fic: Progeny
Jun. 29th, 2022 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bonnefoisTitle: Progeny
Series: FE4
Character/pairing: Mentions of Midir/Edain, Lex/Ayra, Lester,
Rating: PG-13?
Word Count:2,185
Summary: Lester sees a portrait of Lex, and has some questions.
Author's note:
Post series.
Both Johan and Johalvier lived, idc. The 'you can only choose one' mechanic can suck it. Mentions of Lex/Ayra, though not enough to tag. More notes at the end.
Contains NB headcanons.
Johan and Johalvier had between fights, unearthed old portraits within the unused rooms of these Rivough castles. Today, Lester helped them.
He just happened to be in the area, and to visit old comrades in arms was a decent time. He'd return to Tinranogg soon, for he never left mother for long. She was fragile, both in body and spirit after surviving the massacre at Bellhalla.
He simply ran into them along the way, and got roped into this, just as he had gotten into many a chaotic night, mostly spent being the third wheel as Johan flirted his way through all of Jugdral.
Dust was rustled up as Lester removed the cloth covering. A tall man smirked back at him. He had hair in the same shade as him, smoothed back much like Lester's own.
Lester stared back, as if he'd uncovered a mirror, such was the likeness. But he moved the portrait this way and that, and found it had no silver sheen.
The man simply resembled him that much.
"Who's that?" Lester said.
"That's Lex," Johan said.
Lester's brow furrowed. "Ulster and Larcei's father?"
"Come to think of it, he really looks like you," Johalvier said
"Are you our cousin, too?" Johan said.
"I don't think so. My father was Midir, the archer knight who served mother. I remember mother saying he had little noble peerage and no crusader blood at all."
No portraits of Midir still remained, much to mother's sorrow. She only had memories. But, mother had described him. And in all ways, Lester didn't seem to resemble his father at all.
From what he had heard, Midir had long green hair that he kept in a ponytail. He'd been thin, agile, even willowy. His accuracy with a bow had been precise, even legendary as mother told it.
His father had been gentle and kind, and utterly devoted to Lester's mother.
Whereas Lester was more solidly built, with blue hair slicked back. At first, he thought he resembled someone on his mother, Edain's, side. But when he returned to House Yngvi, along with Febail, Patty and his Aunt Brigid, who had survived despite it all, none of his ancestors looked anything like him.
The one thing that bound them, was that Lester certainly had an skill in archery and horses. He might only have very faint memories of his father, but he'd taken the same path as him.
From almost the moment he'd touched his father's bows, Lester had taken up archery like a calling. He'd learned to ride and shoot, and be the best archer and knight he could manage.
Now, he stared back at a portrait of someone who looked like he could be Lester's own brother.
Or father, for that matter.
"Huh. I wonder why you'd resemble him so," Johalvier said.
"Oh, I can think of some reasons," Johan said bluntly. He smirked, and withdrew a rose from his coat.
"Love finds a way."
Lester bristled at that. Lana looked just like mother. There wasn't a single question that she was an heir of House Yngvi. But, Lester? He might as well be like some changeling child left in the crib.
It wasn't the first time there'd been whispers. The nicest among them was 'switched at birth.'
The rest were horrible, and implied things about mother that made Lester lose his composure.
"I do when I wield a bow," he said. "Care to train?"
Johan wiped the dust from his tunic. "I could use a break. Make sure we go to the west training grounds. Then we can give the ladies a nice show."
Johalvier sighed and rolled his eyes. He was well used to his brother flirting with any woman around.
*
Tirnanogg awaited. He came out to the gardens, where his mother would be sitting, or perhaps napping. She hadn't returned to House Yngvi, though she had reunited with her nephew and neice, and her sister to quite a bit of joyful tears and adoration.
Her wounds from Bellhalla had never quite healed, both physically and mentally. Though she'd survived the flames, she'd sustained some injures which made walking difficult. Even more, she was overtaken by memories, both happy and sad. She would be caught, frozen with sadness and fear--or lose herself to the time when her true love was still with her.
Enough to mean she couldn't return to the battlefield, and rarely traveled lest it aggravate her leg injury she'd sustained on a battlefield long ago.
