Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The wind blew slowly, carrying few dead leaves from the garden’s plantations. At one of the garden’s corners, a woman walked, her braided hair waved slightly as her steps brought her to a white table located at the garden’s centre, where a young adolescent sat, completely engrossed by the papers that he brought along with him.

“Mahmut Pasha, here’s some refreshment.” She said to her guest as she put the said refreshments−a pot of coffee and a plate of rod-shaped pretzel−to the remaining space on the table.”What do you think of the reports? Or should I bring more?”

“Ah, I’m sorry Miss Cassandra, I got completely absorbed in the financial reports that I didn’t notice your presence at all.” The young general smiled apologetically as he raised his eyes from the parchments. “Thank you for the offerings, but I think this would be enough for now. Although it may take some time to adjust, but it’s not a hopeless task to integrate Chielo to the Stratocracy’s system.”

Just as Cassandra sat down, Mahmut bit into the pretzel that he had just took.

“Mahmut Pasha, even if they cut off our supply tracks, we will hold up until you’re back. We will fight, remember that.”

Mahmut’s eyes felt hot.

“The harvest went successfully, yes?”

Cassandra’s thin lips formed a ghost of a smile. Mahmut closed his eyes as he leaned back unto the chair, sipping his already lukewarm coffee.

“Good.”

It’s his time to fulfill his part of the promise.

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The wind caressed his curly locks as he made his way to the harbour, paddling slowly on his gondola. His blue eyes met Brega’s hazel ones—who has been standing on a wooden dock—in a moment, before shifting his attention to the currently sailing gondola a few meters ahead. His eyes squinted when he recognized a tuft of blonde in the middle of the small boat.

He pursed his lips.

“That was an unexpectedly... elegant decision.” He could feel Brega’s eyes fixed on him as he continued, “Despite his youth, he overrode our plans and made a bold decision.”

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“Lucio, wait!” The blonde-haired adolescent turned as he heard he heard a familiar voice—huskier than he remembered it before, but that particular squeak-like quality of the voice was impossible to miss—calling out his given name.

Shouting at times like this, even after becoming a magistros. Typical of him. His lips curled upward into an amused smirk, entertained by his lifelong companion’s—he cringed at the overly intimate term—bizarre antics.

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“He’s good. Even though he’s far too much of an idealist, it seems he can also devise realistic approaches to problems.” He muttered contently, his voice raising a bit as he drank in the breathtaking scenery in front of him, the harbour was bustling with ships all around the world, floating calmly above the clear seawater and below the blue, cloudless sky.

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“What is it, Dear Kon?” still smirking, the newly appointed doge slowly tiptoed toward Konstantinos, his steps light as if he’s not the new head of state that had just ascended few moments ago. His eyes darted to Konstantinos’ right hand, “A farewell gift, I wonder?”

‘Dear Kon’ emitted a tired sigh, “Lucio, please stop using that embarassing nickname, we’re adults,” his fingers brushed off his slightly reddening cheek.

“Do adults run in another people’s house while shouting at the top of his lungs?”

Pregnant pause ensued.

“But you’re nowhere to be seen.”

Lucio covered his face with his right hand, clearly bemused by the straightforward answer much to Konstantinos’ chagrin.

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He watched as Abiriga helped Mahmut Bey loading his stuff to the soon-to-be-departing ship. His grip on the long paddle tightened.

He has put his chess pawn on the board. All he could do now is to wait.

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“... Please stop smirking at me like that, it’s uncomfortable.” Konstantinos eyed his longtime friend uncomfortably, while the other could hardly hide his shit-eating grin behind his sleeve.

Really...Konstantinos rolled his eyes. However, the Phoenician’s frown soon crumbled, replaced by a small smile. “Here.” He outstretched his right hand Lucio, whose eyes nearly bulged out from their sockets.

“This..”

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 “As long as his ideals don’t shut out reality, he will make a far better politician...”

At least Venedik has reassurances from now on, His lips formed a straight line.

 He tasted bile in his throat.

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“A token for Venedik and Phoenicia’s friendship.” the 17 years old magistros exclaimed with a tender voice as he handed out the cross-shaped brooch to the shorter young man before him. Lucio looked at him as if he has grown another head.

Konstantinos’ coal eyes shined, his hand still in the same position. The blue-eyed doge squinted his eyes, as though the light might burn his eyes if he didn’t.

