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Soren didn't see color until he was eight. The first color he recognized was “blue” and it was the shade of a particular boy's hair and eyes. He hadn't understood what it meant at the time, but it felt fitting to him somehow. Through the light filtered through the treetops, the boy's blue hair almost seemed to sparkle. It looked like a halo of light was cristening him, as he held out, with a sandwich, the first act of kindness Soren ever experienced.
After that day, Soren spent three years looking for that boy. It wasn't because of the color, at first, because he didn't know the significance of color.
He learned in an abbey, where the clerics and priests had taken him in and taught him to speak.
He'd already known how to read, and during his brief stay there, he spent all his time reading every book they held in the abbey. The books described colors, but not which ones they were, or what it meant to be able to understand them, and when he asked if something was “blue” or “brown” or “yellow” the only answer Soren got was one of wide eyes and raised eyebrows. Only one or two of them could actually say yes or no in confidence.
Not a single cleric told him why they were surprised, or even that they were, but it was something that Soren could read clearly in their faces.
In the end, it didn't matter a bit, because the moment he could, he left in search of Ike.
He was eleven when he found the fort – a small affair sitting crookedly on a hill, with a couple buildings close enough and yet far enough away that they could have belonged to the same company or not. The sun was setting when he knocked on the door of the largest building and requested a position among the mercenaries held inside.
He heard a few laughs, from behind the large, brown man that opened the door. Out of all the many things he'd been through, being laughed at wasn't one of them. He supposed it was better, in a way, than silent scorn, but that didn't make him feel any less stupid.
The man who opened the door was as easily the size of five Sorens and then some, but Soren didn't falter, because he'd learned awhile ago it was important to pretend to be something he wasn't. He kept his determined look and only shifted, displaying the single tome he carried with him. If he weren't a child, and a small one at that, it might have resembled a threat.
“I'm a mage,” he clarified. “The man who trained me said that I'm a very powerful one.”
They didn't have to know the whole truth.
A voice called from behind the brown man: “He's a twerp! What kind of kid belongs in a mercenary group?” But the man seemed to disregard the comment. His eyebrows raised.
Soren started to think this whole event had been a mistake on his part, until the blue boy appeared at the man's hip, staring curiously at Soren.
“Father? Who's this?” he asked.
“Ike.” Ike. The blue boy. Soren recognized him instantly. He'd found him. All the searching and researching, the walking, the sleeping under trees hadn't been for naught.
The father's eyes bored into Soren's brand. He could feel it, somehow. He could always feel the stares at his forehead, as if each glance burned his mark into his face anew each time. Soren closed his eyes. Surely the next thing to follow was some kind of slur, some other words meant to hurt him, and then the door would slam on his face. He'd sleep in the cold, outside the walls, then. They'd have to chase him away. He wouldn't lose the blue boy or his kind, blue eyes again.
“What's your name?” he was asked.
Soren's eyes shot open, a brief, surprised crack in his confident facade. He looked at Ike.
Ike knew his name. Ike had chosen it for him, when they'd first met. Before then, Soren had just been “boy” at the best, and other words he'd rather forget at the worst. He'd held the name 'Soren' close to him ever since.
“Soren, sir,” he replied after a lengthy pause. He looked back up to Ike's father. “I know I'm young, but I'll work harder than any one else. I can read and write, I know magic, math. I'm edcuated.”
Such a thing was a rarity, in the grassy plains on this side of the country. Soren knew it was an asset – it was about the only thing he really had.
The gaze the man fixed him with moved from his eyes back to the brand. He felt it again. By now, he'd learned to carry his mark with a falsified pride. If any one was to ever believe the lie that it belonged to a spirit charmer, he'd have to act like it was true himself.
“A powerful mage, you said?” There was something in the man's tone, a brief tug to the corner of his mouth, that Soren didn't like.
“Y-yessir!” he replied. He puffed out his chest, and did his best to sound confident. He cursed the stutter in his voice.
The twitching corner of the man's mouth turned into an amiable smile. “Well, Soren, I do believe we're running short on magic users. Your expertise could be useful.”
He looked down at Ike. “What do you say, boy?”
“Soren...” Ike said. He was suddenly stricken with the memory of Ike saying his name for the first time. It was the first time he'd ever had a name to say, even. Soren blushed. “Can we be friends?”
His father let out a hearty laugh. “C'mon inside, Soren. We'll get you some food and find you a cot.”
– – – – –
Soren took the cot above Ike's, because it was available and it was offered to him. (He had initially hoped for a bottom bunk because the top reminded him of sleeping in a tree and that wasn't something he liked to remember, but since he was lying above Ike he decided he could make due.) He was introduced to each of the Greil mercenaries in turn, but only really remembered that Ike's sister's name was Mist and the red-haired woman was Titania and Ike's father was Greil because he wasn't sure if he'd need to remember any others.
