fic: Colors
Nov. 15th, 2022 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bonnefoisTitle: Colors
Series: Fire Emblem
Character/pairing: Ike/Soren
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2210
Summary: Ike doesn't remember when he first time he met his soulmate, and the world burst into color. Soren does.
Author's note:
From this prompt: Imagine your OTP in a soulmate AU where the signs that two people are soulmates is immediately obvious (first words spoken to one another written on skin, eyes changing color, a bonding reaction when they touch, etc.). However, both A and B are completely oblivious to the fact that they are soulmates because they've known each other since they were very little kids, and therefore didn't see and/or remember a change when they first met.
I promised this for HT/paperbaggirl a while ago some Ike/Soren soulmate fic, but I had nothing but a few vague ideas to go on. It took a while for me to get the plot in order and a lot of prompt sifting until I found one which fit. Sorry it took a while, I couldn't figure out which path to take with it for a while. Also this is your holiday gift btw!
Notes: canon-typical mentions of violence, spoilers for all of FE9/10.
Everyone had another. Wasn't how the myths went? People came together because at some point, they were creatures that got split in two.
Of course, that was just a tale.
But it had a hint of truth. Because Soren knew soulmates existed.
He already saw in color, from the moment that boy had reached out to him.
Soren remembered; Ike didn't.
*
"They say, when you meet the one you're meant to be with, your Soulmate, the whole world changes," Mist said dreamily.
She had a daisy in hand which had been almost completely plucked to bits. The spring day was warm enough to make them seek shade beneath a large tree. Mist's yellow dress would be covered in grass stains, but she never minded extra color in her skirts.
"It's supposed to be like a flower blooming. That first burst of color," Mist said.
"I've always seen color," Ike said.
"That means you've already met your soulmate," Mist said.
Ike frowned. "But I've always seen color. I don't remember a big event."
"Isn't that how it's supposed to be? The world suddenly goes into color in that moment. Everything changes."
"What about you? You see colors, right? You mentioned your yellow dress."
"It's the same for me. I don't remember," Mist said.
"So you already met your soulmate, too."
Mist looked thoughtful. "Maybe? I don't quite know."
"How would you narrow it down?"
"Hmmm, I wonder. It could be someone we always knew all along, or someone we just met in passing in a festival."
Ike's brow furrowed. "Soulmates aren't as interesting as training."
Mist laughed. "You would say that, Ike."
*
Soren's hand paused at his book. He had overheard the conversation. No wonder; Ike was often loud, and never stealthy and he sat nearby his closest friend, the one who pulled him back from the brink, his soulmate.
His always.
He remembered the moment. That moment when he had lost all hope, and thought death surely would come for him. At that point, he was so numb he welcomed the release.
He'd only known pain in his short life.
Soren had been on the verge of death. Hunger pangs were his only companion. Everything was shades of gray, growing darker.
Ike reached out to him, and it changed him entirely. The touch of his hand sent a spark through his skin of warmth. Ike's face had been full of kindness. Blue was the first color he saw, in Ike's eyes, his hair, the lightness of the sky around them. Then he realized green of the leaves that brushed against him, and the brown of the food that Ike handed to him. A lunch gladly given.
Ike didn't remember this moment at all. In the time they had been parted, Ike forgot every moment that meant everything to Soren.
A boy reached out to him. The world focused into color. Meeting Ike was the bloom of hope, that first color in a dull gray life. Nothing but agony, death coming closer with each breath.The life Soren had completely given up on.
There was food in his hand. A lunch wrapped with care, by a family who loved him.
Soren lived another day, even after the boy disappeared.
And even when he returned and the boy didn't recognize him, Soren kept living. Even when it hurt.
*
Soren remembered that time.
Soren knew the red of blood and scent of death long before his first battle. He searched each body, even as his gut ached to retch from the scent of it, and his hands trembled.
The boy wasn't among them. Somehow, he'd survived. And for that reason, and that reason alone, Soren survived another day.
He looked up the the blue of the sky and remembered the blue eyes. The first time he'd ever had anyone reach out to him so gently.
Soren focused on the boy. Blue hair, like the sky when it was going to rain. Blue eyes, a darker shade. He memorized Ike's face like he memorized his tomes.