Today, she looked at a prayer book. Mother's hair was turning more white, even though she'd married young. She'd been aged prematurely by the hardships and loss she endured along the way.
"Mother?" Lester said softly.
He was careful to walk quietly towards her. Mother still had scars from the war. Grief had made her look older than her years.
"Lester, you've returned. I'm so glad to see you again," she said.
"Yes, I'm back for now," he said.
No pleasantries this time. The question burned within him too much, so that he could scarcely focus.
"Is father related to Duke Langbalt?"
She flinched at the mention of the name. "Er...pardon?"
"Midir. My father. Was he kin to Duke Langbalt?"
"No. Midir had no holy blood within his veins," she said.
He'd inherited the brand of Ullr, but he noticed another on his skin. He'd never asked mother, for he thought it'd simply been another aspect of Ullr's blessing.
Mother had adored father, or so he thought. Mother refused to even dignify the thought of ever remarrying. Sometimes he would catch her in the gardens with a faraway look in her eyes, and know she was remembering times past.
Back when father was alive.
"Why do I resemble Lord Lex so? ...What could this mean?"
Edain paled as he spoke.
"W-Why would you say this...? What made you bring up such a thing?"
"I helped Johan and Johavier today. They were going through old family keepsakes to give to Larcei. I found a portrait of Lex which hadn't been burned when Dannan's reign began."
"I...see."
He and Larcei had been raised together like siblings. He'd always thought of her like a sister, but he'd never thought it could be the reality.
"Is my father...Lord Lex?"
"I loved your father very much, you see. I still do."
"That's not an answer, mother. People...they've always said really horrible things about me. That I was 'switched at birth' or even things about you... Is it true?"
"Let me continue," she said.
"Midir did not fit so easily into the confines of 'male' or 'female.' He preferred to be referred to has 'he' and with terms like 'father.' Midir was often mistaken for a woman, but he was so much more than that," Edain said.
She glanced down to the cobblestone steps that went through the garden.
"Had I not been considered a traitor, I never would've been able to marry him. Not merely because he was my knight, and not my peer in class. We couldn't have children together. But I would've taken that life, without any children if it meant I could be with him," she said.
"Midir and Lex, they became fast friends. Lex became friends with everyone he met, it seemed. He was such a boisterous man, and so unforgettable. He never cared if Midir was different."
"He was in love with Ayra by then. It was only sheer stubbornness on both sides which made them hold back from marrying. Every day they'd spar. Verbally and physically. He once even bought her a sword as a present."
She smiled at the memory. "Every single day they'd fight, but there was always love there, even if Ayra didn't want to admit it for so long. Years and years they went on like this."
"Somehow, it came up that Midir and I could not bear children. And Lex offered to be the sire."
Her face flushed. "He donated...the means for you to be born. That is all you need to know. I never cheated on Midir. He was my dear love, and always your father. Midir taught you how to wield bows, and adored you so. But, Lex was kind enough to make it possible for us to have children at all."
She reached up and touched his cheek.
"When I look at you, I see so much of Lex. But I see so much of Midir, too. The way you ride and wield a bow...even if you were not of his blood, I know both Midir and Lex would be so proud of the man you became."
"It's a shame that I never got to meet him. He sounds like an...interesting man," Lester said.
"He was. Lex was so much to Sigurd's army. He kept spirits up, and he was so strong upon the battlefield. He saved your father's life several times, and mine as well. He joined the battle just to help his friend, and stayed when he befriended so many others of us, even when it became difficult."
"Now, put it from your mind that Midir was not your father. In all ways that counted, he was. And for Lex...I will be eternally grateful that he made it possible for me to ever have you and dear, sweet Lana. And shall eternally miss him and Ayra. So many of Sigurd's army deserved more years, and it was taken from us on that fateful day."
"Maybe at some level, I knew? Like Larcei and Ulster, I learned things fast, and always struck first in battle. I know we were raised together, but they always felt like siblings to me."
"I should have told you earlier. But, I was still grieving. To even speak of such times would make me break down. And I had to be strong for everyone. Even if it hurt so to be parted from my love, my Midir..."
