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We are nothing but our instincts, and I can feel you wanting more, and I grow weary of the thinking that this love could leave me broken at the core…
One
The night around them is warm and quiet, silent but for the hush of soft breathing and silken sheets over bare skin. Around them, Dai’chi sleeps; even the bustle of the palace is muted at this hour.
“So,” Say’ri finally murmurs, her voice hanging in the air. “‘Tis been a year.”
“Well,” Inigo points out, “It’s been a bit more than that.” His words are mumbled against the back of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine that he is probably near enough to feel. “More like two, really. And a bit. Unless you’ve forgotten that part. Which would rather offend me.”
Say’ri shakes her head and blows out a sigh. “I meant,” she says, “‘tis been a year as far as the people are concerned that we’ve been wed.”
“Ah,” Inigo says. “I’ll give you that. Not sure how much of a difference it makes, but I’ll give you that.”
She pauses, weighing the words that have been sitting on the tip of her tongue for months now. “A year is a long time,” she finally settles on.
He hums thoughtfully. “I suppose,” he finally says. “Maybe not on the grand scheme of our entire lives together, but… considering the odds, yeah, I’d say it’s an achievement.” He shifts; presses a kiss to the point of her shoulder, and she nearly succumbs to the urge to fall back into his tender affections rather than pushing the issue.
Ultimately, though, her own discipline does not allow it. “A year is a long time for a country to have no line of succession.”
Inigo tenses behind her, his warmth withdrawing the slightest bit. “I suppose,” he repeats, though this time his voice is strangled.
She hates to press, but the worry has been gnawing at her, the whispers of her court and council added to her own circling thoughts. “One would imagine,” she begins, “that after a year… the people would expect me to at least be carrying an heir by now.” She draws in a breath. “And yet I am not.”
“I know,” Inigo says, his tone still guarded. “Or, well, I at least made an educated guess, since I rather assumed you would’ve told me if you were—” He breaks off and clears his throat. “Anyway.”
Say’ri shifts, disentangling herself from his grasp so as to turn and face him. There is a glint of some wariness in his eyes that she cannot quite read even for its plainness. “I have not touched the teas nor the charms since our second wedding, you know that, and yet…” She trails off, then repeats once more, “A year is a long time.”
“Is it really, though?” Inigo deflects. “I mean, Aunt Lissa had been married for, like, three years before she had Owain-slash-Tristan.”
Say’ri quirks a brow at him. “The other half of that equation was Lon’qu,” she says deadpan.
He makes a face. “Okay, fair point, but I also did not need that mental image,” he says, plastering a hand to his forehead as he rolls onto his back. “Thanks a lot.”
A chuckle rises and dies in her throat before making it out her lips.
“Well… I mean…” He pauses, waffles, and finally continues on. “That doesn’t necessarily mean… I mean… that there’s something…?” It takes him another moment to spit out something coherent. “Maybe we’re just not ready yet?”
“If conception took into account the readiness of both parties involved,” Say’ri says dryly, “I imagine there would be a great deal fewer problems in the world.”
He hesitates again, making eye contact with only the wooden beams that cross their ceiling. “Are you that worried?” he whispers.
“Worried is a strong word. But concerned, mayhap.” She props her head in her hand, then adds dryly, “‘Tis certainly not from lack of effort.”
To her surprise, he smirks at that—she still has him in that brief window after such acts where the talk of it doesn’t leave him a reddened, flustered mess. “No. Definitely not.” He finally looks to her again, turning back on his side to snake his arm around her waist once more. “But if you really are… concerned… we could always… try a little harder.”
She tries to chuckle only to have it catch on his lips. “Mm,” she manages, just barely, and his mouth is grinning against hers. “You’re insatiable,” she finally murmurs when he pulls back with a soft pop.
“And you’re very beautiful,” Inigo replies, so utterly sincere it never quite fails to take her breath away. “And I adore you.”
Say’ri flushes a little at that; he takes the chance to dip his head and press his lips to her collarbone.
“Please don’t fret, my love,” he murmurs. “There’s enough in the world we have to worry about besides that.”
“You’re likely right,” she says. Then, “I hope you’re right. Mayhap just a little more time.”
“And a little more effort.”
