A Minor Tradition
Feb. 4th, 2014 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinonFandom: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Characters: Shinon, Titania, minor Rhys
Word count: ~500
Warnings: the angst it burns us, alcohol, language
Notes: HOW LONG HAS IT EVEN BEEN SINCE I WROTE SHINON, GODDAMN.
The first time, Shinon gets so drunk he can barely see anything, and Gatrie and Titania have to drag him away to stop him snarling abuse at Ike (and Mist, too, when she gets in the way. “What’s wrong with you?” Titania snaps. “You have no quarrel with Mist. She’s a child.” His answer doesn’t make a whole lot of sense even to him. But it shouldn’t have to).
The second time, Rhys is watching him from the moment he gets up, says, “This is a difficult day for many of us,” won’t go away.
“Did Titania send you to babysit me?” he says. “To protect the precious little brats?” And Rhys doesn’t answer fast enough, and maybe he would have been able to keep the bitterness at bay if it weren’t for that, but who knows. Too late to find out now. “They deserve to hear it from someone, and if the rest of you stupid bastards are too busy licking Ike’s boots, it’ll have to be me. Where the hell is your loyalty?” Rhys doesn’t answer that either.
(“You’re not half the man your father was,” he shouts across the camp that night, fire in his gut and a bottle in his fist, “and you never will be,” and he stalks off into the woods himself to save them the trouble of escorting him out.)
And by the third anniversary of Greil’s death - well. He’s still angry. That’s never going to end. A lot has changed, but nothing is any different.
Ike is on a job somewhere. Took half the company with him. This is not a coincidence, not today. Son of a bitch. Who is there left to fight now? Son of a bitch.
Gatrie knows enough to stay away. Titania somehow must have missed that. “You couldn’t have been expecting Ike to sit back and take it forever.”
“Go away.”
“What will you do with all the easy targets gone?”
“Start shooting the hard ones.” He gives her the kind of look that usually either freezes people or gets him punched.
She does neither. “Have you even once thought about what anyone else lost? Do you think you’re the only one to whom he was more than a commander? He was their father, and…”
He’s already turning his back on her to walk away. “I don’t wanna hear it.”
She just talks louder. “I was the one who suggested they leave without you. I love Ike and Mist like my family.” Then she pauses, and he keeps walking. “Because they’re Greil’s family. And I loved Greil.”
He stops.
They’ve hardly said ten words between them since then. They’re standing at his grave.
“Does it help?” she says.
He snorts. “You were a knight. It’s too cheap for your blood.”
“But does it help?”
He keeps silent. She keeps looking at him.
“No,” he says at last.
She pulls the bottle from his fingers anyway and takes a swig. “Nothing does.”
Characters: Shinon, Titania, minor Rhys
Word count: ~500
Warnings: the angst it burns us, alcohol, language
Notes: HOW LONG HAS IT EVEN BEEN SINCE I WROTE SHINON, GODDAMN.
The first time, Shinon gets so drunk he can barely see anything, and Gatrie and Titania have to drag him away to stop him snarling abuse at Ike (and Mist, too, when she gets in the way. “What’s wrong with you?” Titania snaps. “You have no quarrel with Mist. She’s a child.” His answer doesn’t make a whole lot of sense even to him. But it shouldn’t have to).
The second time, Rhys is watching him from the moment he gets up, says, “This is a difficult day for many of us,” won’t go away.
“Did Titania send you to babysit me?” he says. “To protect the precious little brats?” And Rhys doesn’t answer fast enough, and maybe he would have been able to keep the bitterness at bay if it weren’t for that, but who knows. Too late to find out now. “They deserve to hear it from someone, and if the rest of you stupid bastards are too busy licking Ike’s boots, it’ll have to be me. Where the hell is your loyalty?” Rhys doesn’t answer that either.
(“You’re not half the man your father was,” he shouts across the camp that night, fire in his gut and a bottle in his fist, “and you never will be,” and he stalks off into the woods himself to save them the trouble of escorting him out.)
And by the third anniversary of Greil’s death - well. He’s still angry. That’s never going to end. A lot has changed, but nothing is any different.
Ike is on a job somewhere. Took half the company with him. This is not a coincidence, not today. Son of a bitch. Who is there left to fight now? Son of a bitch.
Gatrie knows enough to stay away. Titania somehow must have missed that. “You couldn’t have been expecting Ike to sit back and take it forever.”
“Go away.”
“What will you do with all the easy targets gone?”
“Start shooting the hard ones.” He gives her the kind of look that usually either freezes people or gets him punched.
She does neither. “Have you even once thought about what anyone else lost? Do you think you’re the only one to whom he was more than a commander? He was their father, and…”
He’s already turning his back on her to walk away. “I don’t wanna hear it.”
She just talks louder. “I was the one who suggested they leave without you. I love Ike and Mist like my family.” Then she pauses, and he keeps walking. “Because they’re Greil’s family. And I loved Greil.”
He stops.
They’ve hardly said ten words between them since then. They’re standing at his grave.
“Does it help?” she says.
He snorts. “You were a knight. It’s too cheap for your blood.”
“But does it help?”
He keeps silent. She keeps looking at him.
“No,” he says at last.
She pulls the bottle from his fingers anyway and takes a swig. “Nothing does.”
no subject
Date: 2014-02-06 06:21 am (UTC)- "I was the one who suggested they leave without you" i did an irl "osnap", nice setup
- friendly notice that i will always read all the shinon you write because shinon
no subject
Date: 2014-02-20 02:03 am (UTC)moving sucksBUT yes hello thank you very much! I thought I'd run out of things to say about Shinon years ago, but apparently not. I'll be sure to post any future efforts here too. :|b