She'd been through so much. So many of Sigurd's army had perished that day, and Edain had witnessed it all. She'd been cradled in the arms of Midir, and he'd taken the blow for her, enough that she only had some injuries.
Enough that she'd lived. But, oh how the burns and bruises of that day remained. Even more, the horrors she had heard of fire on flesh.
He sat down on the bench beside her. It took years before she could speak again of what she had lost.
"If you want to talk about those times, I'll be glad to listen and learn everything about them," Lester said.
"Midir was so kind and devoted. We loved each other for many years, but neither made a move, because he was my knight. Not until Gandolf came to steal me away, and we accidentally became considered traitors."
He'd heard this story many times, but Lester listened anew for hints of the one that was his father in everything but blood.
Lex sat back in the gardens and reminisced about a past he did not know. From Edain's stories, he almost could picture them. The brace soldiers who had died in an ambush at Bellhalla in a sudden hellfire.
*
That day, Lester tried his hand at the training grounds. He lifted up an axe in his hand.
It felt unwieldy and heavy. He only go through two swings before he set it aside.
Instead, he lifted up the bow. It felt like an old friend, the father he'd barely known in his life.
Even if Midir wasn't his father by blood, he held the legacy of these bows, and protecting mother.
Lester lifted up his favorite: The Brave Bow. It'd been a gift of love from mother to father, and Midir's most treasured bow. Now, it was Lester's favorite. The one which made sure he always made it out of battle, and the one which always shot true.
Sometimes he felt like father was watching over him when he used his bows.
Now, he knew there was someone else watching over him. A kind and boisterous man he resembled so, who was something of a father to him as well.
Many people had guarded and guided Lester in his life. And though they were long gone, Lester lifted up a prayer of thanks to them.
Mother was more adept at prayers than him, but his clumsy words could hopefully be heard wherever Midir, Lex, Ayra and so many other fallen soldiers from that fateful day were now.
author's note:
or, Midir was a non-binary lesbian who used he/him pronouns and terms and Lex was the friend and sperm donor.
(I don't have a set in stone headcanon for Midir. I like to keep my options open. GNC boy, trans girl, nb, it's all good.)
Series: FE4
Character/pairing: Mentions of Midir/Edain, Lex/Ayra, Lester,
Rating: PG-13?
Word Count:2,185
Summary: Lester sees a portrait of Lex, and has some questions.
Author's note:
Post series.
Both Johan and Johalvier lived, idc. The 'you can only choose one' mechanic can suck it. Mentions of Lex/Ayra, though not enough to tag. More notes at the end.
Contains NB headcanons.
Johan and Johalvier had between fights, unearthed old portraits within the unused rooms of these Rivough castles. Today, Lester helped them.
He just happened to be in the area, and to visit old comrades in arms was a decent time. He'd return to Tinranogg soon, for he never left mother for long. She was fragile, both in body and spirit after surviving the massacre at Bellhalla.
He simply ran into them along the way, and got roped into this, just as he had gotten into many a chaotic night, mostly spent being the third wheel as Johan flirted his way through all of Jugdral.
Dust was rustled up as Lester removed the cloth covering. A tall man smirked back at him. He had hair in the same shade as him, smoothed back much like Lester's own.
Lester stared back, as if he'd uncovered a mirror, such was the likeness. But he moved the portrait this way and that, and found it had no silver sheen.
The man simply resembled him that much.
"Who's that?" Lester said.
"That's Lex," Johan said.
Lester's brow furrowed. "Ulster and Larcei's father?"
"Come to think of it, he really looks like you," Johalvier said
"Are you our cousin, too?" Johan said.
"I don't think so. My father was Midir, the archer knight who served mother. I remember mother saying he had little noble peerage and no crusader blood at all."
No portraits of Midir still remained, much to mother's sorrow. She only had memories. But, mother had described him. And in all ways, Lester didn't seem to resemble his father at all.
From what he had heard, Midir had long green hair that he kept in a ponytail. He'd been thin, agile, even willowy. His accuracy with a bow had been precise, even legendary as mother told it.
His father had been gentle and kind, and utterly devoted to Lester's mother.
