Chapter Text
Soren knocked on the door to Ike’s room in Gebal Castle. There was no response. Ike hadn’t eaten anything the first day following Greil’s death, or the day after that, and today was looking to be the same. Titania and Rhys hadn’t been able to convince him to eat with the others, and Mist was hiding in her own room, no one wanted to worry her about Ike when she was nearly catatonic herself. Ike had come out of his room for brief spurts to talk to Titania and Soren, to train for a little while, to get reports, to find out if the King of Gallia had sent word yet, but otherwise, he remained locked in his room.
“Ike,” Soren called out, “It’s me.” It was an obvious statement. His voice would tell Ike that. “I need to talk to you,” he tried after a moment when there was no immediate response.
There was the sound of soft footsteps in the room, and the door swung open. Ike’s eyes were hollow and lifeless, his shoulders sagging. Ike didn’t even meet Soren’s gaze. Ike’s eyes shifted, as if to look up at Soren, but fell firmly back to the floor before even reaching Soren's shoulders.
Soren wasn’t any good at this, but Ike had never starved before. “You need to eat,” Soren tried to say firmly, but his voice was soft, timid. He had no right to tell Ike what to do. And yet, Soren’s mind whispered to him about how Ike had given Soren food when Soren was starving. It wouldn’t repay the debt Soren owed Ike, Ike wasn’t anywhere near dying and he had plenty of people who cared for him, but Soren could start here.
A boy with blue hair that was lit softly by the sun smiled down at Soren with a childishly large grin that was nearly blinding in its sincerity.
“I don’t,” Ike began but fell silent, shrinking back into the room. “I’m not hungry,” he muttered. Soren caught the way Ike’s eyes couldn’t meet his own, and he knew Ike was lying. If Ike wanted his space, Soren could respect that, but Ike had to eat something. Anything.
Soren’s eyes narrowed. “But you haven’t eaten in days,” he said, imitating the childishly dramatic way Ike had used that line against Soren nearly seven years ago. It sounded harsh and strange in Soren’s adult throat. Soren didn’t care. Ike couldn’t starve. He would resort to any tactic he could think of, no matter how outlandish and ridiculous.
Something stirred in Ike. He looked up at Soren finally, questioning, curious.
“But you said you haven't eaten for days,” the blue haired boy had bemoaned in confusion, pouting with a confused look in his eyes, teetering as he stood on top of an unstable assortment of stools and chairs to peer through the barred window at the top of the door to the room Soren was in.
“If I brought you something, would you eat it?” Soren asked, his voice feather soft.
Ike’s eyes softened, catching in the light briefly as if he recalled some distant memory. He closed his eyes and nodded. “Yes,” Ike said, his voice hoarse and weak.
---
Soren sat on the floor across from Ike as Ike slowly tore off bites of a salted jerky and chewed the bites even more slowly. There was a small bag of jerky on the floor by Ike and a waterskin. Soren might have left, he might have even dropped off the jerky and water and gone about his business again, but Ike had reached out, and grabbed Soren’s forearm in a weak grasp and had even more weakly requested that Soren stay.
Soren would stay in this room forever, his mind caught between trying to figure out the company’s next steps while they waited for the king of Gallia to send word to them, and trying to figure out what Ike needed most.
“I still can’t cry,” Ike admitted with a cracking voice after eating a third of the piece of jerky, his hand falling and the rest of the jerky dangling from his hand in front of his crossed legs. He was hunched over, head bowed and turned to the left.
Soren silently watched Ike, not sure how to respond. The priests he had stayed with on the Crimean border had told him that consoling people facing great loss was important, so they could keep moving forward, renew their desire to keep living. He had to do that for Ike, somehow.
“He was my father and I-” Ike’s voice broke and he closed his eyes, furrowing his brows. “I can’t cry for him.” His voice was harsh, angry, as he hissed out, “What is wrong with me?”
“I don’t,” Soren began but trailed off as Ike looked up suddenly. Soren swallowed and composed his thoughts. Nothing was wrong with Ike. Ike was clearly pained, crying didn’t need to be involved. “I’ve never seen you cry before, over anything,” Soren remarked simply. “Maybe it’s not in your nature.”
Ike took a shuddering breath.
“People,” Soren bit his lip, trying to recall what the priests had said in that church he had stayed at so many years ago when consoling people when performing funerary rights. Those services had been overwhelming to Soren, he had only listened around corners. “People mourn in different ways, not everyone has to cry.”
Ike’s hand that had been loosely holding the jerky tightened suddenly, the knuckles turning white. “You’re sure about that?” Ike asked weakly, his voice catching.
Soren nodded, but then realized Ike couldn’t see it. “Yes,” Soren said. He remembered that the priests had said a good way to console someone was to relate to the other person’s pain, make it feel like they weren’t alone. “I haven’t cried in ten years, but I do miss Greil.” Ike looked up at Soren. “I don’t.” He cut himself off as he pressed his back further against the wall, feeling like he was turning the conversation towards himself and away from Ike. One of the priests had said sometimes you might overstep. Soren had always been aware of the emotional states of others, looking for danger to himself, but he had never had much success at working with them. Still, there was a desperate desire in Ike’s eyes that drove Soren to speak further. “He was a mentor, I suppose. I had thought him as invulnerable as any of the rest of us did, and I forgot how cruel the world can be.”