This was a mercenary group. He expected death to come to most of them sooner or later, and decided to only remember and pay attention to those that wouldn't leave the company shortly.
The fort had a small library, compared to the convent Soren had come from, and he immediately set to work on reading every book available to him. There were plenty he had never seen or read before – the convent was located in Begnion, and this was Crimea. Many of the books covered topics he already knew, like basic tactics and battle formations, and there was little else for Soren to learn from them.
Even still, he read them.
It wasn't long before he'd gathered a reputation of being the quiet, studious kid. Most people hadn't even heard him speak, but he spoke when necessary, and he mostly only spoke to Mist or Ike or their father, because that was who spoke to him first.
Many days were passed with Soren curled underneath a specific tree in the courtyard that overlooked the area where Ike and his father usually trained.
It was strange, in this place, because Soren had spent the only meaningful part of his life so far looking for and following Ike, or even just the idea of Ike, but he never really knew much about the blue boy beyond his immeasurable kindness. He studied Ike curiously.
Ike liked training. He wanted to beat his father more than anything. He liked food, and he liked naps, and he liked spending time with his sister and all the other people that were housed in the fort.
Soren discovered that Ike liked flowers too, the day Ike offered Soren to come and join his sister in picking them.
But despite being welcome and fed and given a cot to sleep on, Soren still felt like an outsider. He didn't mind much, considering he was here for Ike mainly and no one else, but Ike actually interacting with him was... awkward. He didn't know how to approach Ike, and he was worried that something he would do would make Ike no longer like him, so he decided to say as little as possible or do as little he could, because inaction was inoffensive.
He declined Ike's offer politely, and when the blue boy looked a little crestfallen, Soren panicked and offered that maybe he could just watch.
Ike and Mist both seemed overjoyed to hear it.
There was a small patch of flowers on a hill just outside the main fort's wall. Ike and Mist said that they usually went there, because they were the kind of flowers their mother liked. Soren didn't know what happened to their mother.
Soren sat cross-legged with a book on the outside of the field, and even though he had every intention of reading it while the siblings picked flowers, he found himself watching them work anyway. Ike picked a flower and giggled and set it in Mist's hair, and she did the same and said that he looked very pretty. Soren blushed because he agreed.
Feeling the heat in his face made him awkward, so he tried his best to return to his book.
The best thing to hope for in such a situation is
He read this sentence at least 12 times, probably, before a sudden weight touched his head and he flinched, jerking up anxiously to be met with Ike and Mist, staring curiously.
"S-Sorry," he murmured instantly, because to flinch away from Ike was akin to staying inside on a clear day.
They didn't reply. He reached a hand up tentatively to touch what was placed on his head, and found his fingers trace the outline of a soft petal.
"It's a flower crown!" Mist explained happily. "Ike thought you could use them."
"Why...?" he asked.
Ike shrugged. He was grinning, but he didn't say much. "They look nice on you."
"Th-thank you..."
Soren couldn't keep from smiling.
– – – – –
The only pen Soren could find was broken, but he'd written with worse before, so he managed. He moved it quickly, writing down all sorts of numbers. To know maths was a skill most in the forts couldn't say they possessed, and the last thing Soren wanted to do was to lose such a skill. He practiced by writing down whichever numbers he could think of and modifying them by adding or subtracting or dividing or really whatever else came to mind.
Thick fingers pointed to some of the numbers at the corner of the page, and while they didn't surprise Soren (he was pretty much always on guard, no one could surprise him in such a state), they did cause him to pause. He looked up, inquiring, to be met with the face of Ike's father.
"Are you doing this for fun?" he joked.
Soren paused and considered his answer. It wasn't particularly enjoyable, but he didn't dislike it either. It served a purpose, that was all. "I'm practicing. I'm worried if I don't... train like this, I'll forget."
Greil said nothing, so Soren assumed he understood.
He moved, and Soren returned to his numbers. The last thing he wanted to do was upset him, especially since he learned he was the commander of this ragtag little group, and could probably kick Soren out the first chance he did something wrong.
Greil's fingers appeared at the corner again before long, and Soren immediately stopped his pen.
"What do you think of this?" Greil offered.
The parchment he presented Soren with was a list of numbers. He was educated enough that he could identify it as a business ledger, though it seemed a little incomplete.
"It's a ledger," Soren commented. "For expenses, I presume?"
Greil nodded. "What do you think of it?"
"I don't..."