“As if you would be complaining about such efforts— oh, Inigo—”
He laughs, the sound quiet and dark and entirely too coherent, and Say’ri thinks that maybe a year isn’t very long after all.
~~~
Two
It is a year to the day before the subject comes up again.
Not that she hasn’t thought about it since. She has.
She has thought of it a great deal more of late, actually, as the days tick on into spring and the quiet, murmured comments begin to pick up in their frequency, falling on her ears like the cherry blossoms scattering on the ground. Two years, they come, some merely questioning and some downright suspicious.
Perhaps she has forgotten her duty, some whisper.
Perhaps the bastard prince finds his entertainment elsewhere, others sneer.
And she tries to let it roll off her—because there will always be comments, because she knows that despite his amorous facade that Inigo is not the type to stray, because how could she forget that she has no heir?
She hadn’t been one to have a certain regular cycle, not since the Valm War had reached Chon’sin in earnest—the stress had rendered it too long or too short, too heavy and too painful during her days with the Resistance and later the Ylissean League, only to depart from her entirely for nearly half a year as her body struggled valiantly to recover from her near death at Castle Valm. At least then she had known for truth she was not with child—gods knew Inigo had practically had to be convinced to touch her on the night they’d eloped, for Naga’s sake, and that had been six months in the future then—but now, when a month has passed and a second seems to be following in its wake, some lurch in her heart tells her to pray that perhaps this weight, at least, could be lifted from her shoulders.
Hard to say, the healers had told Say’ri when she’d asked. Hard to say when she was at most two months along, when she had no other symptoms. Had she been queasy, or lightheaded, it might’ve been easier to guess, though impossible to tell for sure, of course, until she felt the child quicken… or until her cycle resumed without such interferences.
So she’d kept quiet. Hadn’t wanted to let on to Inigo with so many uncertainties roiling in the air. She debates about tonight, wonders if the news might best be broken on what could be counted as anniversary number two or as three and a bit. He’s plainly picked up on something being off, judging by the querying look he’d been sending her periodically over dinner.
“I’ll be up in a moment,” Say’ri says, doing her best to ignore both Inigo’s continuing gaze and Soot Gremlin’s puzzled chirp from the corner as she disentangles her legs from the kotatsu and rises a little too quickly in the wake of their meal.
“Okay,” Inigo says, still hesitantly suspicious, and maybe she should just tell him now, give him the time to adjust.
She makes for the bathhouse, for one moment of privacy, and thinks perhaps she should. For her sanity, at the very least.
And one lone, unmistakable streak of red brings it all crashing down on her.
It cracks her open, leaves her heart dropping out through the floor. No, she thinks, because it has been two years, two years, and for the first time in those two years she is finally forced to confront the fact that her people need an heir and it seems, terrifyingly, that perhaps she cannot give them one.
She leans against the sink for so long she’s certain the edge of the counter has left marks on her hands—too scared to leave yet too numb to cry—and tries to make herself think. If only she still had Yen’fay, if only their father hadn’t been an only child, if only she had some other recourse rather than being the last living member of Valm’s proudest dynasty.
She doesn’t know how long it is until the door unlatches with a soft click—can only wonder just how long she kept her husband waiting for her. “Darling?” he murmurs, and she ducks her head to keep from meeting his gaze in the mirror. “What’s the matter?”
“‘Tis nothing.”
“It’s very obviously not nothing,” Inigo says, pausing at her back for a moment before easing his arms around her waist. Say’ri flinches, having to fight down the momentary urge to wrest even his gentle grip from her belly, too aware of the hollowness that had settled there. “C’mon. I promise I can refrain myself from snide comments. Or make lots of them, if you’d find that more helpful.”
Say’ri shakes her head, repeating, “‘Tis nothing. My bleeding started, is all.”
“Ah,” Inigo says, unfazed, and she momentarily thanks the universe for giving him a sister who had clearly tolerated none of the typical male squeamishness about such matters. “Not sure how much the snide remarks would help on that one, but I can offer tea. Or extra snuggles.” He noses slightly at the corner of her jaw, then adds in a conspiratorial tone, “Mochi?” When she doesn’t respond, he sighs. “No mochi, huh? Is it a bad one already?”
