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Remnants of Restoration wrap-up
Hey, remember this old thing?
So I'm definitely never gonna finish that fic—in fact, i'd kinda forgotten about it until someone reminded me a while ago—so, here, have the scraps of Where I Was Going With This, I Think, If Memory Serves.
(speaking of which, I was digging up my old drafts and—holy shit, when did dropbox change their UI to something made of total garbage? who let them do that? also shouldn't they have gone public by now)
(also note that the writing quality is no longer something I'm proud of at all; this is just a "if you find it amusing for posterity" thing rather than "you should treat this as Actual Creative Output" thing, or whatever :P)
Okay, so, CHAPTER FOUR BEGINS. We meet Duke Talend, who is Some Obnoxious Noble and—spoilers—probably a villain. He shows up unannounced at Bastian's place, and the Rules Of Courtesy (TM) and/or some software license deem that Bastian has to give him a couch to crash on
There was a howling from Castle Fayre, late at night — only rarely, and only faintly, but it carried to the ears of the populace just the same. The commoners whispered stories of [blah blah spooky stuff].
The castle’s retainers were curiously quiet on the subject: what howling? what voices? Ask Lord Bastian. So they would, and he would merely laugh and proclaim his ignorance of any such thing.
Fayre had always been a strange and obscure place, but this howling and wailing was something new, having started only after the war. The theories of its cause were wild and varied as the twelve winds that graced these hills. The ghosts of Crimean knights who died defending this place in the Mad King’s War, some said, bowling their heads in reverence as they did so. Or the ghosts of Daein soldiers who fought on even in death. A madman’s wailing ___.
But of course, Duke Talend was no commoner. And he didn’t believe in hauntings.
A heavy gloom hung over the vale that evening. [blah blah Talend shows up]
“Bastian, my friend,” Talend called.
“A lovely surprise, fair duke," Bastian said, with a bow. "What brings you this way?”
"__[blah blah some excuse]___." He regarded the castle with a practiced eye: the gardens were lush, early in the year for a bloom, indicating some remarkable effort on behalf of the servants. “I hadn’t known Fayre had grown so lovely. The war seems to have treated you far better than the rest of Crimea, my dear Bastian.”
“Ah, the winds of fate have ever blown favorably upon House Fayre!” Bastian said with a smile. "Come, come, let us explore..."
Little uncomfortable, given that Renning is still somewhere in Bastian's basement. That definitely won't be awkward when someone finds out!
Meanwhile Soren tries to hire Volke.
BARKEEP: Your fireman's unavailable.
SOREN: Unavailable? You're sure.
BARKEEP: Yeah, I'm sure. [pause] You gonna hang around here or what?
Soren had... resources, in the capitol, of course. But that was days away, and he had a bad feeling now.
Volke, meanwhile, seems busy ganking relatively-innocent-seeming people in the back:
Ordinarily, Volke didn’t like leaving messes. More mess meant more chances for mistakes. There had been a job, years ago, that taught him the value of that — __[somethin gsomething]__.
But Volke didn’t like arguing with clients, either. So he’d made a lovely corpse, this evening. People feared the knife in the dark, feared the assassin's blade. But what they feared more was this—a butcher, a madman's work, naked violence. The room around him was smeared with blood and entrails, the man on the floor scarcely recognizable for how mangled he was. Thirty stab wounds had been the start of it, but it had been far from the end. [blah blah]
Volke himself, of course, was spotless. Less mess. Less chance for mistakes.
He paused for a last glance before stepping out the door. And, spying something glittering in the dark, he stepped back for just one more thing—slipping a few gold rings off the dead man's fat fingers. No point in letting that wealth go to waste.
Right. I ended that last chapter on a cliffhanger. Let's go make sure Zihark's not dead (inlaws, amirite):
They sprang in unison. Zihark remained rooted, waiting until the last possible second to make his move — and as he stood there, a dull whooshing sound sang in the air, ringing in his left ear. Suddenly Mund fell short. It happened too quickly for Zihark to see what had happened; he just heard a yowl and the heavy whump as the tiger hit the ground. Zihark didn’t look down, didn’t think about it — he had to focus wholly on Redeki, who was still flying at him, jaws wide open —
At the last moment, Zihark pivoted to the side. Radeki twisted midair with a snarl, but couldn’t quite manage to catch Zihark: the cat had been flying forward with too much momentum, depending more on brute force than finesse.