He paused, and frowned slightly. "I don't know enough about the expenditures to properly understand this one... I, uh, I-I did some books at the last place I lived, sir, but the prices of food are sure to be different here, and we didn't have any weapons to maintain and no one was really traveling."
Greil laughed, a hearty sound that seemed to shake the table he was leaning on even. Soren didn't know what that meant.
"It's okay to say you don't know," he said. He spoke as if Soren was still a child, and in some respects that was true. That didn't mean Soren liked it.
"I don't know," Soren said levelly. His brow furrowed, but he tried to keep the glare out of his face. He'd been told before they came to him naturally. "Sir."
"The next requisitions trip was planned to be at the end of this week," Greil said. "Why don't you come along?"
It took Soren one awkward, surprised minute to say he'd like to.
– – – – –
The marketplace was full of too many people. Soren was distracted in ways he couldn't remember having a comparison to. So many people were talking and moving and walking, the moment they broke into town was the moment Soren suddenly felt lost and afraid, though Greil was right beside him, and Titania was present too.
He didn't realize when his hand was grabbed, but when he looked up, scared, to see who had taken it, he found a gentle smile from Titania, and a gentle reassurance. "Let's not get lost, okay?"
Even now that he was fourteen, Soren was still smaller than he probably should have been. He felt smaller, now that Titania was treating him like a child, but he couldn't bring himself to pull his hand away.
They walked past food stalls and stalls filled with beautiful decorations – jewelry that shined in the sun, small weavings meant to adorn hair or walls. Soren stared. It didn't happen often that he remembered seeing color was something strange, but it happened in situations like this, where he was suddenly assaulted by vibrant patterns and images that took his attention from whatever else he was supposed to be focusing on.
Titania gave his hand a little squeeze each time he was distracted, and they moved along.
They purchased food and bargained for weapons. Greil often times got better deals than other customers, Soren noticed, because he had a reputation behind him. The merchant would shout "Ah, it's Commander Greil! I remember that time --" and then tear off onto a long tangent about nothing imperative and give the man a better deal than they'd given the people before him.
Other times, Greil gently argued his point, pointing out what something was worth and using that as leverage to get them to realize it. Soren watched carefully, and commit the words to memory because he decided that one day, he might have to do something similar.
Another beautiful color-marked thing caught the mage's attention, and he turned his head to stare at it. Before Titania squeezed his hand, Greil had noticed and bent down until he was just about at the same height as Soren.
"Can you see that?" he asked.
Soren wasn't completely sure he understood the question, but he nodded lamely.
It was a small box of tiny rectangular objects, each one carrying a bright, vivid color. Soren couldn't name them all, but they were arranged in a rainbow, and they were prettier than the jewelry they had last passed that had distracted him, so he caught himself staring.
When he realized it was foolish, childish even, he shook his head and apologized.
"I'm sorry, Commander. I've never seen anything like it before. We can move on."
"How old are you, Soren?"
"P-pardon?"
He didn't really know the answer.
Fourteen was an approximation, based on how old he'd been told he probably was, and the number of years that had passed since the clerics had told him that.
"I, uhm... It's complicated," was the answer he settled on.
He didn't have a birthday, as far as he knew, and he didn't particularly want one either. He didn't think age mattered much, because one day he would be grown up anyway and it would matter even less. All that mattered was that he was proficient at this or that, and that he did whatever job he was given, and that he lived with Ike and the Greil mercenaries at the fort.
"Complicated, huh?"
Soren frowned. "I think I'm fourteen, sir. But I don't... Know."
"That's okay," Greil assured. "Plenty of people are like that."
Soren didn't want to admit that made him feel better.
He looked back to Titania, and Soren didn't know how to read the gaze they exchanged, but Titania nodded.
"The men have been working hard," she suddenly said. She gently pulled on his arm and lead him to a different stall, away from the beautiful rectangles. Soren wanted them, and he wished he didn't feel such reluctance to leave them be. "So let's buy them all a treat. What do you think?"
Soren didn't know what to think, but he nodded and offered an awkward "Okay."
Titania bought some kind of sweet bread, that had raisins inside of it and smelt strongly of cinnamon, and said that it was so-and-so's favorite and that they all deserved it after the last job they had finished.
Greil returned to their side not too long after, and with all their groceries and purchases in tow, they headed back to the fort.
– – – – --
"Father says you don't have a birthday," Ike said, one day, suddenly.
Soren blushed, as he seemed to do every time Ike approahed him randomly. "No... Not one I know of."
"That's not right," Ike declared. "Every one should have a birthday. What if you forget how old you are?"
Soren frowned.
"Mist thinks we should give you one," he continued. "But I told her I wanted to ask you if that was okay first."
"You didn't have to ask me..."