There’s a faint ache building, but she shakes her head again. “I’ll be fine. I was merely under the mistaken impression that it would have been taking its leave for the next few months.”
She realizes a moment too late just what she’s said when Inigo stills his absent nuzzling, his arms tightening slightly. “What do you mean?”
Say’ri cannot quite bring herself to answer, the explanation catching on the sudden lump in her throat.
Then, so softly she doubts she would have heard if he hadn’t still been so near her ears, he murmurs, “Did you think you were pregnant?”
She manages a nod, at least.
Just as quietly, Inigo clarifies, “But you’re not?”
“Nay.” That, at least, comes out steady and level, with monumental effort.
“Ah,” he whispers, withdrawing the slightest bit. She hears him swallow before he speaks again. “You didn’t say.”
“I wasn’t sure,” she admitted. “‘Twas very early yet. And I—” Her voice catches. “‘Twas not as though my suspicions were correct, anyway.”
He clears his throat, stepping back and letting his arms fall from her. “Well,” he says, his tone so plainly cheerful only by sheer force of will. “Sometimes these things take time.”
“They ought not take two years, Inigo!”
The outburst escapes before she can put a stop to it, and when Say’ri finally lifts her head to look in the mirror she finds Inigo’s eyes reflected wide. “I mean,” he says, “it does seem to be a little on the lengthy side, but—”
“But?” she asks, turning back to him. “What reason have we to have not had a child in two years, Inigo? There ought not to be, not at our age, not when we’ve made no attempt to prevent it, it ought not be this difficult!”
“Say’ri,” Inigo whispers, lifting his arms slightly in a placating gesture. Then, softly, “I don’t know. I don’t know, all right? I didn’t…” He shrugs. “I didn’t know you were that worried about it.”
“I need an heir, Inigo,” she says. “Chon’sin has no line of succession and if something were to happen to me—you might rule in my stead for a time, but I know not if they would even accept you, and even they did it would put you in no better of a position than I am—‘tis my duty to secure a legacy for the future as much as it is for me to rule in the present, and if I cannot do that then I—”
“Say’ri,” Inigo interjects again. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay. It’ll come in due time. Please don’t cry, my love.”
She has scarcely noticed her vision blurring until his last sentence and she forces herself to inhale, exhale, push down the lump in her throat. “And what if it does not?” she whispers. Chaos, bloodshed, gods forbid a coup, pressure from the inside and the outside that would drag Chon’sin down the path it had taken in a dead timeline only just a few years delayed— “What if there comes a point when we realize that I cannot bear a child?”
“Then we’ll figure something out,” he says, stepping forward to rest his hands on her shoulders. “Just like we always do. We’ll figure something out.”
She only lasts a moment more before she sinks against him, too late to keep her eyes from overflowing into his shirt, and she aches— aches not just for her country and for the future, but aches to gaze at a child that is half her and half Inigo, aches to know if she’d be looking into a face that bears her eyes or his, aches to discover where the exalted Brand of his birthright would paint itself.
Two years suddenly feels like a very long time.
~~~
Two and a half
And, too quickly and too slowly by half, spring gives way to summer and autumn and a winter on a different continent entirely.
“Hey now,” Inigo says, directing a somewhat miffed glare at the bright-eyed toddler in front of him. “I got to her first.”
Say’ri rolls her eyes, kneeling down to accept the somewhat scrunched flower being offered to her. “Inigo. He’s two.”
“I’ll have you know I was very charming at two,” Inigo grumbles, watching as Azur continues to give Say’ri a scrutinizing gaze. There’s an odd look in Inigo’s face that isn’t hard to place—Say’ri can only imagine how uncanny it must be to see the toddler version of one’s self that one had come back in time to save. Azur had scarcely been one the last time Chon’sin’s monarchs had made it out to Ylisstol—now, at nearly two and a half, he was clearly in the throes of developing an independent personality, though only time would tell how closely it would mirror Inigo’s own.
“Oh, hush,” she chides, reaching to smooth a hand down the boy’s back. “He’s not but a babe as of yet. He’s yet to learn such mannerisms. Thank you, Azur.”
“My love,” Inigo whines. “You can’t go cuddling another version of me.”