As Radeki sailed by, Zihark stole a side glance at Mund. Zihark knew he had gotten lucky, just now, but soon as the tiger was moving again, Zihark was going to be hard-pressed to dodge both of them at once.
Only — Mund wasn’t moving. Zihark glanced over and saw a single arrow, lodged in the tiger’s right eye and protruding out the other side, with a thick trail of blood streaming down his cheek. An instinctive chill ran down Zihark’s spine; he very nearly moved for his blade, without knowing why.
Mund was dead, and someone else was in this fight. Who?
Zihark didn’t have a chance to think any further — as soon as Radeki landed, the cat spun around and sprang again. His leap was lower this time, more controlled. Zihark backpedaled to try and avoid Radeki, but he was moving too slowly, and he’d been standing too close —
But, just as he moved back, there was another singing whoosh in the air. Radeki yowled and faltered, falling just a foot short of Zihark. Another arrow-bolt, right in the tiger’s side.
Radeki had been close. Too close — if that arrow hadn’t struck him, Zihark would’ve been knocked over.
Radeki whirled for a moment, glimpsing the arrow in his flank — an amateur mistake. If Zihark had his sword out, he could’ve cut Radeki down while the tiger was distracted. But, of course, he hadn’t drawn his sword.
Then Radeki turned to Zihark again, loosing a deep-throated snarl. This time, when he dove forward, there was no arrow. Zihark sidestepped, but couldn’t dodge Radeki entirely — the cat’s jaws clamped onto Zihark’s right arm.
Zihark shouted. Radeki responded by clamping down harder and barrelling forward, forcing Zihark to the ground.
Zihark struggled still to twist away — Radeki was pinning him, now, pressing his two paws heavily against his chest. The cat grin, showing every tooth. And for a half-second Zihark relaxed—could relax—because at least now it'd be over—
Whoosh.
Another arrow. And this bolt had struck true — right at Radeki's ribs, missing the heart but spearing his lungs. [blah blah]
Radeki panted. He couldn’t hold his form anymore — and seconds later, he fell back into human shape, wobbled on unsteady human legs, and collapsed onto his knees.
Impulse drove Zihark. He forced himself upright, and sprinted toward Radeki, and swept in front of him, hovering protectively. The bolts were coming from the north. Standing here would make it impossible for the archer to get a clear shot. “Radeki, go."
“Friend of yours, Zihark?” Radeki spat.
“I don’t know who this is —“
“Where are you?” Radeki shouted abruptly, staggering to his feet again and shoving Zihark, staring into the trees. “Come and fight me, cowering beorc scum —“
“Radeki, look at yourself,” Zihark shouted, impatient. “You’ll die, like him —“ his voice hitched for a second, but he was only saying the truth “—and I’ll still be here. There's no point in that. Go.”
Radeki swung his head, from Mund, to Zihark, to the trees, and finally Zihark again. ___. He looked like the child he was.
“This isn’t done, Zihark,” Radeki spat at last, and loped back into the trees, fast as he could manage while still dripping blood from his side.
Once the footsteps were quiet and distant — only then did Zihark turn, facing north, to face his helper.
“Who’s there?” he shouted into the trees. He didn’t see anything.
[Then, after a long pause], there was a rustling — Zihark saw the movement, followed it with his eyes, glimpsed some clothing and skin obscured by so many leaves. Zihark's sword was at his side, his heart in his throat. Then the stranger leapt down and Zihark felt as though the world had turned upside-down entirely.
“Shinon?”
:D!
Next, I had "SOME SCENE IN FAYRE, TALEND PERSONALITY AND STUFF" marked here, in which presumably I'd flesh out Talend a little more and try to make him a not-horribly-boring villain. I suspect I was going to fail at that; I kinda liked him more for his effect on other characters than anything about him in particular. Ah well.
Anyway just imagine Talend asking Bastian awkward questions that imply maybe he knows what's up with this Renning thing, and then this little bit where he's meeting up with Ludveck only to inform him that Ludveck's evil scheming sucks and his evil scheming is better and probably he tricks Ludveck into fucking up his own plans somehow. Who knows!
Back to more important questions: why did that red-headed jackass show up anyway?
