Chapter Text
Slaine is stranded in a planet of Martians out for Terran blood, and the only thought that runs through his head is- what’s so great about this aldnoah thing?
Yet here he was, hanging by the threads of his suit, debris littered everywhere, as he stares through half-lidded eyes at a girl no older than he, all because his desperation to appease his father’s acceptance drove him out of the comfort of his home planet.
He coughs, and slips out of consciousness in the arms of a beautiful girl in white.
An angel. He thinks.
The angel he’s fallen for goes by the title Princess Asseylum Vers Allusia, heiress of the Vers Empire. He spends most of his time in her presence, basking in the rooms illuminated by her mere presence.
He walks behind her, in her shadow, and follows after her because a lowly Terran like him can never amount to the high and noble class of the royals.
But the angel is kind, and insists that he walks by her side, taking his hand in hers as they walk down the corridors with linked hands. His heart flutters at the contact, and for the first time in his life he has been granted acceptance by a cherished person.
He smiles warmly and closes his eyes, revelling in the comforting presence of her angelic presence for a while longer.
(Unbeknownst to him, the counts grumble incoherent disagreement under their breath, narrowing their eyes in unfiltered disdain as the two pass by.)
Slaine is thrown back into reality as news of his father’s death spread throughout the planet through hushed whispers and sharp eyes. He supposes that he should have seen this coming, and should have thought better of his choice in migrating here.
But his choice cannot be undone and the counts struggle to find him a place to stay, shifting him around, trying to shrug the burden of him off to other counts. During his shuffle throughout the clans, he became acquainted to quite a few of the guards that accompanied him during his trip to different places.
Eventually he was settled under the care of Count Cruhteo, who appointed him to the servant class.
His time under Cruhteo’s care was cruel, and he barely caught sight of the celestial girl. So like a flower, he withered under the disappearance of his sun, his personality shrinking into himself as the glares of high ranking nobles sink deep into his heart, wrenching every bit of kindness from him.
His father leaves him stranded there, weak with nothing to protect him from the viciousness of the Vers Empire.
His father leaves him for the last time in his life.
Count Cruhteo is a man of nobility, which makes it a constant for him to be strict within his home. Slaine finds out the hard way that Cruhteo is a man of little mercy, and finds himself scarred from the experience.
He winces as he applies the ice pack onto his bruised arm, lines scattered throughout the entirety of his limbs dyed in a light shade of scarlet by the count’s cane.
Cruhteo is a man of nobility, and is given the grace to visit royalty every so often. This provides Slaine a small window of time to visit his sun and recover from his injuries.
They arrive and Asseylum is quickly swept away by a few maids who usher her to a class of hers. The princess shoots him an apologetic smile through the midst of it, and Slaine’s heart melts at the sight of it.
Although he was essentially blocked from his only source of happiness, it just made him more determined to spend time with her, fuelling him with energy with each visit they make.
(Cruhteo narrows his eyes with each time his servant slips away, and makes note to tail him later.)
It’s become a routine for Slaine to never meet the princess, but that’s fine because he grew up acquainted to the silence of loneliness. Still though, he continued to search for the princess, listening for hushed voices and squeaky apologies.
Fortunately for him, he successfully tracked down the princess.
“Princess!” He greeted, his face gradually darkening with a shade of red as he realised that- he didn’t know what to do.
The princess merely giggled and invited him next to her during the lesson, and he hovered behind her, glancing away from the glaring disdain that etched across the tutor’s face. Coincidentally, they had been in the midst of a lesson regarding Earth, and as the lesson unfolded, Slaine noticed a few discrepancies between the Earth he knows, and the Earth illustrated by the tutor.
He points these errors out, irking the tutor further to the point that he gets kicked out of class. He sighs and wanders around, trying to find his place in his mismatched home in the Vers Empire.
They arrive back at Cruhteo’s castle, and Slaine is immediately led away from his routine. He gulps audibly and shakes as the count’s cane echoed against the empty corridor they are led through.