Ike smiled. "Well, I think there's a lot of things you don't particularly like, and I'd rather one of those things not be my sister."
Despite himself, Soren smiled too.
"Hey!"
"Wh-what?"
Ike's smile left. "Nevermind. Anyway, you don't have any idea of when your birthday is?"
"No..." But Soren wanted to help Ike.
(Back then, when they first met, Ike had given Soren his name. Though he seemed to have forgotten, Soren didn't care, because it didn't matter as long as that was still what he was calling Soren, and what every one else called him, too. The idea of Ike giving Soren another piece of him, that he was somehow missing, filled him with a kind of joy he wasn't sure he'd ever yet experienced. It was selfish to think that Soren could help Ike find that memory – that missing piece of himself – as well, so he didn't.)
"Let's see... Three years ago..." Ike had been nine. He seemed deep in thought, and raised his fingers in order to count something invisible on them.
"You arrived in the spring!" he said suddenly. "You remember, right? It was after dinner, but we fed you anyway.” He paused for a bit, thoughtfully. “You ate like you hadn't eaten in days.”
Soren hadn't.
“Anyway, do you remember what day that was? I think that'd be a good birthday for you.”
He didn't. He blushed. If he couldn't remember... would Ike get mad at him? Or would –
“No? That's okay,” Ike said, beaming. “It's March Twenty-third.”
Soren raised his eyebrows. “But that's--”
“Next week,” Ike confirmed. “I'm sorry we missed your last two birthdays, but we're going to get it this time, okay?”
“Thanks, Ike.” The words were delivered with a smile. He meant it.
– – – – –
He didn't really know what having a birthday party meant. He'd hoped that Ike would just give him a present and maybe stick to his side the entire time. On the twenty-third, he woke up with the sun, as he usually did, and Ike blearily had grabbed his leg as he was coming down from the top deck. Soren almost kicked him, and felt bad for the reflex. Ike told him he had to go back to bed until they could get ready, and Soren obeyed only reluctantly. Ike hopped to his feet and shook of the tired with difficulty, and nearly ran into another room.
He wasn't a big fan of staying in bed, but he didn't know what else to do when met with such a genuine request. If it hadn't been Ike or his father, Soren probably wouldn't have awkwardly climbed back into the top bunk and merely stared as Ike exited the room hurriedly. He could hear people talking in the rest of the fort, but couldn't make out the words.
He tried to return to one of the books he kept in his bunk with him, but found himself too anxious to focus.
Thankfully, it wasn't long before Ike returned to fetch Soren. Once he climbed down from the bed, Ike gently took his hand and let him into the mess hall.
Soren knew that it wasn't fancy. It wasn't much, even, just a single gift, and a single sweetroll with a single, tiny candle stuck from it. It was obviously not even the first time the candle had been used, but it was lit and stuck into the top of the sweetroll. Beside it was a cloth wrapped around what looked to be a thin box. All the mercenaries were gathered around the table, and at Soren's appearance broke out with a cheerful “Happy birthday!”
Soren panicked and hid his head in Ike's shoulder. When he realized, he pulled away roughly, even pulling his hand away from Ike's, and took a deep breath.
“Th-thank you, every one,” he said. It didn't sound genuine, of course. He wasn't even sure it was. His eyes slid over to Ike. Ike must have been responsible.
“Your fourteenth birthday?” Greil said. It was open-ended. Soren could have rebuked it if he wanted, he felt, but he would have rather just disappeared in that moment. He nodded.
Greil didn't say anything else, just slid the package off the table and offered it to Soren. The cloth was plain, and just kind of loosely tied around the box. There was some manner of ribbon that looked suspiciously like the kind Mist wore in her hair. He undid it, carefully, because as far as he knew that was the convention here, and gently peeled away the cloth cover.
It was a rectangular box with few distinguishing features, and when Soren removed the cover he found a sundry of different colored rectangles. It was the same set he'd seen in the market place.
He gasped, unwittingly, and looked up to Greil inquiring.
"That's what you saw in the market," Greil said. "That you kept looking at."
Soren looked at the others, gauging their responses. Titania had turned in to whisper something to Rhys, who stared at the gift with wide eyes. He nodded something, and smiled, and Soren never felt so confused.
"Thank you," Soren said, closing the box again and holding it tightly to his chest. "Thank you so much... I'll... I think I can balance some things around the fort now, if you want, and I can start writing lists for the next requisition trip, if you'll let me, and--"
"Soren." Greil cut him off, smiling. "You don't have to work harder for this. It's your birthday. It's a gift."
Suddenly, Mist was around the table and bounding towards him. She plucked the ribbon he'd removed from the wrapping away from him and tied it in her hair, before peering at the box. "What is it? I didn't see anything special from over there..."