Truthfully, Soren had never lost anyone worth mourning before. He’d had that fear and that pain in the back of his mind for three years as he had searched for Ike, but that wasn’t the same as what he was feeling now, like a piece of him had been taken and destroyed. It wasn’t as devastating as losing Ike could be, but it was a significant loss. Soren didn’t know how else to say it.
“Ten years?” Ike asked.
“Yes, I suppose,” Soren muttered, trailing off. He could vividly remember the last time he had actually shed tears, curled over in the streets of a Gallian village, feeling like he had no right to exist. Anytime since, he had breathed like he was crying, but no tears had ever formed. Sometimes his eyes stung, similar to what happened when he cut onions to help prepare dinners, but he had never cried. “I suppose that I ran out of tears to cry,” he said weakly.
Ike studied Soren for a long moment. Soren wasn’t sure what else to say, his mind caught between an intense desire to help Ike, repay Ike for his kindness over the past ten years in some way, and a fear that he was making a mistake in this effort, an effort he had never practiced before.
“Would you have cried about my father if you hadn’t?” Ike whispered after a while, his gaze dropping to the floor.
Soren didn’t know the answer. He didn’t know the truth. But he knew what Ike needed to hear, and it was a possibility. “Perhaps,” Soren said, still unable to bring himself to lie to Ike. “I feel like I could have.”
Ike nodded. “How does that feel?”
Soren’s brows knitted together at the question. “I feel,” he paused as he tried to formulate an answer, thinking of how he had felt the last time he had cried, comparing it to how he felt now. “Empty, in a way? A deep pain in my chest.”
Ike took a deep breath, the kind he took after one of their long battles that they had fought fleeing Daein and seeing that everyone was still alive. He took a surer bite of the jerky.
---
Soren drifted in and out of the conversation that occurred after the laguz appeared and rescued the Greil Mercenaries from the Daein attack. The beasts referred to themselves as Mordecai and Lethe. Mordecai seemed slow and to have a hard time talking, Soren idly wondered if he was capable of higher thought. Lethe was prone to angry histrionics, barely able to form a sentence without growling or hissing, so he wondered the same about her. His main focus was keeping a mental track of their last battle, where his plans had been weak. They had been fatigued by the length of the battle and the stream of enemies pouring out from the woods. If Ike was going to rely on Soren's tactical ability, he was going to need to get a lot better than he had just been.
Lethe said an unfamiliar word, calling Soren’s focus back onto the conversation at hand.
“Beorc? What’s that?” Ike asked.
“That’s what you are,” Lethe said, “We with the power are laguz. You soft, hairless things with no power at all, you are called beorc.”
“What did you say?” Ike asked, Soren recognized Ike was slightly irritated by the statement. Ike hated to be called weak.
“Lethe!” Mordecai exclaimed, “You are being bad. The king forbids this. We cannot fight with beorc!”
“Most beorc call us by hated names,” she retorted, “look at us with eyes filled with scorn. “Sub-human”?” She hissed. “Is that how beorc treat their friends? Is that how beorc treat their allies?”
“You’re right,” Ike said, “Some of us use that name far too readily. I guess if we had thought about it, we’d have realized it’s not a polite term, but we didn’t know you by any other name. I’m sorry.”
Lethe scoffed. “You knew no other name for us? Are we really so little to you, human? You, who forced us into slavery? How easily you forget. But we laguz! We remember. We remember how we have suffered at your hands. The king can say whatever he likes, I will not trust you. I warn you now,” she said as she took a moment to look at each member of the company. Her eyes paused at Soren, doing the dance he was familiar with. Trying to see him without acknowledging him. Her expression contorting to one of anger and disgust, before she looked away. Interesting, he was especially loathsome amongst humans to these beasts. “Never speak to me in such a way!”
Soren wondered why he would be more disgusting to a beast than the average human, it wasn’t like he had done anything other than be present.
“Lethe,” Mordecai began, his eyes flicked over the group, as if looking for their reaction and he paused at Soren, glancing briefly at the mark on his forehead, and then continued on.
Was it because of his Spirit Charm? Certainly, none of the other humans in the room had such a pact. Soren knew that some humans found the practice distasteful, he’d been more often treated poorly for his Spirit Charm than he was treated well, but did the beasts really hate it to the point that they would rather pretend he didn’t exist?
Soren decided that he’d give them something impossible to ignore. “What’s your point? Did you come all this way to complain to us?” He scoffed. “Typical sub-humans.”
The rest of the Greil Mercenaries froze, looking at Soren with wide eyes.
Lethe’s face contorted to one of anger, red with fury. “Scum! Those who use that name are enemies of Gallia!”
Soren smirked. That had gotten her attention.
Mordecai bristled with anger, his hair stood on end. He growled, each word he said punctuated by his growls. “Sub-human. Enemy. He is enemy.”
Soren frowned. His fists clenched. “You think you’re humans? The only thing human about you is your conceit. You filthy, hairy sub-human!” he said, more to the beasts who had ignored him when he had been dying as a child than the two in front of him at that moment.