She rolls her eyes, but Azur apparently objects to the idea as well, and quickly goes scrambling back to the safety of his mother’s skirts. Olivia lets out a delicate laugh, settling said skirts as she takes a seat in the parlor. “And what do we say when someone tells us thank you?” the queen prompts.
Azur stares at her, then back at Say’ri, then quickly shakes his head and tucks himself against Olivia’s knee.
“Clearly your younger self doesn’t believe in the sacred call of dibs either,” Owain says pointedly as the ever-branching line of the Ylissean royal family continues to file in. The winter holidays of 1018 proved to be the first time since Grima’s demise that the entire contingent had been in the same country, no less the same room, and yet they spread across the parlor with quiet ease. Without the comprehension of just how they were related, children fit together without a care from the younger Lucina, through Lysander, Ophelia, Tristan, and Azur, with just the elder Lucina and Gerome’s younger son Adrian still too small to join in on their festivities. Only Azur had so far escaped going to bed at the current moment, apparently with the excuse of offering said flower.
Inigo rolls his eyes as he settles himself, seemingly debating the merits of sending his cousin a particularly rude gesture in a room that contained both of their mothers. “Well he’s certainly not gonna learn it from you, dear cousin,” he finally decides.
“No, but clearly not you either,” Owain retorts. He sits to himself, away from the fire, and there is something quietly off about the picture that really only registers when Chrom drops beside Olivia, when Lucina draws her knees into Gerome’s lap, when Lon’qu remains standing behind Lissa’s chair but rests his hands just so to leave his knuckles brushing her shoulders. Not for the first time, Say’ri finds herself glancing over her shoulder in search of Robin only to be rudely reminded that her old friend was not to be joining them.
“Azur,” comes a soft call from the hallway. The voice belongs to a woman of perhaps Say’ri’s age who she knows to be the family’s nanny, a cheerful blonde who was plainly heavy with child herself.
“Go on, then,” Olivia urges as Azur gives her another wary look. “Sweet dreams for my sweet boy.”
Azur finally nods, pausing to briefly wrap himself around Chrom’s knee with a mumbled “G’night Daddy,” before scampering out the door.
“He’s quite a dear, isn’t he?” Lucina sighs once the boy and his nanny are both out of sight.
“Nothing like his older counterpart,” Owain sniffs, then lets out a yelp as Inigo leans over to flick the back of his head. “Oi!”
“Fie,” Say’ri echoes, sending Inigo a glare for his jostling her only to find herself immediately disarmed by a too-charming grin.
“Sorry,” says Inigo, with a light in his eyes that says he isn’t sorry at all. “Couldn’t go neglecting my duties.”
“And what duties would those be?” Owain grumbled.
“My duties of attempting to keep you in the same plane of existence as the rest of us,” Inigo replies, then heaves a great sigh. “It’s a demanding and thankless task.”
“Now, boys,” Chrom says in the stern tone of a father and an Exalt both. “Behave yourselves.”
“I am behaving,” Owain sulks. “Yell at Inigo.”
Inigo only grins again at that, flippantly crossing one ankle over his knee and draping an arm across the back of the couch to draw in Say’ri.
“Sometimes,” says Lon’qu, “I wonder if it is the elder or the younger child which is harder to manage.”
“Father, I am both an adult and a parent myself,” Owain retorts. “I hardly need managing!”
Gerome mutters something that sounds remarkably like “Highly debatable.” Say’ri feels Inigo just bury a snicker in his chest.
“Still,” Olivia says with a wistful sigh, “there’s just something about them when they’re little.”
“I think Tristan was quieter as a baby,” Lissa says dryly. “And he was not a quiet baby.”
Lon’qu snorts quietly at that; Owain looks as if he wants to add his own input and then wisely thinks better.
“So,” Lissa continues. “When’s my brother going to start getting grandkids from your side, hm?”
It’s only when the absent circling of Inigo’s fingertips on her shoulder comes to an abrupt stop that Say’ri fully realizes who Lissa is addressing.
“When, ah—” Inigo begins, and Say’ri can all but feel him floundering for some sort of response. Her own throat tightens, refusing her the ability to offer him any aid. “Well, I mean… when the timing’s a bit…”
“I’m surprised you’re not being pressed for an heir, really,” Lissa says.
