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Cor is ten years old when he meets him.
He is far too young for the Crownsguard, but that doesn't stop him from pestering his mother about it. The youngest one might join the initial training is thirteen, far from Cor's age, but he persists and persists and finally, his mother contacts the captain of the CG and asks if she might bring her son in to at least meet him, to watch a training session or two and pick up some pamphlets. He agrees - after all, there are whispers of unrest in the land and the more people interested in the military, the better. Lucis has never had any concerns over child soldiers.
Clarus is not yet head of the Crownsguard then. He is only a low-ranking officer. He probably should have been a drill sergeant, but he is too soft-spoken, and being an Amiticia, he was given the option to skip ranks. He'd refused, causing much confusion and alarm; nobody knows what to make of the future Shield of the King being content in a low rank, and he is constantly deferred to regardless of his official position.
While everyone else in the Crownsguard eyes Cor with raised eyebrows and poorly concealed snorts of laughter, Clarus studies him intently for a long moment before offering his hand. "Honored to meet you," he'd said in that soft voice of his. "Welcome to the Crownsguard. If you like, I can add your name to the roster and in three years, if you are still interested, come back here."
Cor stared at that hand for a few seconds before gingerly reaching forward, grasping it so tightly he is nearly trembling. Because while Clarus is offering him the world, he is also offering him comradery. He is viewing him on his level, not as a silly child. He is not patronizing him, not mocking him. He is treating him as his equal, and that is more than Cor could ever have asked for from a decorated soldier, from a man twice his age and from a man who, when he meets Cor's eyes and smiles, changes his world forever.
Because before that moment, it had never occurred to Cor that love beyond that which one has for their mother existed.
-
Cor is fifteen years old when the war breaks out.
He fights beside the prince, a great honor offered to him because Clarus swore by him. Because Clarus told the king how strong Cor was, how brave, how relentless and how cunning and how careful he was. He told the king that Cor was nearly invincible, that he somehow managed to crawl through every battle unscathed, as if the Astrals had smiled down upon him. And it was true. Because in training, Cor has long been untouchable. He is alarmingly fast for his size, as even at fifteen he has grown tall, bulky over the shoulders, and he is relentless. He hits and he hits until all but Clarus are forced to back down.
But Cor stands there silently, looking at the floor as is expected of such a low-ranking soldier. He stands there and he quietly disagrees with Cor. He is not invincible because the Astrals have smiled down upon him. He is invincible because Clarus Amiticia has smiled upon him.
But whatever it is, it is enough, and the one hundred and twelfth king of Lucis hesitantly agrees, saying that he expects Cor to stay by Clarus' side, by his side, because he will not allow for such a young man to find himself alone on the battlefield. And Cor’s heart leaps into his throat, his feelings for but a moment finding their way to air, and he murmurs out a thank you, Your Majesty in gratitude as he drops to his knees, lowers himself so much that his forehead grazes the stones of the palace floor.
As he returns to the barracks to begin polishing his blades, he notices that Clarus remains behind, that he whispers something to the king and the two of them turn away. It’s nearly an hour later when Clarus roughly catches his arm and tells him to write to his mother.
“Why should I worry her?” His voice trembles faintly as he thinks of her, alone out there in Duscae, one of the few survivors of the plague. He sends her money every month and he devours her cheerful letters. They speak of sadness and desolation, but also hope, as she has been teaching herself the skills of midwifery, and she has done much for their small village. She might not be a warrior as her son is, might not be able to ward off the demons at the gates, but she can protect life in other ways.
“I’m not asking you to tell her you are going to war. Send for her. I know you are her only child. She will want for nothing here in Insomnia, and if anything happens to you, we shall see that she is well cared for.”
The suggestion makes Cor drop to his knees again, thanking Clarus profusely even as he knows that she will refuse the offer.
And refuse it she does, for a couple of weeks later, her reply arrives. A polite decline, a show of gratitude towards the king who thought of her, and what’s more, a command that Cor be protected. The king had summoned Cor that day, had read the letter aloud to him and laughed softly at it.
In battle, it is not only Clarus who stays beside him, but Prince Regis himself.
In the last five years, Cor has learned that there is not only the love one has for his mother, not only the love one has for his comrades, but also the love one has for his king.
