Work Text:
1. Mother’s Mirror
Men were the only thing on Griffith’s mother’s mind.
Those who paid her, and those who didn’t. Those who brought her presents, and those who reeked of piss, sweat and wine. And one a lot more than the others.
That one.
He would come and he would go: once he had been out of town for several years. He had plenty of women; he had never once been sober. He would hit Griffith’s mother and would stare at him and his sister when she wasn’t there to see.
His sister used to say their house never really felt like home when he was around.
To Griffith, their house never really felt like home at all.
Between his mother’s dresses and his sister’s dolls, there was nothing there for him to call his. Not even that hand mirror, the only gift his late—alleged—father, the youngest, good-for-nothing son of a certain baron, had deemed worthless enough to give.
While Griffith's paternity was disputed, there was no doubt who his sister’s father was. She had his face.
Griffith had their mother’s. Even that wasn’t entirely his.
When he wasn’t on the streets, Griffith was hiding up on his mother’s rooftop, far above everyone and everything. Here were his soldiers, a whole army made of junk. His moon and his endless, starlit sky. His city and his castle, the seat of royal power, to which the rooftop just happened to offer the best view.
Griffith could spend hours gazing at its lights. At times he would take it by siege; at times he would dance in its halls. Not that he knew how to dance back then, of course, or how to wield a sword.
He had learned these things in time. These and many more. Some of them weren't as useful.
For one, the way the bastard’s chapped lips could make the flesh of his neck go numb, and, for another, just how powerless he’d feel when—
The night it happened, the city slept below, dark and indifferent. The sky was far away, the castle even further. Griffith’s soldiers abandoned him, turning back into junk. His mother—
As expected, his mother couldn’t bring herself to care.
***
Griffith didn’t take after her in anything but his looks.
Although, perhaps, as he thought now, gazing through the campfire—and Casca—it had simply been a matter of his mother being a woman, a woman in love.
It was, after all, their nature to put the man first—and to find excuses for whatever he did.
Around the campfire, his Hawks were laughing, fed and merry, enjoying the short-lasting peace Griffith had bought.
The scratches on his arms would take a while to heal. He had been worrying them all day long.
2. A Boy with a Sword
The new recruit, Guts, had warm hazel eyes and hands that looked boyishly large.
Someday he’ll be taller than me.
For some reason, Griffith liked the idea a whole lot more than he probably should.
***
He was no stranger to being desired. By quite a few nobles and soldiers. By Casca. He felt it; he smelled it; he had never been proven wrong.
When it came to Guts, though, Griffith suddenly found himself at a loss.
And yet—
Griffith noticed Guts staring and averted his gaze, stifling a stubborn smile in a goblet of wine.
He was being unreasonable here, he knew.
With so many people dependent on him and so many willing to have him, why should he even care if Guts wanted him too?
***
Bedding him wouldn’t be the most terrible of ideas, Griffith decided as he tiptoed out of his tent, wearing nothing but a shirt in late November.
His mother had always said—he'd never asked yet never failed to listen—that men tended to lose their appeal the moment they took off their pants. Apparently, that had never been true for her one and only, but—
Still, it was definitely worth a shot. Besides, what did Griffith have to lose? Guts was his: he wouldn’t betray him, wouldn’t hurt him. His loyal soldier, his—what did Casca call him again?—very own mad dog.
The Hawks were asleep; the camp had fallen silent. Guts lay on his back, hugging his sword.
He didn’t recognize Griffith right away.
That day nothing happened—apart from a punch in the face and a very clumsy apology—but if the way Guts hungrily gawked at him, shaking all over, was any indication, Griffith could now be certain: Guts would sooner or later come to him on his own.
If not today, then tomorrow. In a month. In a year.
***
Guts never came.
***
It turned out Griffith could see the castle of his Dream almost as clearly from the depths of the dungeon as he had from his mother’s roof—though, admittedly, not much remained of it now that so many years had passed.
The roof had caved in, the towers had collapsed, and the only thing that greeted Griffith in its dark, empty windows was a certain familiar shadow that disappeared if he looked at it too long.