Greil just laughed. "It's for drawing, Mist."
"You can draw?"
Soren didn't know it was for drawing. His face heated up, and he looked down. He just liked the colors...
No one besides Mist seemed to question it, but it was the first time since the abbey that he was suddenly aware that not every one could see colors. He could, and he was convinced he could because of Ike. He didn't know if Ike could, and Mist obviously (and sensefully) couldn't. He could assume Greil could, but he didn't know anything about Ike's mother, so he didn't have much of a way of knowing.
Regardless, since he now knew the little rectangles purpose, he decided he might as well use them.
– – – – –
At first he merely used them to color code notes. Balancing books was easier when he could mark expenses as red and profits as green. He wrote important things in blue, always blue. The case of colors had three separate blues, so the important notes were written in the blue that was similar to the sky or the blue that almost looked green, because the blue that was similar to Ike's hair was too valuable to him to use for something that seemed so pointless.
He tried drawing, eventually.
It was shy, slow work. He didn't know how to really start, but he used green to color in a picture of the tree that Ike liked to take naps under. He made a brown sketch of the stables, once, and found that he didn't much like drawing horses at all.
Eventually, he started sketching lines in the shape of a person. He liked that, so he did it more. He tried watching the other mercenaries in the fort, and tried sketching them. He sketched a woman with red hair that looked vaguely like Titania, and a knight in green that almost looked exactly like Oscar. With time, Rhys had said, once he had caught Soren off guard and actually seen the sketch of Mist picking flowers he was working on, Soren could be really good at drawing people.
So he kept at it. He didn't sketch Ike though, because he didn't want to waste that blue.
– – – – –
The days dragged on and the few children (himself reluctantly included) at the mercenary fort all grew older. Soren's sketching improved just as the rectangles were dwindling in size (save that precious blue), and he worried for their futures. Tentatively, Greil had him keeping some of the books. He balanced some expenses and kept a private record of their profits for his own private ledger. He wasn't aware of every expense, but he was aware of the men's personal salaries and the upkeep of their weapons so he could always guess, and he often compared his notes with the official books Greil kept, or asked him for guidance regarding this or that.
He'd impressed Greil somehow, it was clear, because their commander habitually let Soren try balancing books he hadn't touched, and then double-checked his work when he was finished, offering Soren some kind of compliment.
Normally, compliments felt hollow to Soren, but from Greil, they felt very genuine.
He'd gotten comfortable with their commander, at least, even when he wasn't comfortable with most of the others. Ike obviously remained his favorite, but Greil was a close second, and Mist came third only because she could be annoying. Titania was next, and he held no opinion of Rhys. The others, he disliked, for one reason or another, and avoided them whenever possible.
It had been a mistake that he'd intruded on a heated discussion (he'd been looking for an extra inkwell) and he shyly backed away before Greil called him back into the room.
"Did you need something?" Greil asked.
"No sir," he responded immediately. "My apologies for interrupting.”
Greil regarded him carefully, not dismissing him, but keeping his gaze fixed on Soren's eyes. Soren felt like shrinking under such an intense look, but he held himself carefully.
“Come over here, boy,” the commander said finally.
Sheepishly, Soren stepped forward.
At the table was gathered Greil, Titania, and Shinon. They were all hunched over various parchments – drawn maps and other notes. The maps were of different places, Soren noticed.
“Multiple jobs?” he asked. “We've got a lot of work...”
“That's right,” Titania said. She pointed to one map, moving a little figure that looked like a poorly carved wooden triangle. “I'm worried we don't have enough men to tackle both jobs at once, but Greil thinks we can handle it.”
“I was about to convince her,” he said. “Why don't you try, Soren?”
“Wh-what? Sir, I--”
“I've seen you hide away all our books on military tactics. You know more than you admit.”
Shinon scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“It's... Simple,” Soren began. “If our intelligence is good... It looks like you marked this town as having the least trouble. Bandits won't be a problem for the more skilled fighters... I wouldn't be surprised if you could handle it yourself, Commander. I'd recommend... The commander and Gatrie. If you take Rhys, you shouldn't have an issue. It'd be more than safe. In numbers... The rest should be able to competantly handle the second village. Both Titania and Shinon are more than capable, and with extra support from Oscar and Boyd, it should be no problem.”
“Ah,” Titania said. Soren couldn't read the strange hitch to her tone. “Is that okay with you, Shinon?”
He glared at Soren before answering. “Yeah, that'll work. Though I prefer working with the Commander or Gatrie.”
So that was where the impass came from? Ridiculous.
“Thank you, Soren,” Greil said. “You're dismissed. Try to get some sleep.”
“Yessir.”