-
Cor is twenty years old when he walks through the Tempering Grounds unscathed by the sword of Gilgamesh. He walks through unscathed, because he emerges from the cave with empty hands, his blade stolen from him. Gilgamesh remains behind, less one hand. He had fought with a surety and a resilience that made the immortal monster bow before him, demanding to know his secret. And Cor had stayed silent, unsure of what to tell him.
Because it is no secret that Clarus Amiticia, now head of the Crownsguard and Shield of the King, has trained him. Even immortal ghosts who exist beyond time, in an ever-shifting realm of sadness deep within the channels of the earth, must know who rules the land of Lucis, and who stands at his right side. So Cor stays silent, until he finally sighs and turns to leave, leaving behind the blade he had defeated the monster with.
Clarus is waiting for him, stony-faced and filled with rage and anguish. The doors had been closed to him, though it was clear he had tried to enter, fresh chips of stone and the scent of elemancy lingering in the air. He had tried to enter and been unable to, and thus had waited in a silent hope that his student would emerge. And Cor almost feels guilty for frightening him.
Until Clarus grabs his shoulders, startling him out of the apology on his lips. He touches his face, his eyebrows, his jawline, and he leans forward and kisses his forehead. And Cor takes a deep breath, suddenly more fearful and uncertain than he had in the caves when death was at hand as Clarus murmurs, "I thought I'd lost you. Why would you do such a thing?"
I did it for you. I did it to prove myself to you. I did it because I am unable to bare my heart to the world, and so I must carry it in my blade. I did it to show you how much I love you, adore you, how much I want to remain by your side as your equal forever. Because I cannot be your beloved, and so this is all I have to offer you.
But he says none of that, of course. He only shrugs. "I wanted the challenge."
"You're an idiot," Clarus breathes out. "Please tell me you did not do this to impress me. I am impressed enough."
Are you though?
But Cor cannot speak. He doesn’t say another word as Clarus leads him down the path to the waiting car, drives in silence back to Insomnia, to high walls and lit corridors and all that Cor was certain he would lose forever only a few hours before. He is almost happy in that moment, when he steps into the palace to tell the king what he has done, the press of Clarus’ lips on his forehead enough to make him smile as he drops to his knees and speaks of his battle, as the King laughs softly and tells him that he is happy his gift to Cor so long ago has aided him, even if he lost if in the caves, and that he will consider a promotion for him. But it is a short-lived happiness.
Because that night Clarus tells him, gently, softly, that he is engaged to be married.
And Cor only nods. He does not speak.
For a man whose name means heart, the vein that runs from one's heart to their mouth is mysteriously absent.
-
Cor is twenty-five years old when Clarus first kisses him.
He watches Gladiolus, the progeny of the man he has no words for. He is only three, but already tall and wide, hopelessly cheerful with his thick wavy hair and long eyelashes. Right now he is sitting on the floor, flipping aimlessly through a pile of books and occasionally yelling out a phrase that he remembers. Cor likes being around him, but he is also afraid of him.
And Clarus, standing in the doorway, reminds him why as he suddenly says, “You’re good with him. Have you thought about starting a family?”
Cor tilts his head and stares out the window. There is no way to answer this question without tearing something asunder, so he merely shakes his head.
“Is there no one you like?”
Something in the question gives Cor pause, because it is probing, tentative. It does not have the air of a casual question a friend asks someone. It is something else. “I don’t have time for it. I’ve devoted my life to the Crownsguard.”
Clarus sighs and shifts his weight, leans back against the wall now. He doesn’t take his eyes off his son as he speaks. “The King wants your loyalty, not your soul. Your life is more than that of a soldier, Cor.” There is a pause then, a pause so long that Cor risks a glance at him just as he goes on, “I still think about it. When you went to the Tempering Grounds. That was stupid.”
I can’t follow this thread of conversation. But he can. He simply can’t acknowledge it. “I survived.”
“You do a lot of stupid things.”
“I’m immortal.” He doesn’t mean it. He’d always scorned the name, always snapped at younger soldiers who acted as if they were such. Cor was, in fact, quite cautious, but right now he desperately wants this conversation to evaporate as if it never were. He’s afraid of what he might say, afraid of the tenuous relationship between his love life and Clarus’ concern for him.
“Don’t make light of it,” he snaps then, his voice low and stern.
He sweeps from the room then, leaving Cor behind to clean up his son’s mess, to pick the child up and carry him off to where his mother waits for him. His mother.
