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Emperor Solus zos Galvus does not immediately notice anything wrong: his thoughts are dark and drifting, roaming through future possibilities and past grievances, and as the morning began with clinging fog and dismal rain he is more than content to stew in his own memories. He’d been assisted into his cumbersome regalia shortly after dawn - or when dawn should have occurred had the sun seen fit to overpower the damned clouds - and broke his fast on simple fruit and eggs. Not long ago he would have devoured entire platters of hearty meats and breads, but this body is nearing its end. Simple foods, for simple days, for an anything-but-simple mind.
Distracted as he is by an erratic heartbeat and weakening muscles Solus doesn’t wonder why his servant’s hand shakes as she serves him, or why his guards look over their shoulders as they escort him to his audience chamber, or why the silence seems stretched and fragile, like spiders' webs beneath a gale. It isn’t until he’s alone on his throne that he recognizes the signs for what they are.
Zenos has returned.
There is no time to wonder why his great-grandson is here in the capital; his chamber doors slam open before he can even begin to prepare. Solus lowers his chin to stare down the whelp approaching him, knowing his golden eyes will convey his rage even as he knows this heir will not care.
Insolence echoes with every footstep; malice and boredom measure equally in the face that approaches the dias. The boy rests one hand on the blade at his side, a foreign contraption he’d favoured ever since Varis found him that damn tutor, and though his armour is fit to rival Solus’s own in craftsmanship and ostentatiousness the cloth is marred by battle.
“Great-grandfather,” the boy - no, the young man says, apathy lacing his tone as pale eyes scan Solus from head to toe. “I bring greetings from the east.”
Solus narrows his eyes. Of late he’s taken to twirling the tip of his navel-length beard round his finger, but he manages to withstand the temptation and keep his spotted hands curled over his armrests. Any sign of weakness or simplicity would be suicidal in the company of this young warrior; though Solus cannot soundly attribute any war crimes to Zenos yae Galvus he does not believe the man above a touch of regicide. Nay, the whelp has little conscience to stay his hand - or the troops under his command - but his strange apathy yet holds him in check insofar as his family is concerned. Damned in negotiations and blessed when it keeps him shackled at home, his inability to care for politics and the men who play them has gifted young Zenos with zero aspirations beyond bloodshed.
“Is the blood on your breastplate Doman or have you discovered new sport for your games?”
The whelp doesn’t even glance down to confirm it; he shifts his weight to one foot and tilts his head to the side. “Does it matter what beast found itself butchered upon my blade? It is dead, whatever it was, and it offered little enough sport to bother remembering it.”
Unsettling and more than a touch barbaric. Solus doesn’t bother hiding his disgust, allowing his lip to curl as he watches the man in front of him. How had his line dwindled to this simple-minded creature? How had this perversion descended from his own flesh and blood? Varis, the boy’s father, has never shown such proclivities; the boy’s mother had been as unremarkable as her life was short. Whether this penchant for violence is innate or nurtured Solus refuses to attribute any part of it to his own person: Zenos’s brutal nature is not a result of Solus’s line, but a natural regression of these lesser life forms to their base instincts.
“Why are you here?”
“I made a request of my father,” Zenos says. His milky skin barely moves as he speaks; there is no changing of expression even at Solus’s abrupt question. “He saw fit to deny me. I ask that you overrule him.”
“You obeyed him?” Solus arches an eyebrow, but decides against antagonizing him any further. “Name your request.”
Zenos tilts his head back and lets his eyelids droop. The look in his pale blue eyes is indecent: a sedated hunger that verges on lust. “Give me Kaien.”
Solus sits back in his chair, tapping his long fingers against his armrest. Unexpected, yes, but evidently not a random request. “The Doman Viceroy is not to be fed to my dogs.”
The whelp doesn’t blink. “The Doman Viceroy is aiding the Liberation Front under my father’s nose. Give him to me and I will destroy every branch on their pathetic tree - I will uproot the trunk and scour the ground for seedlings.” He raises his arms as his voice grows louder. “I will salt the fields and drain the rivers. I will annihilate their warriors and make mockery of their heroes. Their villages will be ash by the time I am through!” He stares wide-eyed at the ceiling as his voice suddenly drops to a whisper. “Oh, for the taste of it -”
“No.”