Whereas Lester was more solidly built, with blue hair slicked back. At first, he thought he resembled someone on his mother, Edain's, side. But when he returned to House Yngvi, along with Febail, Patty and his Aunt Brigid, who had survived despite it all, none of his ancestors looked anything like him.
The one thing that bound them, was that Lester certainly had an skill in archery and horses. He might only have very faint memories of his father, but he'd taken the same path as him.
From almost the moment he'd touched his father's bows, Lester had taken up archery like a calling. He'd learned to ride and shoot, and be the best archer and knight he could manage.
Now, he stared back at a portrait of someone who looked like he could be Lester's own brother.
Or father, for that matter.
"Huh. I wonder why you'd resemble him so," Johalvier said.
"Oh, I can think of some reasons," Johan said bluntly. He smirked, and withdrew a rose from his coat.
"Love finds a way."
Lester bristled at that. Lana looked just like mother. There wasn't a single question that she was an heir of House Yngvi. But, Lester? He might as well be like some changeling child left in the crib.
It wasn't the first time there'd been whispers. The nicest among them was 'switched at birth.'
The rest were horrible, and implied things about mother that made Lester lose his composure.
"I do when I wield a bow," he said. "Care to train?"
Johan wiped the dust from his tunic. "I could use a break. Make sure we go to the west training grounds. Then we can give the ladies a nice show."
Johalvier sighed and rolled his eyes. He was well used to his brother flirting with any woman around.
*
Tirnanogg awaited. He came out to the gardens, where his mother would be sitting, or perhaps napping. She hadn't returned to House Yngvi, though she had reunited with her nephew and neice, and her sister to quite a bit of joyful tears and adoration.
Her wounds from Bellhalla had never quite healed, both physically and mentally. Though she'd survived the flames, she'd sustained some injures which made walking difficult. Even more, she was overtaken by memories, both happy and sad. She would be caught, frozen with sadness and fear--or lose herself to the time when her true love was still with her.
Enough to mean she couldn't return to the battlefield, and rarely traveled lest it aggravate her leg injury she'd sustained on a battlefield long ago.
Today, she looked at a prayer book. Mother's hair was turning more white, even though she'd married young. She'd been aged prematurely by the hardships and loss she endured along the way.
"Mother?" Lester said softly.
He was careful to walk quietly towards her. Mother still had scars from the war. Grief had made her look older than her years.
"Lester, you've returned. I'm so glad to see you again," she said.
"Yes, I'm back for now," he said.
No pleasantries this time. The question burned within him too much, so that he could scarcely focus.
"Is father related to Duke Langbalt?"
She flinched at the mention of the name. "Er...pardon?"
"Midir. My father. Was he kin to Duke Langbalt?"
"No. Midir had no holy blood within his veins," she said.
He'd inherited the brand of Ullr, but he noticed another on his skin. He'd never asked mother, for he thought it'd simply been another aspect of Ullr's blessing.
Mother had adored father, or so he thought. Mother refused to even dignify the thought of ever remarrying. Sometimes he would catch her in the gardens with a faraway look in her eyes, and know she was remembering times past.
Back when father was alive.
"Why do I resemble Lord Lex so? ...What could this mean?"
Edain paled as he spoke.
"W-Why would you say this...? What made you bring up such a thing?"
"I helped Johan and Johavier today. They were going through old family keepsakes to give to Larcei. I found a portrait of Lex which hadn't been burned when Dannan's reign began."
"I...see."
He and Larcei had been raised together like siblings. He'd always thought of her like a sister, but he'd never thought it could be the reality.
"Is my father...Lord Lex?"
"I loved your father very much, you see. I still do."
"That's not an answer, mother. People...they've always said really horrible things about me. That I was 'switched at birth' or even things about you... Is it true?"
"Let me continue," she said.
"Midir did not fit so easily into the confines of 'male' or 'female.' He preferred to be referred to has 'he' and with terms like 'father.' Midir was often mistaken for a woman, but he was so much more than that," Edain said.
She glanced down to the cobblestone steps that went through the garden.
"Had I not been considered a traitor, I never would've been able to marry him. Not merely because he was my knight, and not my peer in class. We couldn't have children together. But I would've taken that life, without any children if it meant I could be with him," she said.