“What are you doing here?”
“Saving your stupid hide, that’s what.” “I thought that runt was making shit up, when he said you'd gone all pacifist. Why weren’t you raising your damn sword?”
“They’re... they were... I...” Zihark shook his head. “Why are you here?”
“So turns out if I can keep your sorry ass alive for the next week, I get a fat paycheck.”
"Ike?" Zihark asked, and he swore he heard something snap in Shinon's neck, he whipped his head around so fast to glare at him.
Not Ike. Of course. But then... “Soren?”
Shinon shrugged “He holds the pursestrings, right?”
D'awww. Soren really *does* care. (Or rather, he cares that Ike cares, and will pay off red-headed jackasses to make sure Ike's not sad. Which is sort of like caring.)
Meanwhile Talend is really into Chivalry and Knightly Honor and Kingdomly Goodness. He tells Kieran all about it. Talend mentions how fondly he remembers Renning, and Kieran talks about what an honor it was to serve alongside such a great warrior, and blah blah blah.
You see where that's going.
I think I planned a couple scenes along those lines, with Talend buttering Kieran up and worrying vaguely about threats to the kingdom, and Kieran doesn't quite get that he's being played, and is very worried about these vague threats to the kingdom, and so on.
And to be fair, the thing that really freaks Kieran the fuck out is when Talend sets Kieran up to stumble on Renning by "accident." You know, locked-in-Bastian's-basement totally-insane Renning.
So of course Kieran freaks ALL THE WAY OUT and HOLY SHIT RENNING IS ALIVE and NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW and WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HIM and WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIT GUYS, FUCK BASTIAN, HOW COULD HE DO THIS
And because Kieran has no chill he just bursts into some fancypants court meeting thing or whatever and starts yelling:
“Elincia,” Kieran shouted, throwing the doors open, “Count Bastian is a traitor to the crown.”
In reflex, the dozen guards lining the walls of the room moved toward him. Knight or no, no one was to barge in unannounced. But Kieran pulled out his axe and held it in front of him, sweeping this way and that, forcing a perimeter around him. And then a contingent of his own followed him in—a handful of knights under his command—and they formed an armored circle around him. Locking eyes with Elincia, Kieran kept shouting: "Prince Renning lives! He lives, and Bastian has been holding him prisoner in Fayre!”
[Elincia looks stricken, long awkward silence, Geoffrey looks suspiciously un-horrified]
“Kieran,” Geoffrey said, stepping closer, voice hushed, as though to keep the rest from overhearing. “It’s not what you think.”
“You knew of this?” Kieran said, voice cracking like glass—his face showed pain just as clearly as if he'd been stabbed.
Then in through the thrown-open doors strode the last of Kieran's vanguard: “Peace, Geoffrey,” Duke Talend said. “You’ve said more than enough.”
Then the Duke gave Kieran a firm nod. Kieran knew what that meant. Summoning up something cold and flinty in him, he pointed at Geoffrey: “Seize him.”
[blah blah Kieran's guards start dragging Geoffrey off, Elincia's guards seem confused / uncertain etc]
Elincia seemed paralyzed where she sat. She did not rise to shelter Geoffrey, but whispered, "No, no, there must be some mistake."
“I didn’t want to believe it myself, your majesty,” Talend said, eyes downcast. “But I saw with my own eyes. And Kieran too, of course.”
“And Lord Renning," Kieran stammered, "he... he's...” He closed his eyes. "We've brought him from Fayre. We'll bring you to him, Your Majesty, so you can... so you can see."
[long silence]
“Elincia,” Talend said, “are you saying you knew of this?”
Elincia had said nothing, but Talend was that way, always reading into silences.
“Renning is the rightful heir,” he continued, as mild as though he were speaking about the weather. “Elincia would stand to gain the most from his removal.”
“She didn’t,” Geoffrey shouted across the room, straining against the two guards who had his arms pinned behind his back. “She didn’t know anything; leave her out of it.”
Something warred mightily in Kieran's chest. And on impulse he made his choice: “Leave her." Then he whirled on Geoffrey: “But that does not clear you. Or Bastian.”
...and thus Kieran becomes head of the royal guard/knights/whatever in Geoffrey's stead, and Geoffrey and Bastian get put in rich-people-prison until Kieran and Talend can properly sort shit out, and everything's become quite precarious for Elincia since, y'know, line of succession. Does Crimea have a twenty-fifth amendment?
