Work Text:
The days bleed together like soldiers do, arm in arm, open wounds stitched together into a ceaseless march. His vision blurs, always, into a messy picture of red: knights’ capes, fire, serpents, blood. Everything in this place, this empty once-home, collapses into the same violence. The same monotonous suffering.
It is by the grace of gold alone that he does not succumb to it, and to the darkness that follows.
Today is like any other in recent memory. He waits. His serpents nudge him and each other, their noses finding his ring, his cape, his hair, his helm. They twist and flap their wings and ask silent questions he cannot bear to answer.
They look at Mother, her form rendered in stone.
He closes his eyes at the mere thought of her, holding his gold-ringed hand to his chest. Mother . The word alone blesses him with an ever-expanding, aching pit of tenderness. He remembers –
“I do not ask thee for this service, Messmer,” she tells him, fists at her side. She’s repeated the words for months now, a prayer. He frowns, holding his helm on his hip. “Thou are under no order to return. If thy wish is to stay in Leyndell, then I beg thee, stay.”
“Mother,” he says. “Is it not your own wish to enact vengeance upon those who scorned you? Your – our – family?”
“Thou knowest well what I wish.”
His serpents reach out to her on instinct, and he follows them as bravely as any knight. He reaches his hand out to her. It only takes her a moment to place hers within his.
“You slew giants and their gods to ease the curse that plagues me,” he reminds her, gently, piously. “May I not do the same for you, as your son? As the only son who understands, truly, the land from which we both hail?”
Marika raises her chin, fixing him with stern gold eyes. For a moment, he thinks she may deny him this, even after the endless months of planning, the endless troops trained and sacrifices made. He would obey her even then – to the end of the earth and beyond it, for her word is the only word he knows, and her will is the only will he follows.
Her expression cracks open when one of his serpents nudges her arm. A bare sunbeam of a smile, a ray of light from the Erdtree itself. She reaches her free hand up and hooks his neck, pulling his head down to hers until their foreheads press together.
“My son,” she murmurs. “My firstborn. Thou will return to me.”
He traces the intertwined gold patterns on his ring, the same patterns her sigil bears on his banners. She slips it onto his finger, covering it with her hand once more. It is a vow more sacred than any of her marriages, bonded by life and death alike. He grips the sides of his throne and rises, overcome with longing.
“Mother,” he mutters. “I believe you.”
He turns and faces her, the one untouched portrait of her divinity that remains. She stares down at him forever more, watching over this pool of red he has submersed himself in, for her, for her, always for her. He feels it even now – the phantom hand she used to cradle his head, the one that touched his cheek and brushed away his frightened tears, the one that implanted her grace in his skull.
Once they were attached at the hip, young together, growing together. Her firstborn. The one who knew the Lands of Shadow and the village of the spirited-away shamans.
Marika hums while she does her sewing, patching up a small rip in one of his robes. Her braid waterfalls over her muscled shoulders and hangs like a branch of the Erdtree, casting a golden glow over the village. Messmer sits at her feet, content for now to rest.
“Mother,” he says softly. One of the serpents lays its head on her knee, and another wraps around her waist, careful to avoid the needle in her hand. “I know that we must leave, but… will we ever return here?”
“Messmer,” she says in turn, gentle, joking. He tilts his head up at her. Young as he is, he still knows her well enough to see the pain concealed behind such a tone, such an expression. He knows that the wounds linger, passed from her body into his, another tie between them. “What can these haunted grounds offer to thee that the new lands cannot? We will be safe there. Protected.”
“I know,” he says, looking down at his fingers, the claws that sharpen his very being into a weapon. “But I like it here. With you. I want it to be safe, too.”
He feels Marika’s movements cease. He grimaces.
“Have I said something wrong?” he asks.
“Never,” she says, barely a breath between their words. “Never. I share thy dream, child. But we must both be patient, and cherish our time together.”
His lip quivers against his will, a thread cut loose and left to unravel. His hands hang limply at his sides.
“I believe you,” he repeats. “You would not hurt me this way. You would not – forsake this bond. This oath.”
Marika stands with her hands on her hips, breathing in deeply. She has spent the late morning cutting firewood for them, her axe now firmly implanted in the tree stump before her. He watches her flexing muscles with awe, the sweat dripping down her temple with wonder.
He can scarcely believe there is anything in the world more worthy of his worship.
“Mama,” he says, making his way over to her through the flowers. He seeks to give her a gift, to show her his appreciation for this, for all of it. He holds his makeshift bouquet in his fist, without her strength and grace. Yet she looks towards him and smiles as though he, too, is an object of worship. “For you.”
He holds the flowers out to her. Her eyes crease with appreciation.
“Oh, little Messmer,” she murmurs. She leans down, taking the flowers with nimble fingers. “How beautiful. My thanks to thee, my heart.”
He smothers a smile of his own, exceedingly pleased. Before he can speak, she scoops him up into her arms, and he squeaks in surprise. His serpents curl around her, and he leans into her chest on instinct, always, always needing to be closer. He giggles with delight when she kisses his cheek.
“My son,” she says, pressing their foreheads together. “I swear to thee, we will shape this world together.”
“Yes,” he says quietly. Reverently. “Always, Mama. I always want to help you.”
She sighs softly. Her hands hold him tightly, as though afraid to let him go.
“With all of my heart,” she says, “I love thee.”
He reaches one hand out, placing it on the base of the statue.
“With all of my heart, Mother,” he says, “I love you.”