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It’s been a month since Lucius came to the Imperial Palace, three since he acquired his Resonance and lost the ability to fight.
‘I still can.’ he tells himself, running his fingers over the gilded pistol Varis gifted him for ‘reasons of self preservation’. ‘But I won’t need this. My place is by the Emperor’s side, not on the battlefield. Not anymore.’ Even as he reaffirms his purpose, the soldier in him itches to raise the gun and shoot, the motion ingrained into every muscle in his body. At what, he does not know.
He runs the callused pads of his fingers along the cold steel, idly wondering if Zenos still has his gunblade. When the day came to hear the results of his testing, he’d already made up his decision. Nothing good could possibly have come of his disgusting marksmanship when placed in front of a target he could normally hit blindfolded. Lucius still feels the stringy dregs of aether slipping around his hands, creeping under his skin and slithering along his open eyes. So raw. He shivers at the memory, lowering his head. Not only could he not use the aether he’d been stuffed with – he couldn’t even bear the slightest outside influences without crumbling into a shaking, anguished wreck. A failure, mal Asina had said. Zenos hadn’t said anything at all.
His index finger shifts away from the trigger – when had it even gotten there? It’s so smooth, so warmnow that he’s been holding it. Everything here is warm, from the nest of blankets around him to Varis’s firm embrace. A month he’s been here, and already the Emperor pities him as one would a sick dog.
‘Does Lord Zenos see me thus? Useless, broken – no, he sent me here to serve, not to die. I can still… do something.’ He had offered the Legatus his gunblade as a gesture of respect, knowing it would no longer be of use to him. Zenos had merely looked down, raised a brow, his aethers a mass of something heavy and dark Lucius can’t quite remember. He doesn’t want to. It hurts. ‘Why did he send me away? They could have done more testing. More experiments. Tried to fix it, or change something, anything. Why did he give up so soon?’
It had taken three entire weeks after the process for Lucius to even be capable of walking, let alone in the presence of other people. So sensitive was he to external aetherical influences that the slightest emotional shift of a complete stranger could consume his entire focus, infect his own thoughts with theirs and turn his sharp aim into shaky shambles. ‘Was I not worth the trouble? Mal Asina looked so disappointed… maybe it was he who advised Lord Zenos to cut their losses and… and… what am I even supposed to do here? I can’t protect him, I can’t accurately read anyone with how many people there are here, I can’t…’ The barrel of the gun yawns before him and he wonders if it is loaded. He cannot remember, only Zenos’s face and the heavy storm of his black heart. ‘I only wanted to serve. To do my best. Did they not need me in Ala Mhigo any longer? My cohort… it’s not like we had anything to do, but the men from the XIVth, they… how will they manage without me? The other pilii are so- no, it’s not your problem, he discharged you, don’t think about it…’ Cold metal scdiddles against his forehead, just beside his third eye. His duty is to Garlemald – Varis in particular, to read his desires and act upon them without being told. It is his duty as a Resonant to serve, but why oh why is he not doing this for Zenos?
‘My own Legatus… there is no greater shame. I should be honored to serve His Radiance, but why does it just… why can’t I stop thinking about it?’ The faces come again, as they have every night. Aulus mal Asina’s furrowed brows and clear annoyance no matter how hard Lucius tried to keep his arms up and aim straight. Zenos yae Galvus’s initial curiosity and then growing distaste the longer Lucius failed to meet his standards. He’d only tried for a week before sending the man off to Garlemald’s finest re-education facility, where he had a month to learn the ways of politics, people and court. There’s another face – his own, seen in the reflection of his cell for want of another person to talk to, question, anything when he knew not even himself in the days following the procedure.
His head hurts. The barrel digs in and his third eye stares at it without truly seeing. Why is he holding a gun to his head, when he’s been taught to never do so? What would Gaius say if he knew his most skilled shot couldn’t even stare down an enemy without feeling their fear as his own and collapsing on the spot? If he knew that Lucius was weak? Zenos knew. That’s why he sent him away, pawned him off to his father not to be useful, but to fail again and again until he was shot. That’s why he’s here – he knows this, now, and drops the gun in favor of crushing his hands to the sides of his head, fingers tangled in soft blonde hair.
‘I wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t know. I just… I just wanted to be useful, damn it!’
There’s a knock at the door. Lucius barely has time to react when it swings open and Varis strides in, stern face creased with annoyance. His aethers match in a blazing firestorm that licks at the edges of Lucius’s senses, stinging him like a thousand punitive lashes.
“Did you not hear me calling for you, boy?”
Lucius freezes. He wants to curl into a ball and hide, yet knows fully well that Varis demands his attention and respect and oh hell what will he do if denied? The longer he tries to decide on a course of action, the more Varis grows impatient and begins to tap his foot.
“Batiatus.”
“Yes! Your Radiance.” Lucius snaps his head up then bows, nearly faceplanting into the bed. The blankets around him peel away to reveal his delicate form, black breeches and white shirt awfully crumpled from how scrunched he’s been sitting. He salutes, standing to attention like a soldier before his commanding officer – it’s all he knows to do. Varis’s emotions continue to bite at him yet he does not wince, nor try to calm him down. It is not his place – it is, a voice tells him, and he pays half an ear to it up until the Emperor speaks.
“I have received word of an uprising in Doma and there are several documents that need to be arranged. You are my adjutant, are you not? Do your damned job.” Varis doesn’t even wait for a response before turning on his heel, crimson cloak swishing behind him as he makes haste for somewhere that isn’t here. For this, Lucius is glad – the door swings shut and the blessed aetherproofing consumes him, and he jumps into bed not to shirk his duties but to scream.
‘How could I neglect him thus? I didn’t – what correspondence do I have to- at this hour?! Really?’He’s a soldier, not an administrator or secretary or whatever the hell Varis means to make out of him and his mind whirls with confusion. Inadequacy. Shame. ‘No wonder Lord Zenos–’ There it is again, and he can’t stop it now. The Legatus speaks to him in a form of his own making, berating him over and over again with that cold, detached look on his face and that heaviness in his heart. The emotion clicks, finally, and Lucius whimpers as it hits him.
Disappointment. That’s what Zenos held, and it’s Lucius’s own damn fault. He has failed his Legatus, his people, and himself.
And yet he lives.