From there out, it was going to turn into Kieran!fic in all probability, where he's feeling super-betrayed by Geoffrey and super-uncertain and being super-shouty to compensate for "shit just got real and I have no idea what I'm doing." I think I've threatened in the past to do a serious take on Kieran; you see this was no idle threat :P
FIN CHAPTER FOUR.
And, hey, look, I even found some notes for the next chapters! What a good little planner I was.
Chapter 5: The court is split over the whole Renning-is-alive thing. This is probably the worst possible moment for Soren and Ike to turn up again, because tensions are also running high over laguz-beorc relations in Crimea in general, and word's spread that Ike just let some rando murderer go, and *also* a bunch of other suspicious murders started happening right after that, so why the fuck is Elincia even letting this laguz apologist and filthy Branded kid hang around, etc etc. IIRC this would culminate in Soren needing to get the fuck out of court, for Ike's sake. Like, IDK, Soren was too politically unpopular to be associated with Ike, or there's rumors of assassination attempts, or Soren's going to try and put a stop to those suspicious murders, or something, I can't remember the details. Whatever it is that makes Soren leave, he does not tell Ike about this plan, or where he is going, because he thinks then Ike will not try, or be able, to follow him. Hah. Idiot.
Chapter 6: Of course Ike goes after the idiot Soren. Meanwhile Soren goes after Zihark to figure out this murder business. Meanwhile Volke is killing beorc. (Oh, I think eventually we find out Volke's employer was Talend, maybe? Dude's basically trying to stir up racial tensions or something for MAXIMUM UNREST and thus MAXIMUM CHANCE OF TAKING THE THRONE. I think. Look, I ain't exactly George R.R. Martin over here.)
Chapter 7: Soren and Zihark awkwardly meet and are going the same way and end up traveling together for a while. In hindsight I think this fic was a very elaborate excuse to force the two of them to hang out, because God knows Soren would not hang out with Zihark of his own free will. I did mention they were my favorites when I played PoR as a kid, right?
Chapter 8: Gran Desert! They go there! For some reason! (You can tell the outline gets sketchier the further we get along...) I think my initial idea when I first started the fic was, Soren gets emo for some reason and decides he needs to bail for Ike's sake and goes to check out the Gran desert colony or something. Looking back this would've required a truly incredible amount of gymnastics to make it work, based on how hostile he is during that exchange with Stefan in-game, but whatever. Zihark I could probably massage into some sort of motive. Doesn't he end up becoming some weird beorc-laguz peacekeeper in canon anyway?
Chapter 9: "some big showdown" is literally all I had written here. Herp. I did not really have an ending planned out and that's the end of my notes so
YEAH
that's a wrap!
This was intended to be a very plot-y thing now that I look at it. Like, a very weak plot, but pretty different in nature than my usual genre of "Naesala being sad for twenty pages" or whatever. I feel like I really struggle to even come up with plots these days. But I guess literally-never-written-for-fandom-before me was very Hype and Gung Ho and Full Of Spirit, heh.
So I'm definitely never gonna finish that fic—in fact, i'd kinda forgotten about it until someone reminded me a while ago—so, here, have the scraps of Where I Was Going With This, I Think, If Memory Serves.
(speaking of which, I was digging up my old drafts and—holy shit, when did dropbox change their UI to something made of total garbage? who let them do that? also shouldn't they have gone public by now)
(also note that the writing quality is no longer something I'm proud of at all; this is just a "if you find it amusing for posterity" thing rather than "you should treat this as Actual Creative Output" thing, or whatever :P)
Okay, so, CHAPTER FOUR BEGINS. We meet Duke Talend, who is Some Obnoxious Noble and—spoilers—probably a villain. He shows up unannounced at Bastian's place, and the Rules Of Courtesy (TM) and/or some software license deem that Bastian has to give him a couch to crash on
There was a howling from Castle Fayre, late at night — only rarely, and only faintly, but it carried to the ears of the populace just the same. The commoners whispered stories of [blah blah spooky stuff].
The castle’s retainers were curiously quiet on the subject: what howling? what voices? Ask Lord Bastian. So they would, and he would merely laugh and proclaim his ignorance of any such thing.