We are, Say’ri thinks, again without being able to voice it.
“...That’s right,” Chrom says, his voice thoughtful. “Who is next in line for the throne?”
Mutely, Say’ri shakes her head.
“There sort of… isn’t,” Inigo answers, and despite his hesitance, the plain way his emotion reflected hers, his words still feel like a knife to her breast.
“Oh,” Chrom says in a tone of concern.
“Well, you better get on that,” Lissa says with an airy laugh and a wave of her hand.
“Mother,” Owain cuts in, a little too sharply—and of course he knew, Say’ri thought. He knew Inigo far too well for an issue of this enormity to have been kept secret.
But she still can’t breathe at the casual manner, at the innocent press of questions. “Excuse me,” she says softly, rising to her feet and struggling to keep her gait even as she moves to the door.
If anyone realizes she’s fleeing, no one says. All she hears before she makes it out of earshot is Owain’s once again offended “Mother,” and Lissa’s baffled “What?”
She strides down the hall, pausing just long enough to unlock the door to her and Inigo’s bedroom before passing through that, too, only stopping when she reaches their balcony. The air is too cold, but she can’t bring herself to return inside for a coat, just stands and breathes in the chill.
Inigo finds her, eventually—just long enough for her to think he said his goodnights for both of them and came to join her. “I’m sorry,” he offers as he moves to stand beside her.
“‘Tis not your fault,” Say’ri answers, letting her gaze roam over Ylisstol’s starlit grounds.
A very long moment passes, dragging out so far she thinks he will content himself to stand in silence with her. “It might be,” he finally says in an agonized whisper. In the moment it takes her to catch up with what he’s implying, he presses on. “I mean… it takes two, doesn’t it?”
“Inigo,” she says, his name catching in her throat. Then, hastily, “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” he admits. “A little.” Then, with a smile so false she can hear it without looking, “It’s your line they’re worried about, anyway.”
“Fie, but it doesn’t,” she snaps, turning to face him. Just what does he think he’s suggesting, anyway? That she takes some other man into her bed in hopes of conceiving? It frankly sounds like an idea her grand council would suggest, and the thought sickens her. “I married you, Inigo.”
“And plenty of people thought that was a mistake from the beginning,” he replies sardonically, before his tone drops into something softer. “I’m sorry. It’s only… I just…” He shakes his head. “What are we going to do?”
“I’ll speak to the healers again once we’re back home,” Say’ri offers. “Mayhap they…”
She trails off, unable to quite finish, while Inigo sets his elbows on the railing and leans forward to bury his head in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, this time his voice hoarse with unshed tears. “I wish that I… I just wish we—” He breaks off. “I don’t even think I realized—just how much I wanted—”
She slips her arm around his shoulders, and a beat later he straightens to pull her properly against him.
Neither one of them speaks again.
And for the first time in two and a half years, she thinks neither one of them knows what to say.
~~~
Three
The fourth anniversary of their first wedding passes without note.
The third anniversary of their second wedding passes alone.
Say’ri knew the moment Inigo began to recount his odd encounter that had started with ‘Please save my people’ that he would leave. She didn’t question it for a moment. She knew him too well for that. He was the Exalt of his own time and it had never ceased to weigh on him—he could not and would not refuse such a call for help, no matter how odd it had been.
The only thing she questioned was her own decision not to join him.
She stands on the balcony outside their room, gazing at the moon that was waxing fuller by the day but still wasn’t quite there yet. Inigo would be due at Lucina and Gerome’s home in Rosanne any day now—she wonders if he’s arrived yet, wonders how long the letter saying he has will take to make it back to her.
She wonders how long it will take him to come home.
With idle, childish fancy, she lets herself imagine his reaction if he were to come home to find her round with child. She knows he won’t, but the idea is comforting and agonizing all at once. After this long, she wonders, is there any hope at all?
Say’ri hates to admit she doesn’t know.
The healers have said unlikely. They have not said impossible.
She lifts her head to the night sky and hopes, and thinks that at the very least she and Inigo still stand under the same moon.
What she doesn’t know is that Inigo is about to become Laslow, and that Nohr’s moon is not quite the same as Chon’sin’s, and both of their futures are about to take a turn sharper than either could have expected.