“Mordecai! Kill him!” Lethe exclaimed as Mordecai howled.
Soren's eyes widened, as he suddenly recalled where he was. In a castle in Gallia. Mordecai transformed into the shape of a blue tiger, and rushed Soren, mouth wide and claws extended.
Ike rushed in between Soren and Mordecai. Mordecai’s claws cut deep into Ike's arm. Mordecai dropped down, slinking back to Lethe’s side.
“Ike!” Soren exclaimed.
“Ow,” Ike groaned as he put his hand over the wound, unable to cover it all. Blood seeped through his fingers
“What?” Lethe breathed.
Mordecai shifted back. “I,” he stopped to pant, “Ike,” his voice fell silent, a look of deep contrition on his face. He spoke again, pausing between each sentence. “Ike, I’m sorry. I have hurt you. I did not intend to hurt you.”
Ike turned and shook his head. “Mordecai, this injury is nothing. I’m fine,” he lied through his teeth as blood dripped down his arm.
“You’re nothing but a beast,” Soren said, stepping forward, reaching for his tome, and the air around him picked up into a swirling breeze with wind energy.
Ike turned and caught Soren's shoulder with his blood covered hand. “Soren! Stand down!”
Soren looked at Ike. “Why did you stop me? He hurt you! He could have killed you! We can’t let him get away-”
Ike cut Soren off. “If you hadn’t provoked him, none of this would have happened. Right?” His look was one of concern and exasperation. Ike was exhausted from the long journey to Gallia and the constant battles.
Soren stuttered, “But! I only!” He looked down. He had failed Ike. “I’m sorry,” Soren felt Ike's hand leave his shoulder and he excused himself at the first opportunity.
He went into his room in the fortress and sat down. The beasts were going to take them to the filthy beast capital. Soren rubbed his forehead. He didn't understand why they were even bothering. The beasts and humans hated each other. There could never be an alliance.
There was a knock at his door. “Yes?”
Ike called back, “Soren, it's me, can I come in?”
“Of course.” Soren stood up.
Ike walked in, closing the door behind him. He gestured for Soren to sit down. Ike sat on the desk nearby, facing Soren. Ike had a bloodied bandage on his arm.
Soren looked at the floor.
“What happened back there?” Ike asked.
“Ike, I, I'm sorry,” Soren stammered, unable to look up at Ike.
“For what, exactly?”
“Getting you hurt?” Soren eventually ventured.
Ike sighed. “I don't expect outbursts like that from you. I know you don't have a lot of patience for others, but you've never done anything like that before.”
“I know.”
“I would have expected that from Shinon, if he were still here. In fact, I probably would have told him to take watch or something to keep him away from the laguz. I know you're blunt and direct, but goading people with insults, especially the allies who just saved our lives, just isn't like you.”
“I know.” Soren felt sick to his stomach. The laguz had slaughtered an entire battalion of Daein soldiers. What had he been thinking, aggravating them like that? His words could have gotten Ike killed.
“Soren. Look at me.”
Soren looked up.
“Why’d you say those things?”
“I don't get along well with sub-humans,” Soren whispered.
Ike closed his eyes and grimaced. “Lethe and Mordecai or all laguz?”
“All of them.”
Ike held his head in his hands. “Why?”
“They don't seem to like me much.”
“Hard to imagine why when you insult them,” Ike mumbled.
“No,” Soren paused. “It's just me existing that seems to annoy them in the first place.” Soren hesitated to share with Ike the fact that the beasts seemed to have a severe disdain for those who had made pacts with spirits. Soren wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t sure if Ike would feel disgust towards Soren, or if Ike would get into an argument with the beasts over it. The beorc who hated him for it referred to him as Branded, as if having a spirit made him unclean. The beasts were closer to nature, perhaps they found it abhorrent, to trade one’s soul for power, not that Soren had made that trade willingly. But that didn’t matter. Few ever asked before making their judgements, deciding to shun Soren or praise him for something he had no say in.
Ike looked at Soren in silence for a while and then sat back on the desk. “Look, Soren, some of them may not like us. It's not hard to see why. But you can't insult them in return. That's just going to make things worse.” Ike sighed and looked to the side. “I know you're not out to make friends personally, but we are. Our company needs them. You've said it yourself. We can't beat Daein on our own. This last battle just proved it. And with Father,” Ike's breath caught. His shoulders trembled. “With Father dead, that's truer now more than ever. We don't have the numbers to protect Princess Elincia. We need the Gallian king to help her, and if you go around insulting him and his people as our staff officer, he might turn her away. Or attack us. I don't know what we'd do in either scenario.” Ike looked at Soren, his expression scared. “I know being friendly is more than I can ask from you, but can you not insult them?”
Soren could bear any weight for Ike's sake. All of his desires to and talk of being useful to Ike, of repaying that debt, and Soren had endangered the company for emotions from his own past life. He was pathetic.
Soren nodded. “Don't worry, Ike. I'll mind what I say from here on out. I won't cause you any more trouble.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I should call them laguz, right?”
Ike nodded. “Thanks.”