He'd search through ledgers, through every crowd and every city. From Begnion to Daein, through frost and forest. It mattered not as he grew. He kept searching.
*
When he found Ike, Soren found the shape of the boy had changed. He'd grown much taller, even taller than Soren himself.
And there was no recognition in his face. Nothing.
A blank slate. Soren stayed. He started anew.
*
Peaceful days turned to bloodshed and battles. Soren would've rather stayed out of it, or make a devil's bargain to keep Ike alive a little longer.
But, they stumbled upon her.
The woman's long and flowing dress was deep orange, almost golden. Like the sun. Ike could surely see it. He saw color.
And someone that compelling--a princess--surely Ike would fall for her.
It was hopeless in every way. This war--the audacity of fighting Daein that Ike so carelessly accepted. Ike didn't think about the consequences. But this wasn't mere training with his father, which would result in little more than bruises and bruised pride. Both which Rhys would heal up with a gentle touch of his magic.
Even more:
A princess. How could he ever compare with that? Things like fated soulmate hardly mattered when Ike didn't even remember the moment the world came into color and Soren began to believe good was possible.
At least, if Ike was there.
*
Red, the color of a wound on brown armor. Soren remembered the moment he'd seen the remains of the village that had massacred. The way Ike's face drew in grief, his hands and gloves brown from the dirt for Greil's tomb.
Soren knew death at a young age. He'd been tempered, until he could stand and bite down thevisceral revulsion at the scent of death.
Now Ike alone led them.
*
Gray, the color of the skies. It rained for days.
He reached out to comfort Ike with what little skills he had. Soren was blunt. Soren was ruthless. Soren was merciless, according to some. Soren was literal and uncaring, according to others.
Soren cared little what they thought. Only Ike mattered, and Ike knew him. Knew that as he reached to touch Ike's arm, with what little gentleness he had, all reserved for Ike himself, that this was all for him.
And for this, Ike comforted him. Ike reached out to him and pulled him close, until the chill of the rainy day and the loss was gone for both of them.
*
There was a lot more to focus on. Avenging his father, freeing Crimea. Soulmates were last on the list of things to find.
Ike pushed aside those thoughts with the childhood that had been cut short.
*
A tome, a simple tome, edged with brown. Like any other tome.
Had he guessed, the moment he hid away from the dragons then? He couldn't tell, only that when he saw the diagrams, the marks that signified branded and the branded of a pact with spirits so clear.
He called them laguz, now. He hadn't forgiven. Some of them kept away from him still.
They could smell it on him, he realized. Every laguz which left him to die, they knew what he was. Half laguz, half beorc. A branded.
Had the villagers who had cast him out known too? And did Ike?
*
Fitting that they came into the grayness of Daein winter, like he'd stepped back into the life before Ike. The one where death was always near.
He found reasons, excuses to be away from Ike's side even as it felt an ache deeper than he had known, like he was pierced deep by a spear.
Any reminder of it's better this way, didn't offer any comfort.
*
Blue, the shade of Ike's eye when Soren said the words.
Of his pain, his heritege. Only a hint of the deep ache within him, at the loss of those moments which had meant so much to him.
He could barely meet Ike's eyes, but when Ike lifted his chin, so gently, he saw.
Unchanging. No revulsion. The same blue eyes he had first seen, the first touch of color in his life.
Instead, a hand outstretched to him once more and accepted him completely.
*
Gold of the new day, gold of her dress as Ike took her hand and addressed her people.
Soren was full of a mix of feelings. Pride in Ike, and the desperate fear that he was watching Ike slip away.
But, once the speech was done, Ike returned to the barracks with the rest of them. Promised to cast away his title as soon as possible, and return to the common folk.
Return to him.
And despite everything, the hero didn't end up with the princess.
*
He stayed by Ike's side for three years, a strange line between friendship and love.
On his side, at least. Ike was rebuilding. Ike was leading.
It didn't matter.
*
Three years later, the flashes of a war.
The entire world of Tellius caught together in war. Black wings hidden away, white wings unleashed as a goddess, the goddess woke again to their realm.
Soren never wavered, never left his place beside Ike. If they could beat Daein, they could defeat a goddess too.