Cor thinks it is over. When he feels the softness of a woman’s hands brush over his as she takes the baby from him and laughs at how he pulls her hair, he believes that it is over. Because she is Clarus’ wife and they love one another deeply, and there is no more to be said in that story. Cor can live with it. He’d accepted it long ago.
Or so he thought. Because later that evening there is a knock on the door of his private room in the barracks and he knows it is Clarus. Nobody but the Shield knocks. Locks do not exist in the barracks, and everyone regularly intrudes on everyone else’s business.
“I meant what I said earlier. I thought I’d lost you, for certain. It’s been five years and still it weighs on me. I thought I’d condemned you, mocked the Astrals’ wishes when I proposed to Acanthus.”
Cor jerks his head up now, not quite looking at Clarus yet but at the wall beside him. No, no, do not juxtapose us. I know you mean nothing by it.
“My role as your teacher wasn’t finished. I shouldn’t have moved on to the next stage of my life so quickly, because the very next day you went and proved to me that you were still a stupid child.”
“You should drop it,” he says then, surprising himself with his boldness, his audacity to challenge the Shield of the King. But he’s suddenly angry, angry that Clarus would continually intrude on his life, hint that there could have been something more between then when Cor knows such a wish is impossible. The older man can’t possibly know what lies in Cor’s heart. He does not speak of it.
But he must know his own. Because suddenly he is in front of Cor, hands cupping the younger man’s face as he studies him, and Cor frantically averts his eyes, presses his own palms to Clarus’ chest and prepares to push him away.
He doesn’t.
And when Clarus finally draws back, when Cor feels that heat abandoning him, the older man whispers, “You shall be the Crownsguard Marshal. I can not be Shield and Marshal both. Stop acting like an idiot, please.”
Cor still can not follow this conversation, so tightly wound is his heart, but he knows now that he must learn the love of a leader.
-
Cor is thirty years old when Iris, the second, is born. She comes eight years after Gladiolus, the heir, the son.
Cor has seen little of Clarus in the last few years, the kiss weighing too heavily on his mind to want to be near him. Because every time he is near Clarus, he remembers the warmth of his lips, the strength of his arms. He remembers the longing inherent in his gaze, the love simmering through his veins. He cannot control what he feels, and so he believes it is best to retreat, to hide away. Because he is afraid of what might come of this.
Because he is afraid of what might not come of this.
He almost doesn't open the letter that finds him by courier. He is far off in Duscae; it has been seven months since he was last in Insomnia. He’d been in the small Crownsguard brigade sent to Galahd to offer aid. A brigade far too small for Cor’s liking, but even as a Marshal, he had little say in the matter.
When the letter arrives, he is hunting demons on the farthest reaches of the lands, protecting the borders and training a small army of hunters. Lucis' first border patrol. It had been Cor's idea, gladly approved of by King Regis. Because Regis's wall protects those inside Insomnia, but not those without, and the unrest had been growing since the fall of Galahd. Why should only those rich enough, those with enough connections, to live within Insomnia be protected, while the rest of the citizens of Lucis be at risk of the demon plague now scourging the land?
Cor was not born in Insomnia. His mother does not live there. He knows what it is like to be poor, to live forty kilometers from the nearest store, to have to take a bus two hours to school. He knows what it's like to feel forgotten, abandoned, kingless. He knows what it's like to be afraid. And so he approaches the king and asks him if he might build up a border patrol to protect those out in the land.
Clarus had cornered him the night before he left, asking him if he was sure of what he was doing, warning him that it was dangerous, and would it not be better to take a few men with him?
No, Cor had said, more firmly than he'd intended. No. I know the ways of these people. I need to approach them alone.
Clarus had been angry, and when Cor left, the man had not said a word to him.
Clarus' wife had named Gladio; it was up to him to name the daughter, but he hadn't. Instead Clarus had written a letter to Cor, and he'd asked him. Would you like to name her? I'm afraid that anything I come up with would be too embarrassing for her to live with when she is a teenager.
Cor hadn't answered with words. He'd returned an envelope absent of letters, with only a pressed flower between the walls.
Iris. Name her Iris.
And so Cor learns what it is to love as a father.
-
Cor is thirty-five years old when he and Clarus make their mistake.
It is a night of no significance, a winter night when Cor, the Shield, and a half dozen of the Crownsguard are sitting around a fire chatting. Complaining, because most of them are parents by now, and that is exactly what they are doing when King Regis shows up with several bottles of wine.