Fayre had always been a strange and obscure place, but this howling and wailing was something new, having started only after the war. The theories of its cause were wild and varied as the twelve winds that graced these hills. The ghosts of Crimean knights who died defending this place in the Mad King’s War, some said, bowling their heads in reverence as they did so. Or the ghosts of Daein soldiers who fought on even in death. A madman’s wailing ___.
But of course, Duke Talend was no commoner. And he didn’t believe in hauntings.
A heavy gloom hung over the vale that evening. [blah blah Talend shows up]
“Bastian, my friend,” Talend called.
“A lovely surprise, fair duke," Bastian said, with a bow. "What brings you this way?”
"__[blah blah some excuse]___." He regarded the castle with a practiced eye: the gardens were lush, early in the year for a bloom, indicating some remarkable effort on behalf of the servants. “I hadn’t known Fayre had grown so lovely. The war seems to have treated you far better than the rest of Crimea, my dear Bastian.”
“Ah, the winds of fate have ever blown favorably upon House Fayre!” Bastian said with a smile. "Come, come, let us explore..."
Little uncomfortable, given that Renning is still somewhere in Bastian's basement. That definitely won't be awkward when someone finds out!
Meanwhile Soren tries to hire Volke.
BARKEEP: Your fireman's unavailable.
SOREN: Unavailable? You're sure.
BARKEEP: Yeah, I'm sure. [pause] You gonna hang around here or what?
Soren had... resources, in the capitol, of course. But that was days away, and he had a bad feeling now.
Volke, meanwhile, seems busy ganking relatively-innocent-seeming people in the back:
Ordinarily, Volke didn’t like leaving messes. More mess meant more chances for mistakes. There had been a job, years ago, that taught him the value of that — __[somethin gsomething]__.
But Volke didn’t like arguing with clients, either. So he’d made a lovely corpse, this evening. People feared the knife in the dark, feared the assassin's blade. But what they feared more was this—a butcher, a madman's work, naked violence. The room around him was smeared with blood and entrails, the man on the floor scarcely recognizable for how mangled he was. Thirty stab wounds had been the start of it, but it had been far from the end. [blah blah]
Volke himself, of course, was spotless. Less mess. Less chance for mistakes.
He paused for a last glance before stepping out the door. And, spying something glittering in the dark, he stepped back for just one more thing—slipping a few gold rings off the dead man's fat fingers. No point in letting that wealth go to waste.
Right. I ended that last chapter on a cliffhanger. Let's go make sure Zihark's not dead (inlaws, amirite):
They sprang in unison. Zihark remained rooted, waiting until the last possible second to make his move — and as he stood there, a dull whooshing sound sang in the air, ringing in his left ear. Suddenly Mund fell short. It happened too quickly for Zihark to see what had happened; he just heard a yowl and the heavy whump as the tiger hit the ground. Zihark didn’t look down, didn’t think about it — he had to focus wholly on Redeki, who was still flying at him, jaws wide open —
At the last moment, Zihark pivoted to the side. Radeki twisted midair with a snarl, but couldn’t quite manage to catch Zihark: the cat had been flying forward with too much momentum, depending more on brute force than finesse.
As Radeki sailed by, Zihark stole a side glance at Mund. Zihark knew he had gotten lucky, just now, but soon as the tiger was moving again, Zihark was going to be hard-pressed to dodge both of them at once.
Only — Mund wasn’t moving. Zihark glanced over and saw a single arrow, lodged in the tiger’s right eye and protruding out the other side, with a thick trail of blood streaming down his cheek. An instinctive chill ran down Zihark’s spine; he very nearly moved for his blade, without knowing why.
Mund was dead, and someone else was in this fight. Who?
Zihark didn’t have a chance to think any further — as soon as Radeki landed, the cat spun around and sprang again. His leap was lower this time, more controlled. Zihark backpedaled to try and avoid Radeki, but he was moving too slowly, and he’d been standing too close —
But, just as he moved back, there was another singing whoosh in the air. Radeki yowled and faltered, falling just a foot short of Zihark. Another arrow-bolt, right in the tiger’s side.
Radeki had been close. Too close — if that arrow hadn’t struck him, Zihark would’ve been knocked over.