– – – – –
Since then, Greil began asking Soren for more strategical input, though Soren knew it was more to test him than to actually get any ideas. Or so he assumed. Greil didn't use all his opinions, and often time offered suggestions or changes to them, but he continued asking.
One day, he pulled Soren to the side and offered him a new position of a staff officer. Soren felt something strange in his stomach, a weird twitching to his fingertips. He didn't quite understand it, but his mouth twitched into a smile as Greil walked away.
But Soren still had training, or so Greil said. He was nervous about the implications – that he'd be sent away for a few months to train with another mercenary group at the capital. He hated it the whole time he was away.
He threw himself into his work not for the sense of dilligence that he normally took to everything, but because the better he did the sooner he might return to Ike. He wasn't there for a time period, he was there for a purpose, and fulfilling that purpose as soon as he possibly could was one of Soren's greatest strong suits.
The mercenary group was full of forgettable people, and Soren hadn't been one for casual conversation besides. It was based in Melior, and he had easy access to the libraries. He visited often, and he'd often think after the fact that if he hadn't, he might never have been able to return to warn the Greil Mercenaries of Daein's encroaching threat.
The time after that felt like a blur. Soren had spent enough time on the run as it was. Its familiarity didn't comfort him this time – it was the fact that he was doing it by Ike's side, that they had guidance instead of fear, and he had more of a plan this time than just “Find Ike”.
– – – – –
He didn't plan for Greil dying.
No one did, clearly. It seemed that as foolish the idea was, every one (even, to an extent, Soren himself) had the idea that Greil was somehow invincible, or unkillable, and he was killed.
Soren stood in the doorway to Ike's room.
“I'm... I'll be fine,” Ike said.
“If you need me...” Soren offered.
“I know.” Ike sighed. He forced a smile, and Soren's heart sank. “Maybe I'm not okay right now, I don't know.... But I will be. I have to... Thank you, Soren.”
Soren wanted to tell Ike he didn't have to, that he was still a child, he was allowed to have a down day, but they both knew if he were to be commander, somethings came second. Soren understood the necessity of sacrifice, at least superficially, but he still wanted to ease Ike's hurt somehow.
He'd figure something out.
Until then – and maybe he'd continue, then – Soren quelled the ache in his own heart. Greil wasn't really his father. A disgusting thing like Soren had no right to lay any sort of claim to some one like Greil...
– – – – –
They didn't get a real rest until after Tohma.
They ran through Gallia to the castle, and they ran back, and they ran through Crimea, and they ran in Tohma, because Ike was too good to let such a simple scandal go. He was too good. Soren could never bring himself to pity Ike's naivete, as much as he wanted to, because it was what made Ike Ike. It made him good, and it was why he shone like a blue beacon among all others.
He was glad when they finally reached the ship that would bring them to Begnion, because it made a small respite for every one, and especially Ike.
Ike was prone to getting seasick, and Soren decided it was because Ike wouldn't remain still.
When Soren felt sick, he stood by the outer railing and stared off at the horizon and it passed. Ike would just sit down wherever he felt sick, maybe lie down and watch the clouds, and then he'd be right back up on his feet when it passed, and return to training or chores or whatever he busied himself with.
He'd taken to randomly appearing beside Soren, too, once complaining that it was frustrating being confined to a ship and he'd often thought of jumping and swimming in the ocean (“But I wouldn't actually do that, Soren, don't worry. That's just how I feel.”).
Another time he sat next to Soren when he was trying to capture the brilliant colors of the sunset. Soren flinched and immediately went to cover his page with one sleeve.
Ike genly grabbed his wrist, and pulled only slight enough to tell Soren he'd rather he pull his arm away, but without pulling his arm away.
Soren pulled his arm away.
“Whoa...” Ike breathed. “Did you do that?”
Soren bit his lip. It was just a scene of the sunseat on the seas – swirling images of reds and oranges, a deep blue that he had to improvise from a mixture of the green-blue and the sky-blue (which was running very low) because he still refused to use the Ike-blue.
“Uhm... You can see it?”
Mist had seen his drawings once, because she was annoying like that, and when he did things like sunsets she didn't see them because she couldn't see color yet. She said they just looked like gray blobs, and that it was weird Soren worked so intently on them. ...That had been months ago, though.
“Yeah, why, is that something...?”
“No, it's nothing. Thank you, Ike. I didn't... I thought you were colorblind, I guess.”
Ike smiled strangely. “No, I'm not. It's really good, though. I always wondered what you did with those little sticks...”
“Pastels,” Soren clarified. “They're for sketching, but I use them for other things too.”
“Like on the reports you've given me. Even the first one had the red and green...”