And Cor sits silently, knocking back drink after drink as he listens to the rest laugh about the children in their lives. The Prince, Noctis, now out of his wheelchair for good and wreaking havoc wherever he goes. The King’s adopted son, the petulant Ignis Scientia who regularly demands to be invited to Council meetings despite being twelve. Gladiolus, already __ centimeters, heavy and solid and frighteningly powerful, but still a child at heart. Quick to anger and distraction. And Iris, sweet Iris, who has spent more time riding Cor’s shoulders than she has walking.
Iris, who will never know the love of a mother, for hers died when she was only six months old.
Clarus had written to Cor when it had happened, another letter finding its way to him weeks after being written, and Cor had written his condolences with care. How to comfort a man lamenting the loss of a wife whom he loved in all ways but the way a husband must love a wife? He’d written that letter, and then he had stayed away for another three years, only emerging in the capital to report to the King now and again.
He’d finally returned for good at thirty-four, and in the year since his return, Clarus had never mentioned her. Their relationship had grown distant in their years apart, after all, and they had little to talk about beyond politics.
Until now.
Because as the evening winds down, as one after another drop off to slink to their beds and suffer a hangover in the morning, Cor finds himself alone with Clarus Amiticia.
Maybe we will speak of this, Cor thinks, and his chest tightens anxiously. Until Clarus opens his mouth, and the conversation continues as if the room had been full again.
Children. “I worry about the Prince. The King doesn’t quite know what to do with him either. He’s always asking my advice, as if Gladiolus is a good example. The King fears that Noctis does not have what it takes to rule, that he simply does not care to be the next in line. I fear the same for Gladio.”
“Gladiolus has what it takes. He just needs to accept it,” Cor tilts the last wine bottle to and fro, frowning at its emptiness. He can outdrink anyone and everyone. “You need to pamper the side of him that enjoys stories just as much as swords, though.”
Clarus snorts and sighs, stretches his legs out before him. “I worry for him, and I worry for the Prince. Regis thinks Gladio can be his role model but…”
“He has a retainer,” Cor shrugs. “Isn’t that enough?”
“What do you think of Ignis?”
The Scientias hovered in a strange realm, nowhere near as powerful as the Amiticias, forever indebted to the King, but somehow regal in everything they did. There were whispers of intermarriage with people from other lands in past generations, and Cor can see it in Ignis, in the delicate slant of his eyes. Ignis was a firecracker, cunning and vicious and uncomfortably forward. “Unbearable.”
Clarus laughs then, leans over and elbows Cor. “He is, isn’t he? Remember when he pretended to be thirteen?” He'd tried to push his way into the Crownsguard at the tender age of eleven, attempting to lie about his age. Impressive in itself, considering the fact that everyone in the palace knew him. “Little bastard, I was surprised he didn’t set my bed on fire in revenge when I kicked him out.”
“He is like me, you realize? I was only ten.”
“Yes, yes I do. And you make me think of setting fire to beds as well.”
Cor jumps at this, startled by the idiocy of such a comment just as much as he is startled by the implication. He glances at him once, then twice, unsure if the implication he suspects exists is there at all. Twenty-two years of military experience has rendered him immune to most sexual innuendos; he’d long ago stopped being impressed at the number of euphemisms his soldiers could invent. “Was that…? How much did you drink?” he finally sighs.
"It had to come out eventually, and neither one of us are very good with this sort of thing.” He hesitates then, takes a deep breath. “Would you?"
“Didn’t you tell me some decades ago to not behave like an idiot?”
“Probably, but you didn’t tell me not to.” He tilts his head towards the door then and smiles. “I don’t think we have drunk so much that we can’t find our way to my quarters.”
And Cor uncovers the heart of a lover.
-
Cor is forty years old when he decides he can never speak of it again, when the formation of his heart shifts and closes over an old wound. Because the fate of the world is greater than any one man’s heart, so Cor tells himself, and one night Clarus summons the Marshal to the war planning room and warily pushes a few shogi pieces across the board. He looks tired, his skin pale and fragile; he has aged just as Regis has, well before his years.
“Another war is coming.”
“I know,” Cor mutters as he rearranges the shogi pieces and makes his first move.
“This one… this one will be different. Niflheim is planning something.” And so is Lucis, though he doesn’t say it. “The King says that the Crystal has been…erratic recently. He says that the ground within the palace is unsteady, that the throne burns him some nights.”
