You might recognize this from my ao3, but I want my writing to mainly be on this blog now. This fits into my personal canon for Archanea, so I thought it prudent to bring over. Ogma/Barst, post canon domestic fluff. Part of the Archanea Chronicles
It had been many months since the war had concluded, but each sunrise still felt like a new dawn to Ogma. Maybe it was because his life had never before been so idyllic as it was now, waking up whenever the mood struck him (even if that was usually first thing, out of habit), in the strong arms of a man he had thought he could only ever dream of being with. Crisp early fall mornings like these were especially his favorite, as the need for body heat gave him an excuse to cuddle up, but it wasn’t so cold that his zucchini’s were dying on him.
A twitch had him looking over at his sleeping partner. Barst was a heavy sleeper, likely from years of having slept on boats sailing the tumultuous seas. Not that Ogma was complaining, as it gave him time in the mornings to appreciate him. His husband’s blue hair splayed over the pillow, familiar swoop gone in favor of messy bedhead. His broad chest rising and falling slowly with each sleepy breath.
The small smile on his face when his dreams were pleasant, which was now a much more common occurrence than ever before.
Ogma only had a moment of this before Barst’s eye cracked open and he stretched out his arms, displacing the blanket that lay over them, “Goooood morning,” he said through a yawn, before rubbing some of the sleep out of his eyes. The former mercenary’s laugh came out in a low rumble, and he pecked the other’s shoulder, “Good morning.”
“We got anythin’ to do today?”
“Besides the usual? No.”
A grin started to spread over Barst’s face, “Well then I’ve got a suggestion, if you wanna hear it.”
Eyebrow raised, Ogma nodded, “Go ahead.”
“What’s say you and me just lay about all day inside? No choppin’ wood, no hunting, no gardening, no nothing. Just a cozy day in by the fire.”
“If we do that it’ll be more work tomorrow.”
“I know that! Sometimes,” Barst flushed, and he scratched his cheek sheepishly, “Sometimes a guy just wants to do something special. Even if it means breakin’ his back tomorrow.”
This brought a warmth to Ogma’s body and a smile to his face, “I didn’t say anything was wrong with it. You go get some firewood and I’ll grab breakfast.”
Not needing to be told twice, Barst hopped out of bed, quickly pulling on the clean tunic he had laid over the dresser. Some of his clothes had trouble fitting his particular...physique, so you could see almost all his muscles outlined against the fabric, a fact that Ogma appreciated day in and day out. Once ready, he saluted then blew a kiss to his husband, in that order, like he did every morning, and it never failed to put a smile on Ogma’s face.
---
Their small larder was modestly stocked, but held more than enough to two men of their age and size. Hardy, long lasting loaves of brown bread, stiff blocks of fragrant cheese, salted meats, and a variety of dried fruits and vegetables were stored in different baskets and clay containers, ensuring that they wouldn’t go hungry even in the harshest of months. For the most part what they ate was freshly grown, caught, or killed, so they hadn’t much need for fancy things that nobles had like white flour and sugar.
However, there was one thing that stood out from the rest. It was a small red box, made of fine mahogany with true gold accents, that sat next to their barrels of beer. In it were a variety of fine teas, a wedding gift from Caeda. It may have seemed strange, for two simple men like them to have a gift from the Queen herself, but in truth she was a common visitor to their humble abode.
Ogma caught himself smiling, thinking about the girl he met as simply a rough and tumble princess, who through grit and the power of love, became Queen of the united land. He couldn’t have been more proud to be at her side through the whole thing. Shaking his head fondly, he picked out a tea to brew, as this was a special occasion. He also grabbed a small loaf, one of their sweeter cheeses, and some dried apple slices, as well as an iron pot for the tea and two earthen mugs. Content with his haul, he walked out of the larder towards their main room, just in time for Barst to walk in with a bundle of logs in his arms.
“Fancy meeting’ you here,” Barst said with a grin, which is husband matched.
“Come here often?” he asked, picking up a log to toss into the fire place.
The other laughed, putting one in himself, then laying the others down on the ground beside it, “Only when there are handsome guys like you around.”
“You sure like flattery,” was Ogma’s reply, as he struck the flint a few times to get a fire started, and when he was finally content, he grabbed the put and filled it up with the jug of water they kept inside, making a mental note that it needed to be refilled. Barst took this from him, and hung it over the fire, “Not flattery, I’m just an honest man, is all, and I say what I see.”