"Midir and Lex, they became fast friends. Lex became friends with everyone he met, it seemed. He was such a boisterous man, and so unforgettable. He never cared if Midir was different."
"He was in love with Ayra by then. It was only sheer stubbornness on both sides which made them hold back from marrying. Every day they'd spar. Verbally and physically. He once even bought her a sword as a present."
She smiled at the memory. "Every single day they'd fight, but there was always love there, even if Ayra didn't want to admit it for so long. Years and years they went on like this."
"Somehow, it came up that Midir and I could not bear children. And Lex offered to be the sire."
Her face flushed. "He donated...the means for you to be born. That is all you need to know. I never cheated on Midir. He was my dear love, and always your father. Midir taught you how to wield bows, and adored you so. But, Lex was kind enough to make it possible for us to have children at all."
She reached up and touched his cheek.
"When I look at you, I see so much of Lex. But I see so much of Midir, too. The way you ride and wield a bow...even if you were not of his blood, I know both Midir and Lex would be so proud of the man you became."
"It's a shame that I never got to meet him. He sounds like an...interesting man," Lester said.
"He was. Lex was so much to Sigurd's army. He kept spirits up, and he was so strong upon the battlefield. He saved your father's life several times, and mine as well. He joined the battle just to help his friend, and stayed when he befriended so many others of us, even when it became difficult."
"Now, put it from your mind that Midir was not your father. In all ways that counted, he was. And for Lex...I will be eternally grateful that he made it possible for me to ever have you and dear, sweet Lana. And shall eternally miss him and Ayra. So many of Sigurd's army deserved more years, and it was taken from us on that fateful day."
"Maybe at some level, I knew? Like Larcei and Ulster, I learned things fast, and always struck first in battle. I know we were raised together, but they always felt like siblings to me."
"I should have told you earlier. But, I was still grieving. To even speak of such times would make me break down. And I had to be strong for everyone. Even if it hurt so to be parted from my love, my Midir..."
She'd been through so much. So many of Sigurd's army had perished that day, and Edain had witnessed it all. She'd been cradled in the arms of Midir, and he'd taken the blow for her, enough that she only had some injuries.
Enough that she'd lived. But, oh how the burns and bruises of that day remained. Even more, the horrors she had heard of fire on flesh.
He sat down on the bench beside her. It took years before she could speak again of what she had lost.
"If you want to talk about those times, I'll be glad to listen and learn everything about them," Lester said.
"Midir was so kind and devoted. We loved each other for many years, but neither made a move, because he was my knight. Not until Gandolf came to steal me away, and we accidentally became considered traitors."
He'd heard this story many times, but Lester listened anew for hints of the one that was his father in everything but blood.
Lex sat back in the gardens and reminisced about a past he did not know. From Edain's stories, he almost could picture them. The brace soldiers who had died in an ambush at Bellhalla in a sudden hellfire.
*
That day, Lester tried his hand at the training grounds. He lifted up an axe in his hand.
It felt unwieldy and heavy. He only go through two swings before he set it aside.
Instead, he lifted up the bow. It felt like an old friend, the father he'd barely known in his life.
Even if Midir wasn't his father by blood, he held the legacy of these bows, and protecting mother.
Lester lifted up his favorite: The Brave Bow. It'd been a gift of love from mother to father, and Midir's most treasured bow. Now, it was Lester's favorite. The one which made sure he always made it out of battle, and the one which always shot true.
Sometimes he felt like father was watching over him when he used his bows.
Now, he knew there was someone else watching over him. A kind and boisterous man he resembled so, who was something of a father to him as well.
Many people had guarded and guided Lester in his life. And though they were long gone, Lester lifted up a prayer of thanks to them.
Mother was more adept at prayers than him, but his clumsy words could hopefully be heard wherever Midir, Lex, Ayra and so many other fallen soldiers from that fateful day were now.
author's note:
or, Midir was a non-binary lesbian who used he/him pronouns and terms and Lex was the friend and sperm donor.
(I don't have a set in stone headcanon for Midir. I like to keep my options open. GNC boy, trans girl, nb, it's all good.)