*
It was such a new color, the deep greenish-black of Soren's hair, the redness of his eyes stained by tears. Memories of blood.
Soren in his arms. He remembered now. The moment he lost his mother, the bodies, and before, that sickly boy. Who the moment he set eyes upon him, the world came into focus and new, startling color.
The memories were revealed, even the painful ones. Among them was a tiny boy with such deep red eyes. Called a curse by the townsfolk, they'd pushed him to the forests.
It had been the first time Ike had realized the color red, so deep.
*
It took until the end two wars for Ike to remember.
The pain, and the first moment of color. Of dark hair and red eyes. Of the red of blood and seeing how his mother truly died--at the hand of his mother.
It took until the end of two wars until Ike pulled him close to his chest, and told him not to cry.
And until Ike finally knew what Soren always had.
*
The base was smaller than he remembered. Back when he was younger, it seemed so endlessly big. He and Mist and Soren would play hide and seek in the nooks and crannies and run to the stream to cool off on hot days.
Now it was just memories, some painful and some warm. His father's shadow would always be over this fort.
Two wars, and he was damn tired of wars.
Things unpacked--emotional, physical. Ike wasn't sure this was home, or anything was home any longer. But for now, he was here.
That night, Soren came to him. It was never a question, for Soren was always there, had always been there. Ike hadn't even realized how tangled they were until the memories came and he knew.
He'd loved Soren without knowing for so long. Maybe always.
He put his arm about Soren, his soulmate and brought him closer to him.
"I would've chosen you, even if you weren't, you know. We aren't made to be ruled by gods' whims," Ike said.
"I would've still found you, no matter what," Soren said.
And I love you, and I love you beneath every word.
*
Sometimes, stories have happy endings, Soren admitted to himself. He was the last to believe it.
Ike remembered him, even when it was painful. The days after the war were tentative and each moment they grew closer. They were officially soulmates. Mist had determined to plan the wedding, over dinner.
Even if Ike hadn't said the words, Soren knew.
Soren knew that every day he breathed, he'd be close to the one his soul was bound to. That the only one who he had ever loved, ever truly trusted would never let him go. Not until death took them both.
Series: Fire Emblem
Character/pairing: Ike/Soren
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2210
Summary: Ike doesn't remember when he first time he met his soulmate, and the world burst into color. Soren does.
Author's note:
From this prompt: Imagine your OTP in a soulmate AU where the signs that two people are soulmates is immediately obvious (first words spoken to one another written on skin, eyes changing color, a bonding reaction when they touch, etc.). However, both A and B are completely oblivious to the fact that they are soulmates because they've known each other since they were very little kids, and therefore didn't see and/or remember a change when they first met.
I promised this for HT/paperbaggirl a while ago some Ike/Soren soulmate fic, but I had nothing but a few vague ideas to go on. It took a while for me to get the plot in order and a lot of prompt sifting until I found one which fit. Sorry it took a while, I couldn't figure out which path to take with it for a while. Also this is your holiday gift btw!
Notes: canon-typical mentions of violence, spoilers for all of FE9/10.
Everyone had another. Wasn't how the myths went? People came together because at some point, they were creatures that got split in two.
Of course, that was just a tale.
But it had a hint of truth. Because Soren knew soulmates existed.
He already saw in color, from the moment that boy had reached out to him.
Soren remembered; Ike didn't.
*
"They say, when you meet the one you're meant to be with, your Soulmate, the whole world changes," Mist said dreamily.
She had a daisy in hand which had been almost completely plucked to bits. The spring day was warm enough to make them seek shade beneath a large tree. Mist's yellow dress would be covered in grass stains, but she never minded extra color in her skirts.
"It's supposed to be like a flower blooming. That first burst of color," Mist said.
"I've always seen color," Ike said.
"That means you've already met your soulmate," Mist said.
Ike frowned. "But I've always seen color. I don't remember a big event."
"Isn't that how it's supposed to be? The world suddenly goes into color in that moment. Everything changes."
"What about you? You see colors, right? You mentioned your yellow dress."
"It's the same for me. I don't remember," Mist said.
"So you already met your soulmate, too."
Mist looked thoughtful. "Maybe? I don't quite know."