Unable to say anything in return, Ogma just made his way over to embrace his husband, reveling in the start it gave him. The depth of his appreciation for...all this, was boundless, and he wasn’t nearly good enough with words to verbalize it. He was always a man of action instead, never really given the choice not to be really. He squeezed Barst’s waist with one arm and buried the other hand in his hair.
Patting his back, Barst returned the gesture just as tightly, smiling into the crook of his neck. Ogma had a few inches on him, not more than enough than made him need to stretch up for kisses on the mouth, but it was nice to not always be the biggest guy in the room. After a very long, warm few moments, they pulled apart at the sound of boiling water, ready to be poured into a cup of tea.
---
Once they had eaten their filling meal and drank their hot beverage, they pulled their chairs over to sit in front of the steady fire, At first, they didn’t say much, as neither of them really needed it. They’d been through thick and thin, through battles and peacetimes, through times of ache and times of joy. They knew one another like the backs of their own hands.
It felt...nice, to be understood by someone like this.
Finally, Ogma did speak, heart full of such emotion that his mouth couldn’t withstand the flood any longer, “I said most of this at the wedding, but, before I meet Caeda I didn’t expect much out of life. Still didn’t even after I started work in Talys. Thought I’d spend most of my life fighting for other people, even if I happened to like those people more than before. But...”
He reached out his hand to grab his husband’s, enjoying the feeling of their rough, calloused palms rubbing against each other’s, “Then I found you. A half dead pirate looking for work. There was a look in your eye that told me I could trust you, so I did. Best decision I ever made. You’ve always had my back, even when I asked you to fight in a war you had no stake in. Whenever I looked around, there you were.”
“You know, you don’t talk as much as most other folk, but when it comes to important things, you always beat me to the punch,” squeezing the hand in his, Barst looked into the fire, watching the flames dance around, “I wasn’t really all that happy as a pirate. I never much liked stealing from people just tryin’ to live their lives, but there wasn’t much choice for a guy like me, poor and with more brawn than brain. You showed me that even if it’s hard, there’s always a choice. When you held your hand out that day, my whole life turned around. I ain’t got the words for how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”
The warmth in the room rose, and it was not solely from the fireplace before them. They leaned in, eyes fluttering shut, to meet their mouths in a long and languid kiss. Ogma’s hand cupped Barst’s face, and the man groaned as his husband’s thumb rubbed small circles in his cheek. They stayed like this for a minute, enjoying the feeling of their lips moving slowly against each other’s. When they did pull away, they sported grins reserved exclusively for the consumption of the other.
“Ten years ago, when we met, I never expected this is where we would be,” Ogma confessed.
Barst nodded, “Can’t say the same for myself. Knew you’d be the guy I married the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“More flattery,” Ogma rolled his eyes as he leaned in to steal another kiss, and all the world’s troubles faded away in the face of the peace they brought each other in that small cottage in an unimportant forest in the countryside. No matter the lives they lived before, they knew that now they’d always moments like these, together.•
I'm now almost officially halfway through FE1. And boy has it been a ride.
This game has been s t r e s s f u l and messed me up beyond belief. But at the same time, I've been having such a fun time playing it with my brother. And the amount of meme worthy occurrences definitely won't be forgotten anytime soon.
But by far, the best part has been the cast. Borst is still a blessing who's been carrying the game for me and I'd die for him, Merric, aka the Dark Magician is an absolute chad, Julian is now my mortal enemy because he doesn't know how to open HECCIN doors and brought me nothing but pain, "Oguma" is also a chad but is probably gonna give me PTSD thanks to the amount of times I've heard the no damage sound when he attacked, and Marth is a grandma who can't move one more space to get to that village because he can't. His knees. And that's only HALF of it.
Portraits have also been a great source of memes. Some of my personal favorites include:
Pink Sedgar (Wolf)
Edgy Gordin (Sedgar)
Totally not Gordin (Tomas)
Totally not Mathis (Vyland)
Orange Borst (Bord)
Orange Borst 2 (Cord)
And many more. So needless to say, we've been having a bit too much fun with this amongst all the reinforcements and walls of enemies. But alas, those tales will have to wait for another time. For now?
Have y'all been playing FE1 today? Because I sure have. And though I've only had him for exactly one day, Borst is now my best friend and I love him very much. I was very happy to discover I had gotten him in Heroes at some point. 👁u👁
Ik his name is Barst but I accidently called him Borst while I was playing with my brother, and now I can't stop so that's his name now.