What an idiot. What a naive, ignorant idiot. The doge thought grimly as he walked to the taller man, taking the little black cross from the other’s hand with force a bit too much than necessary.

Sardonic smile bloomed on his face.

“We’re still on our own though.”

(The small brooch could be seen on Lucio’s ermine cape tomorrow morning, though. What a hypocrite.)

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“...Than the last Magistros of Phoenicia.” Lucio’s eyes were cast down, the grey bags under them made even more prominent by his slight frown. His capitan glanced at him with scrunched eyebrows.

The cross-shaped brooch glistened below the sunlight.

(When Doge Lucio walked on the Palazzo’s aisles tomorrow morning, the plump Phoenician-styled cross have been replaced by the Venedik-styled thin cross instead.)

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It's already midnight and Mahmut's eyes still opened as wide as they were a few hours ago.

As he laid his tired and sore body down on a lone bed in the (former) Director's simple room, his mind wandered back and forth: to the grim faces of Chielo's citizens, to the tired soldiers back from his troops, to all of the blood spilled on the road and a smiling face framed by flowing golden locks, surrounded by flower bouquets and cheeks marred with tears—whose tears were those he's not sure, a scene that felt strangely nostalgic.

[Except that the ones he remembered had no flower bouquets and burial ceremonies and people clad in mourning garbs, not when he's the only one left at the location with his soul still intact and everyone else sprawled on the cold hard ground, too dead to pluck even a single daisy laid untouched near the well.]

His mind wandered back and forth: to Espada’s wasted front land where the Empire’s troops met their end, to the vengeful glares from the people who had lost their everything to the war, to the faint afterimages of headless Janissarie troops that trailed on his steps, a part of the past that refused to let go.

[He faintly felt the weight of Baraban’s wrapped head in his cradle all the way to Acayip.

Halil Pasha’s piked head bobbed up and down as the empire’s soldiers marched towards the city.

He assisted Cassandra in wrapping the last of the bandages to cover Carvajal’s severed neck.]

It’s almost midnight and there’s no one here beside him and his ghosts. The ink pooled on the stark white paper, creating a large blotch on the book in his cradle.

His eyes were wide open.

[A frozen smile on a pale face, another body encased in a coffin, not to be seen anymore. Another promise that went unfulfilled.]

That night, he didn’t get a blink of sleep.

Chapter Text

 Everyone knows that you're the master at hunting hearts 

Despite his never-ending self-denial, he had to admit that her performance is, indeed, entertaining.

Watching as the dancer’s lithe body flexed up and down smoothly, her trademark braided hair swished back and forth as if it has a soul of its own, the earrings and numerous bracelets clanking as she told a tale with her whole being, shimmering under the stage lights and the audiences’ mesmerized gazes that followed her relentlessly.

Throw out a coy smile, or maybe few drops of tears, and she would have them all ensnared in her soundless tale. Got pulled out from reality.

What is this? A new affectation, torment, or flirting ?

At these times, he would dared himself to look at the obsidian pools that were her eyes. Some times, there were little stars in them, twinkling brightly, beckoning the others to follow in her light, smooth steps.

In other times, however, they were as dark and empty as an abyss, detached and closed off from the rest of the world, trapped in that one spot where the stage lights collided and left the surrounding area in complete darkness.

Then, after all the performance was over and the crowd dispersed, he would hear various voices as he walked away: her mischievous laugh when she managed to caught him off guard, her steeled voice when she drove to Hisar to save Ibrahim, her exasperated sigh when her hand received the cringe-worthy script for the propaganda, her small, almost pleading voice when she had asked him to be careful and not to die. They warred in his skull.

O heart, you’ve become a laughing-stock.

O heart, she enjoys tormenting you!

Blood red carnations bloomed on his dimple cheeks when he saw the scribbles he made on the pristine sheet. 

"Ah, Mahmut, there you are!”

He quickly put the small notebook into his pocket when light footsteps approached him.

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“Forgive me Abiriga, but I’m going where you can’t follow.”

Mahmut didn’t look over his shoulder, sight already set on the faraway path to Religion, to that man’s place. There’s a stifling tightness in Abiriga’s abdomen, that might or might not have to do with layers of bandages wrapped around it. Abiriga could picture the curves on his Padrone’s bridge of nose, feeling guilty about the things that he should not feel guilty about.