That was right after Ike's father died. Since Ike was the commander, Soren gave him his report as he would have done Greil, and the colors remained... So, Ike had to have seen colors before then. That meant...
He wasn't sure what it meant, but he was surprised regardless, like the clerics had been years ago.
Soren wanted to ask more, but he didn't want to push Ike away. He just let it go.
“You should draw me,” Ike said. It was a joke, clearly, and Soren had heard the same from Mist in the past... But he considered it. He liked drawing people, and he'd gotten decent at it.
He had the perfect blue.
– – – – –
The next battle saw them fighting bird laguz. It almost seemed inconsequential to Soren, who's winds cut through their wings as easily as anything. The only real thing worth reporting to Ike after was the appearance of Jill – a wyvern rider who joined just for the sake of hunting sub-humans.
At least she'd be predictable.
The most notable thing about meeting her, though, was that Mist bounded up to Soren the day after, begging him to show her some of his sketches. He did. She could see the color.
“I can see it! I can see the colors!” she exclaimed. “You... You can see the colors too!”
“I always could...” he murmured. Some kind of lie, maybe. He was more curious about why she was so excited.
“Don't you know what it means?” she asked, giggling. “You have a soulmate!”
A soulmate. Ike. So Mist had...
At least it made it easy to change the subject. “And yours is Jill? Really?”
Mist blushed, awkwardly playing with the ends of her scarf. “She's... She might need a little work,” she admitted. “But she's cute.”
All Soren cared about was that he wasn't asked about his.
– – – – –
Soren didn't sleep much usually, but he slept less that night, and the week that followed, and even the month after that.
Even the exhaustion from a long, ship-bound battle that set into Soren's bones like a layer of dust didn't put him to sleep. He knew for a fact he saw color when he met Ike, because there had been a stretch of time where Ike's name and “the blue boy” had been interchangable, especially when he was holing up with the priests at the abbey.
When did Ike see color then? Ike had found his soulmate, if what Mist had told him was true, but that didn't mean it was Soren's. Surely the rules of soulmates were vast and complex. Ike might have been Soren's soulmate (as wild and as thrilling as the thought made him – his heart pounded each time he thought of it that way) but that didn't mean Soren was his. Surely love-triangles were made, complications...
Ike had known color since his father died. He could narrow it down logically. That means it was some one in the Greil mercenaries, or some one Ike met before they started running. The only logical people in their company could be himself (something he didn't entertain thinking like this), Boyd (hopefully not, Ike deserved far better) or Mia (most likely). Aside from those two, it would have to be some one Ike met in passing in a town or some sort. He couldn't feasibly rule out that Ike would just ignore such an important, life-altering event for something stupid, or because of his own stupidity.
He thought about it so often and with such intensity, that Soren found himself reeling when one night, when Ike was sharpening his blade, Soren blurted out: “Do you like Mia?”
Ike froze. Soren froze. He was bright red, suddenly, and rose from where he'd been sitting. The book he'd been considering reading fell from his hands, but he pressed it tightly to his chest. “S-sorry. It just came out. Forget it, I'm going to --”
“Soren?”
Soren froze. He didn't want to stay, but something kept him from going, too.
“I... don't really get what you're asking,” Ike admitted. “I guess I like her well enough? She's a good sparring partner, and we're friends.”
Soren bit his tongue before it could betray him. “Just... wondering,” he lied.
Ike never fell for his lies, but let him go regardless.
– – – – –
Soren took to sketching Ike, because if that really meant Ike was his soulmate, he might as well. He knew he couldn't have Ike, as much as he thought he might want Ike, so drawing Ike meant... He could have several Ikes to himself.
No sketch seemed to be good enough. He drew Ike when he was training, when he was napping. He had pictures of Ike on the ship, leaning against the masts, Ike bent over the railings, Ike looking out the window of their shared quarters in Begnion, Ike napping on the fancy loveseat inside the room, Ike picking flowers in the gardens...
None of them looked right, and even though Soren only used the precious blue to color Ike's hair and eyes, he was running out.
His solution was to stop drawing.
– – – – –
Soren stopped drawing, and he started avoiding Ike. Everything the commander did was worthy of remembering, as far as he could see. If no one would sketch Ike when he was stepping in the snow, wearing his new armor, then what was the point of being there to see it? He spoke to Ike when he had to. No more. No less.
“Boss has been looking for you!”
Mia approached him suddenly, making him jump out of his skin. Soren glared. “Why?”
She just shrugged. “He thinks something's wrong.”
Oh.... Soren frowned. His heart sank. Did he upset Ike uninentionally?
“And he sent you looking for me,” Soren completed. He turned his frown back into a distasteful purse of his lips. That was his talent, in a way, especially now that he wasn't drawing.