Radeki whirled for a moment, glimpsing the arrow in his flank — an amateur mistake. If Zihark had his sword out, he could’ve cut Radeki down while the tiger was distracted. But, of course, he hadn’t drawn his sword.
Then Radeki turned to Zihark again, loosing a deep-throated snarl. This time, when he dove forward, there was no arrow. Zihark sidestepped, but couldn’t dodge Radeki entirely — the cat’s jaws clamped onto Zihark’s right arm.
Zihark shouted. Radeki responded by clamping down harder and barrelling forward, forcing Zihark to the ground.
Zihark struggled still to twist away — Radeki was pinning him, now, pressing his two paws heavily against his chest. The cat grin, showing every tooth. And for a half-second Zihark relaxed—could relax—because at least now it'd be over—
Whoosh.
Another arrow. And this bolt had struck true — right at Radeki's ribs, missing the heart but spearing his lungs. [blah blah]
Radeki panted. He couldn’t hold his form anymore — and seconds later, he fell back into human shape, wobbled on unsteady human legs, and collapsed onto his knees.
Impulse drove Zihark. He forced himself upright, and sprinted toward Radeki, and swept in front of him, hovering protectively. The bolts were coming from the north. Standing here would make it impossible for the archer to get a clear shot. “Radeki, go."
“Friend of yours, Zihark?” Radeki spat.
“I don’t know who this is —“
“Where are you?” Radeki shouted abruptly, staggering to his feet again and shoving Zihark, staring into the trees. “Come and fight me, cowering beorc scum —“
“Radeki, look at yourself,” Zihark shouted, impatient. “You’ll die, like him —“ his voice hitched for a second, but he was only saying the truth “—and I’ll still be here. There's no point in that. Go.”
Radeki swung his head, from Mund, to Zihark, to the trees, and finally Zihark again. ___. He looked like the child he was.
“This isn’t done, Zihark,” Radeki spat at last, and loped back into the trees, fast as he could manage while still dripping blood from his side.
Once the footsteps were quiet and distant — only then did Zihark turn, facing north, to face his helper.
“Who’s there?” he shouted into the trees. He didn’t see anything.
[Then, after a long pause], there was a rustling — Zihark saw the movement, followed it with his eyes, glimpsed some clothing and skin obscured by so many leaves. Zihark's sword was at his side, his heart in his throat. Then the stranger leapt down and Zihark felt as though the world had turned upside-down entirely.
“Shinon?”
:D!
Next, I had "SOME SCENE IN FAYRE, TALEND PERSONALITY AND STUFF" marked here, in which presumably I'd flesh out Talend a little more and try to make him a not-horribly-boring villain. I suspect I was going to fail at that; I kinda liked him more for his effect on other characters than anything about him in particular. Ah well.
Anyway just imagine Talend asking Bastian awkward questions that imply maybe he knows what's up with this Renning thing, and then this little bit where he's meeting up with Ludveck only to inform him that Ludveck's evil scheming sucks and his evil scheming is better and probably he tricks Ludveck into fucking up his own plans somehow. Who knows!
Back to more important questions: why did that red-headed jackass show up anyway?
“What are you doing here?”
“Saving your stupid hide, that’s what.” “I thought that runt was making shit up, when he said you'd gone all pacifist. Why weren’t you raising your damn sword?”
“They’re... they were... I...” Zihark shook his head. “Why are you here?”
“So turns out if I can keep your sorry ass alive for the next week, I get a fat paycheck.”
"Ike?" Zihark asked, and he swore he heard something snap in Shinon's neck, he whipped his head around so fast to glare at him.
Not Ike. Of course. But then... “Soren?”
Shinon shrugged “He holds the pursestrings, right?”
D'awww. Soren really *does* care. (Or rather, he cares that Ike cares, and will pay off red-headed jackasses to make sure Ike's not sad. Which is sort of like caring.)
Meanwhile Talend is really into Chivalry and Knightly Honor and Kingdomly Goodness. He tells Kieran all about it. Talend mentions how fondly he remembers Renning, and Kieran talks about what an honor it was to serve alongside such a great warrior, and blah blah blah.
You see where that's going.
I think I planned a couple scenes along those lines, with Talend buttering Kieran up and worrying vaguely about threats to the kingdom, and Kieran doesn't quite get that he's being played, and is very worried about these vague threats to the kingdom, and so on.