(Abiriga already expected that this would happen. This arrangement, no matter how surprisingly pleasant it is, will not last.)

“Please don’t worry about me.”

But Abiriga, of course, being the exemplary, obedient self of a butler that he is, just gave one of his trademark business smile to the straighted up back of his master. His smile didn’t even flinch as he flushed down the prickling sensation that those words left to the metaphorical drain that he has frequently used in the past, didn’t even spare a split second to contemplate why the apologies kept swirling in his brain. They kept ringing in his ears like a leftover of war horns’ voice months back at Acayip.

 [“My mind hasn’t changed, I still want to make use of his strength.”]

No matter how far you go, there’s something that stays the same, Padrone.

“I’m Padrone’s servant.”

That I’m yours to keep.

“I follow you of my own free will.” He gave the bandages a final tug, and burned his stare onto that wind-caressed blonde hair.

And don’t expect me to stop doing that soon.

(And with a static smile etched on his lips, Abiriga speedily rode on his brown horse, following that small red dot that seemed to drift further and further away.)

Chapter Text

Gaping at the post-battle scenery with shaking cat-like pupils and trembling fists, she couldn't help to feel a shiver down her spine at such vulgar display of war prowess that the Turkiyean had just done.

What boorish fellow, so unreserved in their post-war celebrations. Brigitta wrinkled her small nose in a barely disguised distaste, looking at the aftermath of what would later be referred to as Balt-Rhein’s and Turkiye’s final ground battle on the Southern Rumeliana theatre by the scripts.

She threw a long, sideway glance at a few skewered heads of Balt-Rhein’s defeated troops, at the bodies piled up just before Espada’s opened gates and at the grimy, sweaty Turkiye soldiers trotting around in the wasteground pillaging armors and the likes from the corpses.

Pink eyes stared up at the pasha with wolf—wait, this cannot be, must be her post-adrenaline syndrome acting up—hide hanging nicely on his broad shoulder, black moustache gently caressed by the wind as he rode his stallion on the barren wasteland outside of Espada's sturdy gates. He strode past the dusty ground, littered with the Imperial soldiers' still fully clothed corpses left and right with sweat slicked face and blood splattered clothes.

(Brigitta noticed a while later with no small amount of astonishment, that despite it all, the smile on the man’s face never wavered, not even for a bit. Neither did the shine in his black, black eyes.)

Without even realizing it, she had stuck one of her feet to the dusty ground right outside the reach of Espada’s sturdy walls. Her hand rubbed at her chin thoroughly, consumed in a deep thought over the admittedly trivial yet intriguing matter at hand.

“Huh? Miss Brigitta? What are you doing?” One of her henchman looked at her outstretched foot and downward, pondering gaze questioningly.

[Those eyes, as if betraying his whole appearance of untamed wilderness and reckless abandon, were astonishingly tender as he met with a few of his soldiers, barely standing yet still grinning with every inch of their faces.

They’re kind, in a way not unlike her late, dear father’s were when they had just finished a particularly tough order and gingerly awaited the spoils of war to be properly collected and redistributed.]

Brigitta was so absorbed in her self pondering that she didn’t even realize that the owner of said obsidian eyes was already moving to her general direction, horse steps pounding on the ground beneath and creating a thin shroud of dust around him. When she raised her gaze from the ground, she could already see his wolf mantle swaying not far from her line of sight.

Huh!? There is really a wolf on his shoulders? Is it alive? Is it dead? Anyway—

“Lince! Good work back there! Today’s victory would not have been possible without your help!”

Huh!? No, he’s coming this way, what to do!? Her internal self started to panic being exposed to such blalant display of familiarity, so much that she instinctively tried to hide her lithe, seemingly delicate figure that she usually flaunted over proudly behind her henchman’s trembling one.

“—Hence, regarding the prisoners and weapons we took as booty—

She braced herself as best as she could, waiting for the continuation of Kurt’s booming, large voice.

“It’s our wish that they all be turned over to you!”

Eh? Her eyes blinked owlishly at the surprisingly easy admission of the loots to Lince’s care, a practice uncommon when it usually became much of the troops’ most anticipated epilogue of every triumphant siege.

