be ok?” He asks.

“Yes.” Sephiran says, although something about the warmth of Zelgius’s hand on his feels like it has broken open something in his chest, something that hurts more than the actual wound lying on the skin above it.

There is tension between them. It hangs in the air during their meetings, flowing between them in their words, although neither says a thing about it.

Yet, they do not touch one another. It has been hundreds of years since Sephiran has allowed himself to be touched in that way, even more since he closed off his body and mind from the idea of intimacy.

Zelgius, due to the secret of his birth and his pervasive fear of being the source of disgust, has never been touched lustfully, too afraid to give anyone the chance to reject him as he has already rejected himself as something unfit for this world.

They do not touch, not in that way, but they orbit each other, united by shared focus and devotion, to a similar goal and to one another. Their gazes and their hands meet, occasionally and accidentally, and every brush undoes one of the thousand locks they have placed inside their chests, to imprison their trauma as well as all the other little emotions that can cause people pain.

It does not seem like much, what passes between them: a smile from someone who has forgotten what it means to smile except as part of a mask, or the brush of a hand as a vulnerary is passed between them. Yet, it is already more intimacy than either has dared to dream of allowing themselves in this lifetime.

As the end approaches, Sephiran begins to ponder again over the fact that he may have corrupted Zelgius, may have taken someone who had nothing to redeem, and made him irredeemable.

But the cleansing of the world is necessary, and in order to bring Zelgius through it, Zelgius had to be on his side. Although Sephiran still believes that his cause is pure, he knows himself to be as disgraceful as the laguz and beorc whose destruction he is engineering.

If Zelgius is working for a worthy cause but an unworthy man, where does that leave his soul?

Sephiran has been resigned to the fact that he will likely not survive this uprooting of the world, has even looked forward to it, but the possibility of Zelgius being swallowed by his schemes is distasteful.

Perhaps Zelgius is loyal to the cause more so than to me, and that will save him. Sephiran tries to tell himself, but it comes out hollow.

The moment comes when they enter the Tower of Guidance for the last time, and when the time comes to part, Sephiran for once does not know what to say.

“Sephiran,” Zelgius says, voice soft. “Do you think that I have been redeemed?”

Sephiran looks into his eyes, sees in them the man who agreed to give Sephiran his life without even knowing him.

“You have never needed to be redeemed for the sin of being born.”

At that Zelgius smiles, sadly, and reaches out, clasping Sephiran’s hands in his own.

“Thank you.” He says, squeezing Sephiran’s hands once before turning away for the last time.

Zelgius, Sephiran thinks as he watches him walk away, stride as proud and purposeful as ever. I will see you on the other side, one way or another.

Sephiran feels it when Zelgius dies, like a whisper of his name floating somewhere out of the depths of his unconscious mind.

He does not feel sadness, or anger, or denial. Rather, he feels like all the feelings that he had left, worn and weak as they already were from disuse, have been sucked out of his body and flown away, perhaps to wherever Zelgius is.

He has no time to think about it though, because a ragtag army rushes into the room, with the only other person that he has truly cared about in this lifetime as Sephiran at the helm, shock and betrayal twisting her face.

Although he knew it would come, the sight of Sanaki lays him bear, and all the emotions he thought he had lost come rushing back in, and for a moment he is almost paralyzed by his grief, at his loss of Altina, his first partner, of Zelgius, his knight, and of Sanaki, his almost-child.

Sephiran manages to call his spirits to action to slow the army’s progress, but they will not touch Sanaki, and she runs straight to him.

“ Sephiran...” She says, voice breaking. “Everything you've ever told me, every time you gave your hand to me, every time you smiled... They were all lies?”

“ ...You're the most appalling fraud I've ever known!” She yells, and it cuts him deeper than he thought possible.

“No, Lady Sanaki... I've actually lied to you very little.” Sephiran tells her, truthfully. Of all the people he has lied to, he had never been able to feel comfortable outright lying to her. “What I have done is hold things back. I've also twisted the truth from time to time... But I have only told one blatant falsehood. That one lie has weighed heavily on me. It makes me hate myself sometimes.”

“Sephiran...” She says, and he can hear the pity in her voice, can see that she would forgive him, even now.

“ I always care deeply for you, my little Lady Sanaki... You are my sun and moon. I never wished to harm you. Please... You must understand...” Sephiran says, because he cannot bring himself to say goodbye.

She still has that stubborn look in her eyes, although they are teary, and he knows that she will not give up, will still try to save him, although it is too late for him to be saved. Nothing he has to say will sway her, for she is too young and too brave and too stubborn, so he summons a gust of wind to blow her back, stunned but unharmed, into the ranks of her new army.

“No!” She shouts as she is whisked away. “Sephiran, no!”

Sephiran allows himself one last pang of loss before steeling his heart for the fight ahead. 

He loses.

It is not to Sanaki, for she will not raise a hand against him, nor he her. It is a long fought battle, where he heals himself from dozens of strikes before taking hundreds more and at last, his strength runs out, so quickly that he does not even notice it until he is on the ground, his vision fading.

He does not know who strikes the final blow, but he hears sounds of rejoicing and relief, and cutting clearly through it all, the sound of Sanaki’s sobs as she sits by his side.

He has waited for this moment for so long, but it is almost too much to bear now that it has come.

“ At last,” He rasps out weakly, voice trailing off. “I'm dying.”

Zelgius. Altina.The names are the only thing that remain clear in his head as everything else begins to fade.