“Impossible.” But there is no heart behind it, because they both know this to be true. Something in the very fabric of the universe has changed. Nobody speaks of it, but everyone can sense something different in the air, a growing coldness in the sunlight. The Scourge. Cor had heard stories of the man King Regis had faced so many years ago now, the man who is not a man.
“I will stay by Regis no matter what.” He doesn’t call him the king, only Regis. His beloved friend, his brother-in-arms, and Cor understands.
“I know.”
“Take care of my son. He is lonely and uncertain.”
“I will, I will.”
“Start by teaching him how to properly wield a thinner blade. He puts too much force behind his movements and he can be too easily unbalanced. Teach him to dance, to fence.”
“You were always horrible at that,” Cor cracks a grin then. “I’ll teach him, and I’ll teach him well.”
“He lacks confidence, too. Work with him on that. He doesn’t believe me, for I am only his father,” he says this with a faint air of irritation, as if the boy’s hesitation over his fate grates on him.
“He’s seventeen.”
“You fought in a war at fifteen,” Clarus says then, his voice unexpectedly sharp. “He grew up in peacetime. I do not want him to be unprepared for the coming storm. But I… I do not have the time to be a proper father to him right now, nor Iris. Ever since Acanthus died… If only I had a brother.”
The words hurt as they crawl out of him. “You have me.”
Clarus glances at him then, brown eyes wide for but a moment. There is anguish there that Cor refuses to consider. “So that is what you would be, then? My brother?”
“Yes.”
And Cor learns how vast his heart is, that he can learn to love as a brother.
-
Cor is forty-five years old when he buries him.
Cor is not in Insomnia when it falls. Clarus has ordered the Crownsguard out of the palace, many of them even out of the city, declaring that the Kingsglaive would protect the King in these trying times. The Crownsguard exists for the people, and Cor, as Marshal, has no choice but to obey. He’d been furious, storming out of the War Planning room all but shaking in rage.
But Clarus had caught him before he left, had grabbed his arm and pulled him aside in the hallway. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I could not do and say.
And Cor knew then, in that moment, that Clarus was saving his life, that in the next twenty-four hours he would lose his home, his king, his beloved, and he alone would survive because he is the Immortal. This enrages him, and he tears himself from the Shield’s grasp, snarling in disgust and fury as he steps away.
“Every one of us in the Guard would die for our King in the space between heartbeats. And you send us away, choosing to let the King face his doom alone.”
“He is not alone. I am here.”
“You know Niflheim does not come in peace, and you would send us away still? For what purpose?”
“Protect the people, Marshal Leonis,” he says tiredly to a man who is no longer Cor but only the Marshal. “This war, this time… It will not be a war. It is something else, something that both Lucis and Niflheim will lose in.”
“Don’t be a fool,” he snarls. “We have fought them back before.”
“We cannot fight the Astrals. We can only persist, and you, the Immortal. Who better to lead the survivors?”
“Coward.”
“You do not know what the King has seen,” Clarus turned on him then, eyes narrow in fury, and he seems larger than he has ever been. “There is no winning this. It is grander than a clash of nations. Niflheim does not know what a weapon it has; the Emperor does not know that he has unleashed a monster who has altered the fate of the entire world. The Night is coming, and all must come to ruin.
“Leave. You must survive, just as the Prince must. There will come a time soon, too soon, when the people beyond these walls will seek a leader and you must rise to that occasion.”
And so Cor leaves. He leaves in silence and fury, those words still coiling through his veins, unable to free themselves from the pain in his heart.
He leaves, and he watches the downfall of Insomnia from afar.
There is nothing to bury, not properly. Cor knows this even before the dust settles. The city will be occupied, and even if it isn’t, the destruction is so vast that there is no easy way for a mortal to get to the palace. Because he knows Clarus is dead, knows that if the King is dead, then so too is the Shield.
He is dead amongst those ruins and Cor had never told him the only thing that ever mattered.
All Cor has is the pocketknife Clarus had given him, the badge of the Marshal that had been passed down. There is little enough to bury, but still he tries, and he winds his way to the Tempering Grounds that night, thankful for the emptiness of the highways, for the tears blur his vision.
The Tempering Grounds, where Clarus had first hinted at his affection, where Cor had first realized that he did not know how to be honest with himself.
For a man whose name means heart, he was remarkably detached from his own.
The words finally, finally, after three and a half decades, find their way to the surface seventeen hours too late, and Cor Leonis finally reveals his heart.