Without her even realizing it, red started to bloom on her two cheeks.

“HUUUUH!? You mean it, General Sir!?” Abandoning her previous uneasiness, Brigitta ran toward the general with flourishing steps, bringing her closer to those beguiling, strong yet tender eyes that she became interested to in the first place.

Vaguely registering Kurt’s proud speech about the Turkiyean people’s appreciation to a great display of battle valour and their nation’s economic strength, Brigitta could feel her cheeks became redder and redder by the seconds. Her insides were warm in a way that’s once familiar and foreign, throwing all of her earlier assumptions regarding the Turkiyean army out of the window.

No way.. I shouldn’t feel this way just because of a mere war loot, yet.. It’s such a brazen yet amazing decision for him to make...

“..Until this battle concludes, we leave Espada in your hands.”

(Such blalant display of trust to the people you would usually call hired muscles is uncalled for in Cuore’s long standing hypocrite tradition of looking down on every single act of overt confrontation and all the messy bloodshed that it brought in its wake.

Not when they, the mercenaries, are essentially a clutter of patchwork consisted of various kinds of social pariahs, only united by the sheer need to survive when no one else will give them the protection that they need.

Brigitta had never known that outside of her big, messed up clan that was the closest thing that she could had as a family, she could get herself a look that were neither thinly veiled condescending scorn or outright wide-eyed terror that she so very used of getting from every single outsider that she had met.)

Huh..maybe becoming allies with Turkiye is not so bad after all...

“Miss? Excuse me? Why are you still standing over there?” One of her subordinate waved a hand over her glazy, dreamy eyes to no avail.

“Don’t tell me that the big guy had scared her so much that she froze in her place!?”

With little hands cupping her cherry red cheeks, Brigitta stared off to the retreating back of one Kurt Kurt Pasha.

(Her earlier doubts and fears regarding the prospect of Lince’s latest ally, at that moment, was nowhere to be found.)

Chapter Text

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It’s always fascinating to see the elderly man working on construction sites.

As Zeki−a mere fifteen years old insaat medrese student at that time−walked past the revitalized city imaret after-class at a certain noon, he couldn’t help to crane his head a bit at the construction site.

His keen eyes glimmered in wonder as he silently watched the much respected Urban General of Turkiye propped on his makeshift seat, drawing sketches here and there on multiple paper scrolls at one time, then off to the unfinished buildings to oversee the ongoing operation on-site.

Then, with a humility one would not expect from someone placed so high in Turkiye’s meritocratic society, he effortlessly mingled with the shirtless, sweaty workers with a smile as bright as the sun hovering above them.

He glanced longingly at the would-be brand new imaret of the recovering town; at the half-finished turquoise dome of the main building, at the sturdy, cream-colored pillars made from marble, at the smaller complexes of buildings surrounding it, and he couldn’t stop the wave of excitement that made his chest pounded with such sense of eagerness and pride; how far those concepts and drawings could take people, could take the world into a better step, to become a better place for people to live in.

People could find basically all of their daily needs inside the imaret complex: all kinds of goods sold at the various kiosk filling up the Pazar, education services for the young taught in the medrese’s many classrooms, keeping the population healthy with centralized health services from the hastane, and arranging the influx of people and goods from outside the borders with the kervansaray and dagitim complexes providing abundant place for the weary travelers to rest and for the numerous goods to be sorted and further distributed as needed.

[He distantly remembered that particular day in his far, far away childhood years. Right in the month of Sheker, he remembered the shine of various lanterns in many colors reflected in his wide-open eyes as his father perched his small, small body onto the broad shoulders that he always looked up to when he walked behind.

He would never forget the big, proud smile that his father had given to him when both of them walked through the imaret’s many pillars and domes, when the colorful lights from the lanterns got reflected on their bone-white surface.]  

Deep in his heart, a bright, iridescent dream of what to come started to grow its bud.

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However, Zeki later realized, when it comes to the matter of creating a better world for people to live in, it’s never as simple as building your usual Pazar, never as straightforward as finishing his usual civil engineering projects of building drought-proof aqueducts to cater to people’s need for steady clean water supply across the country, never as uncomplicated as visualizing a tangible, corporeal columns and roofs and walls that will bring smiles to people’s face and make their day-to-day activities easier.