“No. I'm just worried about him. Rhys especially – he knows Boss better than me, I think.”
“Wh – Rhys?”
Mia grinned, a light pink dusting her cheekbones and Soren knew it wasn't Mia.
– – – – –
“Mist told me...” Ike started suddenly, just when Soren thought he'd fallen asleep. “...what the colors meant.”
Soren remained as quiet as the grave, hunched over his work. His ears burned at the silence, waiting to hear what it was Ike had to say. He never started conversations without purpose – in that way, he and Soren spoke little, though working together made the silence comfortable, and lent them both the ability to speak without words.
“I didn't think it was weird to see color,” Ike explained. “I don't really remember not seeing them, actually...”
Soren lurched forward, a painfully physical reaction to the fact that Ike had forgotten all he'd done for Soren.
In the dim light from Soren's candle, he could see Ike stretch his hand upward towards the celing of their shared tent. A stretch?
“Soulmates,” he murmured. “It's weird, right? I thought I should remember my soulmate... You can see color too, right? Do you know who yours is?”
Soren stood. His eyes shut tightly, his throat was closing. He bit back a sob. “I-Ike, don't do this...”
“Just tell me who you think it is, Soren,” he said. His voice was so gentle, so caring. He almost pleaded, “Please.”
Soren moved to leave, but it was then that he felt Ike's warm arms around him, pulling him close.
“I thought so...” Ike murmured. His breath was hot against Soren's ear. He shifted, moving to face Ike, to stare up at him, and fixed him with a perplexed, nervous look. “This is okay?” Ike asked.
“Y-yeah...”
Ike smiled. It seemed infinitely brighter than the candlelight. Soren was glad Ike's arms were around him to hold him steady. “But you look like you're about to cry.”
“I-I...”
Ike shifted, only so he could brush his thumb against Soren's cheekbone. Soren leaned into the touch, eyes fluttering close. His body shuddered with a stifled sob.
“I'm sorry I'm so dumb,” Ike said. “I've made you cry...”
“I'm not crying...” he protested. He buried his face into Ike's shoulder. He felt Ike's lips in his hair.
His shoulders shuddered again. “Ike no, you sh-shouldn't...”
“Because you're branded, or because you don't want me to?”
“I'm...”
Ike placed another kiss on the shell of Soren's ear. “I told you,” he whispered. “It doesn't matter to me.”
Soren wanted to protest more. He had a million things at the ready: “You should” or “Every one else does” or “That doesn't mean this is okay”. He said none of them. If he spoke, he was worried he'd just sound more pathetic than he was.
He thought if he cried, Ike would push him away. But he didn't. Ike held him, even though it was cold, and Ike slept in little more than one shirt and pants regardless of the weather (usually less). Ike was warm, though.
“Why...” he choked out, once he felt confident in his ability to speak.
Ike just sighed. It didn't sound upset in any way. Soren held his breath.
“I... should have known,” he said. “When we were kids... I thought... I thought 'Soren is important'. When we first met. I really wanted to be your friend. I should have known it was something else, eventually, but it's taken me this long...”
“I'm not --”
“Don't. Soren. You know you are.”
He looked up at Ike again. It seemed almost as if the world stood still when their eyes met. He searched desperately, but couldn't find anything he was looking for. All that was there, hidden in that perfect blue, was the same kindness and compassion he'd first seen when they were kids. It was the kind of color that would stick with him his entire life... Though it already had.
“Er... Soren?”
Soren shook himself from the haze, refocusing. “Y-yes, Ike? I can...”
“May I kiss you?”
Ike didn't have to ask. Soren would have let him take it – Soren would have let Ike take all of him, in any way. He'd let Ike pull away, say he was just joking, he'd let those perfect blue eyes turn into a gaze of hatred and disgust, and Soren was confident that at the end of all that, he would still love Ike.
He couldn't speak, so he merely nodded. Ike kissed him.
Soren forgot how to breathe against Ike's lips. It seemed as though there was nothing else in that moment but their mouths, touching, and though they were both clumsy, and Ike wasn't sure what to do, clearly, Soren didn't think he'd have preferred anything else.
Pulling away was sweet agony, but it meant Soren could gaze into Ike's eyes again. It used to be his favorite thing, but after the bliss of their lips touching, it had to be knocked down.
Ike was staring too. Soren might have felt like shrinking, but he felt safest in the circle of Ike's arms.
“My favorite color,” he said quietly, voice low. Soren could feel it rumble in Ike's chest – rumble into his own, beat against his heart. “Is red.”
“Wh-why?” Soren asked.
Ike only smiled. “What's yours?”
Soren answered, and his reason was the same as Ike's. “It's blue.”