A ROMANCE
Written on August 7, 2022 (♌︎)
Author's Notes: Written for inkoherent for the Press Start fic exchange.
Aliste's first love had been a princess.
He had been eight, and his family's tutor had been lax: letting him spend his afternoons with vernacular Romances instead of scripture. The Lady Yselde for whom Ser Ryckson tamed the manticore was the ideal of loveliness in woodblock: brows arched, tresses unbound, lips parted in a half-smile. Aliste spent his summer nights dreaming that he might drop dragon's heads like flowers before her feet—that he might be the hero fixed beneath her glance.
When a late autumn plague took his brother, he cried hard for it—cried for grief and cried for his wickedness in being glad he was no longer a second sonI really have a thing for the notion that Ivalician nobles were into the real world strategy of sending your non-inheriting sons off to become monks, although it crops up a lot more in my depictions of Zalbag.. Destined for the field instead of the cloth now, he could delight in all those notions of chivalry. He was to ride in colors and sweep Varoi out of power someday, setting Zelmonia's daughters free and wresting the faithful from the oppression of the heretic.
When he was finally granted both a sword and a company, he had lost most memory of books and letters. Still, tilting hard towards Viura, that image of his idol remained, trailing his thoughts like a ribbon tied around them in favor.
Aliste's second love had been the Larner.
When first he saw green blue of the East Bugross, the Ordallian front had lost its luster. Viura had evaded all their pushes. Zelmonia's daughters proved fickle in their freedom. He'd had ribbons and trophies tied about his belt, teased through his fingers at twilight—but none of tethered him back to an owner. Aliste was nobody's champion. The only things he'd won in Ordallia were friendship and a little renown, and both Beowulf and his reputation would follow him West.
They had better luck there with heroics, riding among Gallione and Fovoham's sons as they set to push Romanda back across the waves. Ivalice was perfectly united for three years: all men's voices joined in Western songs as they poured into the gates of Riovanes, as the king himself flashed against the field on birdback. When the enemy was finally routed—thrown off by Beoulves and the black death—Aliste still had his part in the glory.
He could have stayed there were it possible—lived among the dark water and bright skies of the West where villagers had garlanded their birds and brows. Had the victory been complete, so might he.
Aliste's third love had been Reis.
She was lovely and she was hopelessly alive; skirts fluttering behind her as she danced an espingale, face flushed with drink or laughter. At each touch of hand to hand, her color poured itself into Beowulf and reddened him in turn. The streets were bannered gold; the sky burned scarlet until it blossomed with fireworks. Lionel victorious was Lionel of a thousand colors.
And when it was his turn to dance, Aliste among it all turned pale.
Had she chosen him, it would have been a week's fever at most. He would never have loved her were she his—were he not given the ecstasy of longing. As it was with his first idol on vellum, his delight was in her distance. He could not be jealous—could not wish it had been his glance she met, his hands she touched. Beowulf unknowing had ceded to him the best part of loving.
In those frantic days of new peace, he would have done anything to push her into his friend's arms. He did anything where he was called to. He took his pleasures in gentle suffering, basking in a selfishness no creature could recognize.
Aliste's third love had also been Beowulf.
It was not possible to rank him otherwise. He had not loved until he loved—had not known his regard for Beowulf until Reis. There was something portentous to it; it would strike him many years later that he knew then only one of them was to be a hero. As he helped him through little conspiracies and escapes, he wondered at his admiration. How had he spent so many years dressing another man's wounds and listening to his heart's sighs without knowing him? In all those sleepy autumn days of watching the lovers grow nearer, he could less and less understand where his longing lay between them.
It was jarring as things hurtled towards their end. When Beowulf came to him—face ashen, eyes wild—he felt as if he were in the grip of a stranger.
"I need your help. Gods let me find her, Aliste. I need your help."
Aliste did what he could: defied the Church and secreted her enemy out of Lionel. As Beowulf parted from him, ready to forever wander the earth in questing, the press of their final embrace was a weight that never left him.
Aliste's final love he would not name—although like the Lady Yselde, she had her likenesses graven in many books.
It was, no doubt, the most sensual of all of his affairs. They met first in the tremor of his own breath, in the taste of her on his lips. When the priests asked how long it had been—how long he had brought up blood—Aliste knew that he was pledged at last. He revolted at it—tried desperate remedies, demanded miracles—but learned it was a compact he could not escape.
Had he been a different man, he would have despaired. Aliste did not despair. Even as he could feel her drink his strength, pull the flesh from his sinews, eat up the matter of his lungs, he determined that he should meet his bride in gallantry.
All his life, Aliste had wanted some part of those fables of his youth, but he had never been able to partake. He grown ripe for an early grave having been neither hero, lover, nor beloved. He realized now that Romances had room beyond that.
Even before the new Cardinal was announced—Aliste understood the need such stories have for villains.
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