"How would you narrow it down?"
"Hmmm, I wonder. It could be someone we always knew all along, or someone we just met in passing in a festival."
Ike's brow furrowed. "Soulmates aren't as interesting as training."
Mist laughed. "You would say that, Ike."
*
Soren's hand paused at his book. He had overheard the conversation. No wonder; Ike was often loud, and never stealthy and he sat nearby his closest friend, the one who pulled him back from the brink, his soulmate.
His always.
He remembered the moment. That moment when he had lost all hope, and thought death surely would come for him. At that point, he was so numb he welcomed the release.
He'd only known pain in his short life.
Soren had been on the verge of death. Hunger pangs were his only companion. Everything was shades of gray, growing darker.
Ike reached out to him, and it changed him entirely. The touch of his hand sent a spark through his skin of warmth. Ike's face had been full of kindness. Blue was the first color he saw, in Ike's eyes, his hair, the lightness of the sky around them. Then he realized green of the leaves that brushed against him, and the brown of the food that Ike handed to him. A lunch gladly given.
Ike didn't remember this moment at all. In the time they had been parted, Ike forgot every moment that meant everything to Soren.
A boy reached out to him. The world focused into color. Meeting Ike was the bloom of hope, that first color in a dull gray life. Nothing but agony, death coming closer with each breath.The life Soren had completely given up on.
There was food in his hand. A lunch wrapped with care, by a family who loved him.
Soren lived another day, even after the boy disappeared.
And even when he returned and the boy didn't recognize him, Soren kept living. Even when it hurt.
*
Soren remembered that time.
Soren knew the red of blood and scent of death long before his first battle. He searched each body, even as his gut ached to retch from the scent of it, and his hands trembled.
The boy wasn't among them. Somehow, he'd survived. And for that reason, and that reason alone, Soren survived another day.
He looked up the the blue of the sky and remembered the blue eyes. The first time he'd ever had anyone reach out to him so gently.
Soren focused on the boy. Blue hair, like the sky when it was going to rain. Blue eyes, a darker shade. He memorized Ike's face like he memorized his tomes.
He'd search through ledgers, through every crowd and every city. From Begnion to Daein, through frost and forest. It mattered not as he grew. He kept searching.
*
When he found Ike, Soren found the shape of the boy had changed. He'd grown much taller, even taller than Soren himself.
And there was no recognition in his face. Nothing.
A blank slate. Soren stayed. He started anew.
*
Peaceful days turned to bloodshed and battles. Soren would've rather stayed out of it, or make a devil's bargain to keep Ike alive a little longer.
But, they stumbled upon her.
The woman's long and flowing dress was deep orange, almost golden. Like the sun. Ike could surely see it. He saw color.
And someone that compelling--a princess--surely Ike would fall for her.
It was hopeless in every way. This war--the audacity of fighting Daein that Ike so carelessly accepted. Ike didn't think about the consequences. But this wasn't mere training with his father, which would result in little more than bruises and bruised pride. Both which Rhys would heal up with a gentle touch of his magic.
Even more:
A princess. How could he ever compare with that? Things like fated soulmate hardly mattered when Ike didn't even remember the moment the world came into color and Soren began to believe good was possible.
At least, if Ike was there.
*
Red, the color of a wound on brown armor. Soren remembered the moment he'd seen the remains of the village that had massacred. The way Ike's face drew in grief, his hands and gloves brown from the dirt for Greil's tomb.
Soren knew death at a young age. He'd been tempered, until he could stand and bite down thevisceral revulsion at the scent of death.
Now Ike alone led them.
*
Gray, the color of the skies. It rained for days.
He reached out to comfort Ike with what little skills he had. Soren was blunt. Soren was ruthless. Soren was merciless, according to some. Soren was literal and uncaring, according to others.
Soren cared little what they thought. Only Ike mattered, and Ike knew him. Knew that as he reached to touch Ike's arm, with what little gentleness he had, all reserved for Ike himself, that this was all for him.
And for this, Ike comforted him. Ike reached out to him and pulled him close, until the chill of the rainy day and the loss was gone for both of them.
*
There was a lot more to focus on. Avenging his father, freeing Crimea. Soulmates were last on the list of things to find.
