prompt 22: a love like religion (i’m such a fool for sacrifice)
There are things they tell you when you enlist in the Imperial army. They tell you that the Eorzeans are savages, little better than the beast tribes, that their reliance on gods has made them weak and stupid and in need of ruling. They tell you that you are doing a glorious thing, that you are (following in your father’s footsteps and) bringing civilization to these fools who don’t know how good their lives could be if they just accepted our rule. They tell you that if you’re captured, you’ll be fed to wild beasts. They tell you to return with your shield or on it, that you’ll bring honor to your family and your country if you die well.
You think of your father (the Agrius in flames). You think of your elder sister (the radio had called it Operation Archon, and there had been no survivors). You sign the papers.
There are things they do not tell you in the army, things you only learn later. Ala Mhigo is hot and dry and dusty; its people are miserable, trod into the dirt by your peoples’—no. By your booted feet. You cannot flinch away from this, nor from the dull resentment in their eyes. The men you’d hoped to lead are naught but a pack of ravening jackals, and you must be cruel to restore order. (If you lay an unwanted hand on these Aan, you tell them, I will shoot you dead. They don’t believe you—you’re too soft, too kind—until the day you’re forced to prove it, and then they hate you.)
(You clad your heart in iron, and don’t think that maybe you hate yourself.)
You take a lover, and that is some small bit of happiness until the day you find him in another man’s arms. The wound to your heart is still raw when you meet him.
He is oen Capsari. Vivian, and you remember the name because he doesn’t look as lively as it would suggest; there’s too much strain around his eyes and in his hands, and before you can think better of it you’re buying him a drink in the canteen and having a—well. Having a very pleasant conversation and remembering your damned ranks and not thinking (much) about his lovely clear eyes or his too-long hair or that you want so badly to ask him about the magic he uses.
You don’t get the chance. Your first deployment is to the Fringes, and it goes...poorly. The Alliance says they will spare you—will spare your men—if you surrender. You are an officer of the Imperial Army; you expect death for yourself, but if it will spare your men (who are not good men, no, but they don’t deserve the ends they would see at Alliance hands) you will bow your head and accept Alliance custody.
And then you find out—those things they told you, when you were yet bas Gallius and had only dreams of your decurion’s rank?
Those things were lies.
The Eorzean Alliance has honor, and trials, and when they take your armor and weapons they make you sign a receipt and promise you’ll get them back if you’re released. (You think that part’s probably bullshite.) They feed you and give you a mostly bug-free cell and never lay a hand on you. They ask you questions, and when they don’t understand you (you never were good at Common, the words tangle themselves on your tongue) they only sigh and take you back to your cell.
You remember the whipped-dog eyes and scarred backs of the Ala Mhigans. You remember the rumors of the Resonatorium where Capsari stood guard. You don’t believe it at first when Alanais pyr Venditor—Alan Vesper—comes to you and says that your sister lives, but as you lay in the dark of your cell that night the iron in your heart starts to fall away. The anger strikes first, hot and savage, but then comes the grief. A man who’s surely going to die anyway has no use for revelations, does he?
When Capsari is put in the cell next to you, it doesn’t take more than a few nights of conversation for you to discover something you dread more than your own death, more than never seeing your home or your family again. Capsari has magic, yes—but he also has the Echo. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn want him to fight gods. He is brave and sharp-witted and kinder to you than he should be (and he should hate you, he’s a citizen conscript and you’ve been a bloody idiot), and they’re going to get him killed.
You remember your shield.
And when the Scion—Miss Ritanelle Soleil, all clad in purple and gold and wearing the claw-tipped gauntlets you heard she’d strangled an eikon with—walks up to Vivian’s cell and announces he can go free, you don’t think twice before asking if they need another right hand.
If you’re going to die anyway, you’ll die for someone worth protecting.
@eorzeanfool