Building a decently working government that can ensure everyone’s rights to live happily is, the supposed architectural prodigy would later realize with no small amount of bitterness, steps way even further than arranging your usual urban planning: politics is a world so starkly different than his starting point, offering not even a little bit of assurance as blue prints and stones and pillars had given him all these time, robbing even the smallest amount of calm he had ever painstakingly built through his many illustrous civil projects.

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[“You are a superb architect. However, we are not discussing urban planning.”

The words and their own sheer, foreboding implications knocked out the remaining calm out of Zeki’s psyche, shaking the very foundation of his life-long dream like how a breath puff would tumble down a house of cards that he had built using all of the cards that he has on his deck.

There, in a Divan swarming with hawk-eyed, promotion hungry individuals and no calming, familiarly steady presence of Halil Pasha in sight, Turkiye moved even closer to the path of blood and steel that his cherished mentor had painstakingly tried to prevent all his life.

“We are discussing the planning...of a nation.”]

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He, with no small degree of disillusionment, had learnt that every single efforts built in navigating your course through the muddy tracks could as well tumble as easily as a house of cards, destroyed because of a hole in your speech and keen, precisely sharpened words meant to stretch that hole so large that you can never patch it up again.

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In the end, for all the differences that had separated the art of architecture and state-craft miles apart, one thing became their silver lining—

[“Our responsibility is the Mur campaign! Domestic matters should… Should be entrusted to the Viziers, shouldn’t they…?”

The usually soft-spoken young man let out a shout, youthful face twisting and hands shaking in a painstakingly contained grievance at their current predicament.

And just like that, the taut tension enveloping the whole room dissipated; diffused just in a blink of an eye.

And just like that, the disagreement was put to an end, leaving Zeki feeling powerless as once again he failed to direct Turkiye’s future to the peace that his beloved mentor so very desired in life.]

—just as the displacement of a mere stone or block of timber could ruin the intergrity of an otherwise immaculate building, the presence or absence of one person could, however improbable that might seemed at a glance, changed the course of one nation’s policy, to the point of no return.

Faced with such reality, for the first time in his life Zeki questioned himself: whether he truly belongs in such world, whether he was truly fit for the responsibility that Halil Pasha and the rest of their faction had placed on his shoulders.

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“Heading the Mur attack is suicide. They’ll obviously become a target as soon as they enter the enemy’s firing range. As member of Halil’s faction, I thought we would be given that role.”

“So we give them all the glory… I think we should do our best no to die, don’t you?”

What both Kurt Pasha and Nurzan said is absolutely right. But, why…?  I can’t understand the motive behind such action…  

“Don’t worry too much.”

At that exact moment, Nurzan’s airy voice blew away the proverbial fog blurring Zeki’s headspace, and suddenly Zeki could once again feel Mur’s night wind caressing his long robes and chilling his exposed nape.

“No matter how powerful Zaganos’ faction becomes, the Halil faction will survive as long as you’re here.”

Realization dawned on the Zeki’s stern face as he digested his best friend’s words, light returning to his previously bleary eyes and eternal wrinkles that adorned the bridge of his nose loosened up, if only just a bit.

Huh, that’s right…What am I afraid of? The most important thing right now is staying alive, only then you can think of the aftermath.

The young architect then remembered that his late mentor always said something about ‘the importance of taking a moment to step back and observe the big picture’, often time laughing good-naturedly at his less-than-ideal tendency to fuss over the smallest things, always becoming so high-strung over the littlest of an otherwise redeemable misstep.

Perhaps, he thought with a mixture of uneasiness and resignation, this is one such time for him to do so.

I already promised to devote my life to carry on Halil Pasha’s legacy, did I not? For such a massive venture, surely mistakes are bound to be made here and there… I can’t let myself be brought down just because of such minor inconveniences.     

As if realizing Zeki’s lingering unease regarding the whole situation, Nurzan smacked his back good-naturedly, adding the literal push to drive his earlier proverbial push into the architect’s thick, thick skull.

Zeki’s head jolted towards his best friend in response to the searing pain, shock clearly evident on his face.

Meanwhile, the pink haired young man, staying true to his own namesake, only replied to the flabbergasted expression with an easy smile of his own.

(It stung like hell, but hey, sometimes a little pain is needed for a wake-up call, right?)

“Let’s take our post!”