And to be fair, the thing that really freaks Kieran the fuck out is when Talend sets Kieran up to stumble on Renning by "accident." You know, locked-in-Bastian's-basement totally-insane Renning.
So of course Kieran freaks ALL THE WAY OUT and HOLY SHIT RENNING IS ALIVE and NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW and WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HIM and WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIT GUYS, FUCK BASTIAN, HOW COULD HE DO THIS
And because Kieran has no chill he just bursts into some fancypants court meeting thing or whatever and starts yelling:
“Elincia,” Kieran shouted, throwing the doors open, “Count Bastian is a traitor to the crown.”
In reflex, the dozen guards lining the walls of the room moved toward him. Knight or no, no one was to barge in unannounced. But Kieran pulled out his axe and held it in front of him, sweeping this way and that, forcing a perimeter around him. And then a contingent of his own followed him in—a handful of knights under his command—and they formed an armored circle around him. Locking eyes with Elincia, Kieran kept shouting: "Prince Renning lives! He lives, and Bastian has been holding him prisoner in Fayre!”
[Elincia looks stricken, long awkward silence, Geoffrey looks suspiciously un-horrified]
“Kieran,” Geoffrey said, stepping closer, voice hushed, as though to keep the rest from overhearing. “It’s not what you think.”
“You knew of this?” Kieran said, voice cracking like glass—his face showed pain just as clearly as if he'd been stabbed.
Then in through the thrown-open doors strode the last of Kieran's vanguard: “Peace, Geoffrey,” Duke Talend said. “You’ve said more than enough.”
Then the Duke gave Kieran a firm nod. Kieran knew what that meant. Summoning up something cold and flinty in him, he pointed at Geoffrey: “Seize him.”
[blah blah Kieran's guards start dragging Geoffrey off, Elincia's guards seem confused / uncertain etc]
Elincia seemed paralyzed where she sat. She did not rise to shelter Geoffrey, but whispered, "No, no, there must be some mistake."
“I didn’t want to believe it myself, your majesty,” Talend said, eyes downcast. “But I saw with my own eyes. And Kieran too, of course.”
“And Lord Renning," Kieran stammered, "he... he's...” He closed his eyes. "We've brought him from Fayre. We'll bring you to him, Your Majesty, so you can... so you can see."
[long silence]
“Elincia,” Talend said, “are you saying you knew of this?”
Elincia had said nothing, but Talend was that way, always reading into silences.
“Renning is the rightful heir,” he continued, as mild as though he were speaking about the weather. “Elincia would stand to gain the most from his removal.”
“She didn’t,” Geoffrey shouted across the room, straining against the two guards who had his arms pinned behind his back. “She didn’t know anything; leave her out of it.”
Something warred mightily in Kieran's chest. And on impulse he made his choice: “Leave her." Then he whirled on Geoffrey: “But that does not clear you. Or Bastian.”
...and thus Kieran becomes head of the royal guard/knights/whatever in Geoffrey's stead, and Geoffrey and Bastian get put in rich-people-prison until Kieran and Talend can properly sort shit out, and everything's become quite precarious for Elincia since, y'know, line of succession. Does Crimea have a twenty-fifth amendment?
From there out, it was going to turn into Kieran!fic in all probability, where he's feeling super-betrayed by Geoffrey and super-uncertain and being super-shouty to compensate for "shit just got real and I have no idea what I'm doing." I think I've threatened in the past to do a serious take on Kieran; you see this was no idle threat :P
FIN CHAPTER FOUR.
And, hey, look, I even found some notes for the next chapters! What a good little planner I was.
Chapter 5: The court is split over the whole Renning-is-alive thing. This is probably the worst possible moment for Soren and Ike to turn up again, because tensions are also running high over laguz-beorc relations in Crimea in general, and word's spread that Ike just let some rando murderer go, and *also* a bunch of other suspicious murders started happening right after that, so why the fuck is Elincia even letting this laguz apologist and filthy Branded kid hang around, etc etc. IIRC this would culminate in Soren needing to get the fuck out of court, for Ike's sake. Like, IDK, Soren was too politically unpopular to be associated with Ike, or there's rumors of assassination attempts, or Soren's going to try and put a stop to those suspicious murders, or something, I can't remember the details. Whatever it is that makes Soren leave, he does not tell Ike about this plan, or where he is going, because he thinks then Ike will not try, or be able, to follow him. Hah. Idiot.