They enter a room and is immediately locked as Slaine enters. He turns around to see Cruhteo’s figure cloaked in the darkness, and he whimpers as the count taps his cane against the floor.
He closes his eyes and submits to the punishment the count saw fit for him, wincing with every contact the cane made against his healing scars.
The count leaves without him, and for the first time since he was taken under Cruhteo’s care, he was forced to carry out his duties as a servant. The maids give him directions to who he was going to serve, and he finds himself meeting a boy no older than he, with bright blond hair and clear blue eyes.
His hair matches the princess’, he thinks bitterly.
The two make pleasantries and Slaine learns that this boy is Klancain, son of Cruhteo and his successor. Slaine introduces himself, but has nothing to add when it came to his life and future. Luckily for him, Klancain has been informed of his presence, and the two sparked a brief friendship.
(Slaine could really care less about the boy. He owed nothing to him and neither did he. The only reason why they were linked was because of the pity the count felt for him.)
They talk vaguely, with each sharing experiences and trading stories without leaking information. It was casual and friendly to an outsider’s eye, however the two carefully tiptoed as they continued this trade.
Slaine escorts the boy to all sorts of places around the castle, and finds himself on more than one occasion to be lost, forcing him to ask for help from the other boy.
They end this charade when Slaine is called aside by the count, and they part ways with a professional smile.
The next time Cruhteo visits the royals, he brings Slaine along at the request of Emperor Regalia. The two were confused as to the emperor’s request, but asked nothing of it.
Instead, they stood in front of said emperor, with Count Cruhteo hovering behind his ward, watching with a keen eye, as the emperor confronted Slaine.
Slaine shook in his boots, the intensity of the emperor’s gaze weighing heavy on him. Cruhteo inwardly sneered at his servant’s pitiful attitude, and a smirk adorned his lips as he waits for the emperor to berate the Terran on his behalf.
Their confusion turns to shock as Emperor Regalia proposes a deal for the Terran, exchanging his knowledge of Earth with the job of the princess’ Terran tutor. Slaine’s eyes glisten with unshed tears, and he accepts the proposal with a soaring heart.
(Unbeknownst to him, Count Cruhteo stands fuming behind him. Angry that his servant gained such bounties from the emperor.)
Slaine spends his days in bliss, happy to be appointed as Asseylum’s tutor and to spend more than a few hours with her to himself, gushing to her about his home country. It is the only time that he’s glad to be the only Terran stranded in the Martian planet, and it’s the only time he finds himself grateful to have followed his father in his obsession of aldnoah.
He teaches her of the geography, economy and inner workings of the Terran community. His patriotism shone as he explains the different kingdoms of life, watching as her face glowed in fascination of all the birds and flowers that she has been deprived of on Vers.
(He hopes to bring her to Earth one day. He wants to see how her beauty shines against beautiful Mother Nature.)
She asks him questions- questions he doesn’t know the answer to- and he chokes up an excuse and goes back to Cruhteo’s castle with newfound determination to scour for the princess’ answer. He takes to his father’s lab and locks himself up in his room, busy cramming information to relay back to the princess.
He definitely doesn’t lock himself up because his chest hurts or anything. It’s probably just the after effects of Count Cruhteo’s beating.
With each moment he spends with the princess, he finds himself drawn closer and closer to her light. He knows that she is the sun while he is a mere moth, cursed to forever roam the earth in search of the source of such great light. He hopes that one day he’ll be worthy of becoming her Icarus, to be worthy to travel the closest to her light.
(And melt, dooming himself to a disastrous death. Whatever, anything to earn her attention is worth his life.)
He spends his days cooped up in his father’s lab, and finds himself fascinated by the medical books his father researched, and memorises them as best as he can to recite back to the princess. The princess smiles as he shares his information, but he notices that her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, and discards his current findings and opts to read books on the fauna instead.
He presents his information and her eyes light up. He’s pleased with himself and begins to research more fauna related topics. Eventually he grows sick of learning useless information of the animal kingdom, and instead focuses more flora- ignoring his need to read the herbal benefits of the flowers he looks up.