Pale blue eyes slide to meet gold. “You allow this traitor to live?”
“I allow many traitors to live. Every man is a tool, and I am loath to part from my tools until I see them used to their full capabilities.”
“Ah.” Zenos drops his arms. “And what purpose is Lord Kaien yet to serve?”
Solus bares his teeth. “A crushing one.”
That answer does nothing for his great-grandson’s patience. “And after we’ve wrung all use from him? What then?”
Solus knows the boy’s eagerness is not out of duty for his homeland or fervour for their cause but his own misguided and warped desire to be challenged. He allows his gaze to linger on the katana at Zenos’s hip. Kaien’s prowess with a blade is legendary even in Garlemald; is it a weakness, perhaps, to be drawn to such a battle for no reason other than the fight itself? Or is it a calling that could be utilized and honed, conditioned and trained?
Every tool with its purpose…
“Mayhap I can put you to use,” Solus says, his low voice rumbling across the audience chamber. He claps his withered hands together as he leans forward. “When the time comes - and no earlier - the Viceroy shall be yours.”
“How long am I to wait?” Though the tone is bored, the hunger in the boy’s eyes gives away his eagerness.
“Not long.” No, not long at all if these strange flutters in his chest are anything to judge by. The body fails, as bodies are wont to do, and Solus is not of a mind to prevent it. “I expect you’ll recognize the opportunity when it presents itself.”
“And the Liberation Front? Will he not continue to bolster it?”
“Of course! He will strengthen it, nurturing this chance at salvation for his people, and when the time is right…” Solus smiles. “What do you do to ripe fruit?”
The whelp’s eyes narrow. “You feast upon it.”
“Consider Doma a ripening persimmon. You could pluck it now, but should you muster a small amount of patience the harvest shall be ever sweeter.”
Zenos’s face is again a mask, unreadable and cold, but the hostility - that strange, savage lust - is muted. His bow is slow and follows protocol perfectly, though his pale eyes never leave Solus’s. “I shall return to Doma on the morrow. I expect my father will be wondering where I have taken myself to.”
Solus ignores the implication - that the boy traveled here without permission from his commanding officer - because he knows Zenos mentioned it only to aggravate him. Solus hates that he should be forced to use base mortal instruments such as this, but sometimes it is not about using the best tool, but the only tool. That this particular tool is a descendant of Solus's own bloodline makes it no easier to bare; it is harder, somehow, as it means recognizing that no amount of effort on his part will slow these mortals' regression to the mean. Deadly as this descendant may be, he is no more intelligent than his father, and his father's father before him. Solus jerks his chin in the direction of the door and watches the boy, though his mind thinks of other Galvus men, of grandsons and sons, and if he has a moment of regret it is only that: fleeting, flickering, gone.
Zenos makes it halfway to the exit before stopping; he turns his head until his chin is parallel to his shoulder. “I expect I shall see you again at the coronation?”
Solus hunches into his chair, his lip curling into a snarl at the thought of that farce. His advisors had organized it as a means of forcing him to make his choice, but the date they chose is weeks away. There is still time enough to take care of his affairs without forcing his hand. “No. I don’t expect you shall.”
The boy’s forehead furrows at that, but he leaves without further comment; only the slow, steady jangle of his armour echoing with every step accompanies him out. The heavy doors close behind him with a boom that echoes around the audience chamber.
Solus is alone.
He raises withered hands before his eyes, noticing the tremors, the spots, the yellowing nails. His advisors are growing anxious, his generals tense: every day this body grows weaker; slower; more decrepit; every day ushers in a higher probability that it will be his last and yet -
The drones demand an heir apparent. The people clamour for the answer to that most-improbable, most-important, most-infuriating of questions: who will command the Garlean Empire when its founding father is finished? Varis, or Titus? Who, who, who?
He grimaces. A few more days of this pathetic charade, a few more audiences for his latest play, and then he shall pull down the curtain for good. All he needs are the last nails for his coffin and then - finally - he shall rest.
A bright mask suddenly eclipses his snowy beard and third eye, its red glow obscuring most of his face. Solus cannot stop his thoughts from jumping the rift, bridging infinity as they race towards the one place he can find comfort in this godsforsaken world -
Soon, Solus will die - and then he can finally return home.