Chapter 6: Of course Ike goes after the idiot Soren. Meanwhile Soren goes after Zihark to figure out this murder business. Meanwhile Volke is killing beorc. (Oh, I think eventually we find out Volke's employer was Talend, maybe? Dude's basically trying to stir up racial tensions or something for MAXIMUM UNREST and thus MAXIMUM CHANCE OF TAKING THE THRONE. I think. Look, I ain't exactly George R.R. Martin over here.)
Chapter 7: Soren and Zihark awkwardly meet and are going the same way and end up traveling together for a while. In hindsight I think this fic was a very elaborate excuse to force the two of them to hang out, because God knows Soren would not hang out with Zihark of his own free will. I did mention they were my favorites when I played PoR as a kid, right?
Chapter 8: Gran Desert! They go there! For some reason! (You can tell the outline gets sketchier the further we get along...) I think my initial idea when I first started the fic was, Soren gets emo for some reason and decides he needs to bail for Ike's sake and goes to check out the Gran desert colony or something. Looking back this would've required a truly incredible amount of gymnastics to make it work, based on how hostile he is during that exchange with Stefan in-game, but whatever. Zihark I could probably massage into some sort of motive. Doesn't he end up becoming some weird beorc-laguz peacekeeper in canon anyway?
Chapter 9: "some big showdown" is literally all I had written here. Herp. I did not really have an ending planned out and that's the end of my notes so
YEAH
that's a wrap!
This was intended to be a very plot-y thing now that I look at it. Like, a very weak plot, but pretty different in nature than my usual genre of "Naesala being sad for twenty pages" or whatever. I feel like I really struggle to even come up with plots these days. But I guess literally-never-written-for-fandom-before me was very Hype and Gung Ho and Full Of Spirit, heh.
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i hope it warms you fandom heart that teen krad thought that this was quite literally the pinnacle of western literary achievement - was actually intimidated enough that I almost didn't post the reviews and LMAO LOOK AT WHERE WE ARE NOW, shitposting and salting away. :P
bullet point thoughts:
- cackling forever at 2edgy4me volke; i ... did not realize how prescient i would be with the 'lua has a thing with blood + guts in her fics' thing briefly mentioned in a separate review lmaoooo.
- like the fact you were trying to flesh out ludveck plus lackeys! just finished that part and GOD he was... annoyingly flat for tellius's usually-decent villains. even jarod at least had some personality to him. coughandcouldbehateshippedwithafewpeoplecough >_____>;
- also hilariously amused that this fic was apparently born out of lua's master list of 'things she wanted to see happen more in PoR' and you checked off most of them even in the first four chapters alone. :P though a zihark/soren support would've been neat, actually! only read one other fic that remotely had an interest of sticking them together in the same room - but it didn't quite capitalize on what would be neat about that dynamic, imo - something similar to the shinon abrasiveness, but there's peculiar level of practicality/pragmatisim that they both have on opposite ends of the attitude spectrum (not to mention both technically daeins by blood) that would be SO much fun to play with.
- (you may or may not have made me snort coffee all over my laptop at the shinon reveal given your, ah, other fic with him. :'D )
- the kieran twist is definitely a twist but as rough as it is, i quite like the fact that you unabashedly stuck him in a position where he clearly can't handle the responsibility yet - adds such a humanizing flaw to what I thought was an overly-exaggerated character to the point where it was hard to relate in any way with.
- (........................also is this where lua would stick some guilty pleasure side bastian/renning hints cough cough :P )
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(but yeah it is very fortunate i am not a Sensitive Soul :P)
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...so really i think i can blame you for a staggering productivity
lossWIN :Pi remember the mutual-pragmatism was the bit that interested me the most in the Soren+Zihark dynamic, actually; you totally nailed it. Shinon was only going to hang around for like a chapter because, let's be real, he was going to spend most his time being an obnoxious shithead (...i hadn't yet figured out that "just ship them" was the proper way to deal with this, apparently), whereas Soren and Zihark are both pragmatic enough to take each other somewhat seriously and are willing to engage if they have to, etc etc ad infinitum
(and man i just
love
everyone in this bar
kieran and bastian/renning are just so great sigh)
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