A shadow with an oversized sword and a feather in its wide-brimmed hat.
3. Mother’s Pride
A wound on Griffith’s arm—the one on his right wrist—had opened up. By now he was so used to pain he hadn’t even noticed.
Guts did.
He sat down behind his back—which was honestly just as well, out of sight, out of mind—and took Griffith’s hand in his, hot and big. Had it always been so big? Or had Guts just grown even more?
Griffith stared at his own fingers, thin and limp.
Something was terribly wrong here.
There was no way this was his hand. There was no way he was in pain. He’d held a sword in that very hand—how would he ever again manage to fight?
How would he ever again lead a dance? Pen a letter? Cup Guts’ face?
Why would he even want to, though.
Guts brought him nothing but despair and pain. Had left him once, and no doubt would leave him again.
Griffith should have just killed him when he had a chance. Right on that green, distant hill.
***
Up until he was five or six, Griffith was, for some reason, quite convinced he would go live with the baron very soon. He would tell it to his soldiers, to his playmates—a flock of boys he would later lead to their deaths—and to his mother, who would only scoff and tell him to mend his clothes or sweep the floor.
It wasn't until much later that Griffith came to realize she'd had the same idea all along.
His—alleged—grandsire had a number of sons, but no heir. A few had died very young, including Griffith's father, and the ones who'd lived to marry had only given him granddaughters. It was common knowledge that the baron was greatly displeased.
And so Griffith’s mother had hoped and pleaded and cried, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
If the boy bore any resemblance to our noble breed, the baron had said when he finally granted her an audience, I might have considered taking him in as a squire. As it stands, this house has no need of a boy with the face of a whore.
What else he had said or done to her, no one would ever know—but afterwards, Griffith’s mother never spoke of the baron again, except when she was deep in her cups.
***
Griffith had always known that at some point he would have to leave. He wasn’t exactly needed; he wasn’t exactly wanted. There would be no one and nothing to miss from this home that never really felt like home.
He had a Dream to fulfil, and the older he got, the more beautiful—and the more inevitable—it seemed.
Griffith was no fool. He was well aware the Dream would cost him a lot: both figuratively and literally. The problem was, he didn’t have any money.
Unless—
Again and again had he asked his mother if he could perhaps have his father's heirloom, the hand mirror, since she wasn’t using it and wasn’t planning to.
The baron had berries on his coat of arms; the artisans had made them look almost real. Griffith wanted to show them to the boys. Griffith believed the mirror was his because it used to belong to his father.
His mother, of course, always said no.
It was a sensible thing to do, given how rare and precious the thing was, especially for a common family such as theirs—but in truth, the answer would have been the same even if Griffith had asked for a toy soldier.
He wasn’t opposed to taking things by force even back then. Too bad for him, his sister ratted him out straight away.
Griffith hadn’t been able to locate the mirror ever since. He wondered if perhaps his mother had sold it.
As it turned out, she hadn’t.
Not yet.
***
One day, his mother’s man—the bastard—fell ill.
Whether he had had too much to drink, or some old injury from his days as a mercenary had finally caught up with him, would always remain a mystery.
It did not really matter.
One moment he seemed to be fine, boasting of where he had been and who he had fucked, and the other he was on the floor, whimpering in his own piss, and could neither get up nor speak, no matter what Griffith’s mother tried.
She went to the doctors: they only depleted her meager savings. She went to a witch instead, but the price she was given was so high there was no way she would ever be able to afford it.
Unless—
***
Griffith's mother returned from her city trip, hands empty, face ashen. They had nearly arrested her for theft when she tried to sell her mirror, she said. They had taken it away, she wailed.
One bottle of wine followed another.
She drank; she cried; she talked and talked, lamenting the day she had met Griffith’s father and the day he was born—as though she really believed he had anything to do with the situation she was in. The bastard's illness. The city guard. The laws of Midland.
If only, Griffith mused.
She only quieted down when the moon was out, deep in the night.
His hand on the Behelit, Griffith sat in the corner while his mother sobbed across the room. She was clutching the bastard’s shirt as he lay there, drooling, out cold. Griffith’s sister—who was supposed to be asleep—was peeking from behind the door, scared and pale.