Ike pushed aside those thoughts with the childhood that had been cut short.
*
A tome, a simple tome, edged with brown. Like any other tome.
Had he guessed, the moment he hid away from the dragons then? He couldn't tell, only that when he saw the diagrams, the marks that signified branded and the branded of a pact with spirits so clear.
He called them laguz, now. He hadn't forgiven. Some of them kept away from him still.
They could smell it on him, he realized. Every laguz which left him to die, they knew what he was. Half laguz, half beorc. A branded.
Had the villagers who had cast him out known too? And did Ike?
*
Fitting that they came into the grayness of Daein winter, like he'd stepped back into the life before Ike. The one where death was always near.
He found reasons, excuses to be away from Ike's side even as it felt an ache deeper than he had known, like he was pierced deep by a spear.
Any reminder of it's better this way, didn't offer any comfort.
*
Blue, the shade of Ike's eye when Soren said the words.
Of his pain, his heritege. Only a hint of the deep ache within him, at the loss of those moments which had meant so much to him.
He could barely meet Ike's eyes, but when Ike lifted his chin, so gently, he saw.
Unchanging. No revulsion. The same blue eyes he had first seen, the first touch of color in his life.
Instead, a hand outstretched to him once more and accepted him completely.
*
Gold of the new day, gold of her dress as Ike took her hand and addressed her people.
Soren was full of a mix of feelings. Pride in Ike, and the desperate fear that he was watching Ike slip away.
But, once the speech was done, Ike returned to the barracks with the rest of them. Promised to cast away his title as soon as possible, and return to the common folk.
Return to him.
And despite everything, the hero didn't end up with the princess.
*
He stayed by Ike's side for three years, a strange line between friendship and love.
On his side, at least. Ike was rebuilding. Ike was leading.
It didn't matter.
*
Three years later, the flashes of a war.
The entire world of Tellius caught together in war. Black wings hidden away, white wings unleashed as a goddess, the goddess woke again to their realm.
Soren never wavered, never left his place beside Ike. If they could beat Daein, they could defeat a goddess too.
*
It was such a new color, the deep greenish-black of Soren's hair, the redness of his eyes stained by tears. Memories of blood.
Soren in his arms. He remembered now. The moment he lost his mother, the bodies, and before, that sickly boy. Who the moment he set eyes upon him, the world came into focus and new, startling color.
The memories were revealed, even the painful ones. Among them was a tiny boy with such deep red eyes. Called a curse by the townsfolk, they'd pushed him to the forests.
It had been the first time Ike had realized the color red, so deep.
*
It took until the end two wars for Ike to remember.
The pain, and the first moment of color. Of dark hair and red eyes. Of the red of blood and seeing how his mother truly died--at the hand of his mother.
It took until the end of two wars until Ike pulled him close to his chest, and told him not to cry.
And until Ike finally knew what Soren always had.
*
The base was smaller than he remembered. Back when he was younger, it seemed so endlessly big. He and Mist and Soren would play hide and seek in the nooks and crannies and run to the stream to cool off on hot days.
Now it was just memories, some painful and some warm. His father's shadow would always be over this fort.
Two wars, and he was damn tired of wars.
Things unpacked--emotional, physical. Ike wasn't sure this was home, or anything was home any longer. But for now, he was here.
That night, Soren came to him. It was never a question, for Soren was always there, had always been there. Ike hadn't even realized how tangled they were until the memories came and he knew.
He'd loved Soren without knowing for so long. Maybe always.
He put his arm about Soren, his soulmate and brought him closer to him.
"I would've chosen you, even if you weren't, you know. We aren't made to be ruled by gods' whims," Ike said.
"I would've still found you, no matter what," Soren said.
And I love you, and I love you beneath every word.
*
Sometimes, stories have happy endings, Soren admitted to himself. He was the last to believe it.
Ike remembered him, even when it was painful. The days after the war were tentative and each moment they grew closer. They were officially soulmates. Mist had determined to plan the wedding, over dinner.
Even if Ike hadn't said the words, Soren knew.
Soren knew that every day he breathed, he'd be close to the one his soul was bound to. That the only one who he had ever loved, ever truly trusted would never let him go. Not until death took them both.