He’s fascinated by the beauty of flowers, and is astounded when he finds out the meaning behind each one. He takes in the information with a stride, and they share their excitement over the beautiful array of flowers on Earth. He points out their different colours, meanings and their names, translating them from the common Latin to their current tongue.
Asseylum then shows interest in the languages on Earth, and gushes about how different each are. He smiles slyly and conjures a sentence in his mother-tongue.
“Jeg elsker deg.”
Her face beams, and his insides shrivel up at the intensity his sun shines. She asks him what he said, what language he said it in, and how he knew it. He explains calmly, eager to sate her excitement and curiosity, explaining how he was of Norwegian descent, before his father took to the skies and travelled around for quite a while, before he took to space. He explains this all with a smile gracing his lips.
He doesn’t tell her what he said. He isn’t allowed to.
He leaves the castle giddy and excited for their next visit.
He takes to his father’s notes and reads the medical information his brain has craved. He sits under the comfort of his blanket in his makeshift tent, reading the worn notebook, before he is disrupted by the knock on the door.
He rolls off the bed and opens the door to meet Klancain, who has blankets and pillows in his hands.
“Sleepover.” He says and Slaine permits him to enter the room.
He doesn’t have the right to deny the count’s son after all.
They set up their fortress of blankets supported by Slaine’s bedframe and a chair. They lay down a blanket and some pillows, before they settled in with another blanket thrown over them.
Slaine sits up and continues reading his father’s notes, currently reading a peculiar disease that sounds quite like fantasy that he doesn’t know what to make of it. Klancain turns around from his spot from their makeshift sleeping bag, and stares at the book that Slaine’s enraptured in, narrowing his eyes to make out the title of the book.
(Jokes on him, his father doesn’t write titles on the cover on his notebooks. He laughs internally.)
“What are you reading?” Klancain gives in to his curiosity.
“A book.” He answers, his eyes never leaving the crude handwriting of his father’s. “My father’s notebook.”
The heir hums. “What’s it about?”
“Diseases.” He smiles. “But this one sounds so stupid, I can’t believe it’s real.”
“Why?” Klancain sits up, causing the blanket to wrinkle as it falls from his chest. He shifts closer to Slaine, attempting to gain a better view on what the other was reading. “I can’t read it.”
“It’s in Russian.” Slaine shrugs. “I’ll translate for you.”
Klancain waits eagerly as Slaine strings together a coherent sentence.
“The Hanahaki Disease is a fatal disease that causes the victim to cough up flower petals.” He explains.
Klancain is momentarily confused, his head tilting slightly to the side with an eyebrow slightly raised. “What’s a flower petal?”
Slaine waves him off, dismissing the detail as minor, and continues reading. “The victim suffers because of a one-sided love that’s so strong, that the heart grows roots around the lungs, causing the victim to either suffocate because of the roots, or because of the petals.”
Klancain deadpans, still not knowing what the hell a petal is, but remains silent. “Is there any treatment?”
Slaine narrows his eyes, staring intently at his father’s handwriting. “Uh, you can get surgery- but that’ll remove your feelings for the person.” He provided. “Ooh! Or you can get over them and vomit the whole plant out.”
Both boys shivered at the thought of vomiting a solid out, and gagged at the thought of loving someone so much that you can die. “Hah! Only idiots get this disease.”
Slaine smiles. “Yeah.”
He’s an idiot, he concludes as he stares at the small, yellow petals that he easily identified as agrimony flowers.
Agrimony- thankfulness.
He smiles bittersweetly as he clenches his fist and crushes the petals under his feet, hoping to rid it’s existence. He breathes and his chest feels funny. There’s something tickling against his lungs, and he guesses that it’s the vines of the agrimony, and berates himself.
He wonders for a moment whether surgery is worth his life, and smothers the thought- the mere thought of the princess was a blessing. He should be grateful that he’s even allowed to feel such sin for her.
He coughs and soon the itchiness of his throat goes away- for now.