It seemed as if the night would never end; it seemed his mother had lost herself in grief completely.
Then she looked up.
“He must be hungry,” she said at last, her voice devoid of feeling, her eyes dark. “Feed him. Prove to me that you aren’t useless." She gave him a meaningful look. "Make sure he doesn’t choke.”
***
The bastard did.
***
After the funeral, Griffith’s mother spared him neither a word nor even a single glance. In fact, she was scarcely around, as if she could not stand the sight of him now that the deed was done.
After all, Griffith had killed a man with his bare hands. His first man. His mother’s man.
In her peaceful home, he, no doubt, stood out like a sore thumb.
He didn't have to bear with it, though. He could just leave.
***
There was an unexpected weight to Griffith’s bag when he headed out at dawn to meet up with the boys at the city gate.
He stopped to check it.
The house was quiet. His mother was asleep in bed, as far as he could tell—but then again, she might have only been pretending.
The curtains fluttered in the wind. The sunlight made her hair look golden, her face serene.
There was a pouch in his bag. A pouch full of silver coins.
In the end, Griffith could only bring himself to take half. For…his sister’s sake, of course.
***
It was one of his boys who informed him his mother had been seen entering the baron’s townhouse the night before.
That would certainly explain the money.
The old man had just come down to the capital for a tourney organized in honor of the Princess’ nameday: Griffith’s mother had been in luck.
Though, she herself surely wished he had arrived sooner. Had the baron been there on that faithful day, she might have actually managed to pay the witch and—
But she hates him, Griffith suddenly thought. That was certainly true, but if she wanted to get something out of the mirror she had already lost, she'd had no choice but to visit the baron. To do… whatever she had done to get so handsomely paid.
Why?
Was it her parting gift? His mother must have guessed that Griffith planned to leave and welcomed the idea. A too-late acknowledgement the mirror should have been his? A token of gratitude that she wouldn’t have to spend days, months, years with a cripple?
Whatever had been on her mind, it couldn’t—hadn’t—actually been Griffith. Just like always.
And yet—
The boys were chattering around him. About swords and battles. About knights and glory.
The Dream was calling. His hands were begging to be put to use. He had a longing in his heart: for places unseen, for roads untraveled.
And yet—
Griffith stopped in his tracks, looking back. They hadn’t yet gone too far: he could still see the towers of the king’s castle in the distance, but—if only for a brief, fleeting moment—he found it wasn’t only his Dream they reminded him of, but also the rooftop he used to watch them from. And the home he had just left.
Maybe he should have woken his mother up to say goodbye, Griffith thought.
He marched on.
***
Could this have been how Guts had felt, too? How Griffith himself had made him feel? That he hadn’t been welcome; that he hadn’t belonged. That there was no place for him in Griffith's castle… in Griffith's Dream.
It was impossible. It was just an excuse. He had to have known.
Griffith’s wrist was still burning with the warmth of Guts’ touch. The shadows were rustling in the flaps of the wagon, whispering, creeping closer.
Casca spoke. Guts replied.
His future and his past stood before Griffith’s eyes: the bastard’s red face as he had struggled for breath; the broken toy knight; Casca’s too-gentle hands.
Guts’ gaze and Guts’ smile. The future memory of the distant, lost Guts.
Who—no matter what Casca was saying—deserved no excuses. Who—no matter what fight he had won—didn’t have any right to leave. Not then, not now, not ever.
Because—
The shadows ghosted over Griffith’s bandaged, torn skin, soothing, caressing, reminding him of his losses and victories, of sacrifices and dreams. That he had been born for a reason. That he hadn’t left home for nothing. That he didn’t suffer in vain. That, just like his mother, he could still free himself from this longing, from this futile hope. From this man.
Griffith looked up from his makeshift bed, and, though Windham wasn’t anywhere close, he saw a castle—his Castle, same as the royal one and yet not—imposing, restored to its former glory, calling for him just like before.
And then, while he had already forgotten how to walk, Griffith ran.