the boy born into famine

Characters: Zenos yae Galvus; Solus zos Galvus
Warnings: Intimations of child abuse; discussions of canon-typical violence
Summary:

The emperor observes Zenos past the shade of his brow, down the length of his nose, its shape proud and lofty like a watchtower. “The look of you,” he says, “reminds me of a man I loved.” He watches while Zenos’ eyebrows raise a tick and then draw back down and toward each other in thought. “Yes,” he says. “Like that. Oh, everyone loved him.”

Zenos has not moved his eyes at all. They’re dry, and he is faintly aware that this is because he’s not looked at anything this hard or for this long since–he doesn’t know when. But he is looking hard and long. “Did they really?”

“They did,” says the emperor.

Such a superlative love just doesn’t make sense. “My father, too?” Zenos asks. He’s uncommonly stern, only because it’s hard for him to conceptualize what his father is like when he loves something. The look of him, the sound of him–Zenos cannot work it out in his mind.

But the emperor tells him, with ease and without care, “Yes, very much.”

the boy born into famine

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when the bough breaks

Characters: Varis yae Galvus; Solus zos Galvus
Warnings: Intimations of child abuse; child endangerment; discussions of canon-typical violence
Summary:

“You must be more careful,” Grandfather says. He sounds tender like stone fruit. The pit is in there somewhere.

when the bough breaks

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spring shear

Characters: Estinien Varlineau, Alberic Bale
Summary:

Estinien knows that. He’s known for what feels like a hundred seasons that there is something Alberic stops short in saying to him. What he doesn’t know is whether they harbor the same words, if they have stopped short of saying the same thing–if it’s about to happen now. And Estinien wonders–what if he were to say it first? What will you do, Estinien thinks, if I tell you now and at last that I love you like my blood?

spring shear

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hiraeth (bad weather)

Characters: Estinien Varlineau, Alberic Bale
Warnings: Canon-typical child endangerment
Summary:

That night, they stayed in the barracks of the Congregation of Our Knights Most Heavenly. For heavenly knights, they spat and cussed and played cards an awful lot. Estinien was loaned the bunk of an absent soldier. It was the bunk on top.

Alberic picked him up to get him there. He helped pull the blanket up toward Estinien’s chin, absently, like he didn’t realize he was doing it. “Well, here she is,” he said. “Ishgard. What do you think?”

“It’s ugly,” Estinien said. Nearby, an old knight laughed.

hiraeth (bad weather)

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the honey in the bottle

Characters: Aymeric de Borel, Estinien Varlineau
Summary:

“But half remains,” said Estinien, “so what say you to this: I’ll drink one half of the half, and you, the other.” From Aymeric’s perspective, Estinien’s chin was no longer dipped toward the flickering fire. Now he looked out from the parapet toward the horizon. He spoke as if it didn’t matter to him much—but if that were true, he wouldn’t have said it.

‘Don’t you know,’ thought Aymeric, ‘that I know you better than that by now?’

the honey in the bottle

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in admiration of Cause

Characters: Zenos yae Galvus, Varis yae Galvus, assorted members of the Garlean royal family
Warnings: Child abuse through neglect
Summary:

The servant grows very still. She grows so still that Zenos wonders if she is trying to still even her heart. It’s making her face turn a color. It’s making her start to sweat.

He didn’t know that he could do that to somebody. He didn’t know he could do a thing like that.

in admiration of Cause

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