Meine Liebe fic: Fortune
May. 18th, 2006 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasse3205 words. PG/15. Somewhat dark in places. Shounen-ai.
Set during the Strahl candidates’ final year at Rosenstolz. Tying in with a couple of things here and here.
Eduard on the topic of his presumed corruption.
Fortune
Disclaimer: Meine Liebe belongs to Konami, Yuki Kaori and others.
++++++++++
The library at Rosenstolz is extensive and often contains many rare tomes jumbled in amongst the school books. Eduard has always been surprised at just how much information and misinformation sit happily alongside each other, especially on the topic of the esoteric. There isn’t much of course, mainly old pamphlets on the topic of witch-burnings, perhaps the odd copy of some papal manual and the like. Not that many people really bother to look.
Mostly Eduard professes a disinterest in such exotic subjects anyway and looks askance when Orpherus casually flips over playing cards in the game of predicting events. Eduard has his own set of course, not a regular deck with four extra cards like Orpherus, but one of French origin purposely made for guessing at the game of chance. He doesn’t use them much and mostly they sit idle in a box under his bed but recently he’s been tempted to question the nature of fate.
Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be he has a tendency to forget about the idea when caught up in school work and the sometimes tedious process of reminding Orpherus to eat. Orpherus has a habit of forgetting the essentials when worrying over a myriad of things and more often than not would go several days wondering why he had continual headaches before realising that it was due to a lack of food.
Just this lunchtime Eduard had found Orpherus sleeping in the greenhouse and prodding him in the direction of the dining hall had produced a rather grumpily ungrateful response. At least Eduard already knows from long experience that when Orpherus snarls that he isn’t hungry, he rarely means it and may just be overtired into the bargain.
Camus has also been tired of late, his expression shuttered and weary and Eduard can only hope that whatever it is that troubles him is at least something Camus finds that he can discuss with Ludwig. With such thoughts in his head it is almost easy to give in to the temptation to reach for the box under his bed again. It’s hardly as if the cards will give him an immediate answer and Eduard isn’t fool enough to expect it but they might perhaps betray some indication as to that way that things may go. Of course that would also be what troubles him.
The fall of the cards may lead him down an unwanted path of self-fulfilling prophecy, the indication of disaster being the trigger that will set him upon that path, so he finds himself afraid to ask. He’s not entirely sure what’d he’d ask anyway because there is nothing specific to question. What could he say? Nothing really because it is just a feeling in the air that disturbs him, a certain wrongness of sensation that sets his teeth on edge. There is something brooding about the atmosphere in the Academy and he can think of no particular explanation why. There will be final exams soon, the end of their schooling; it should be no more troubling than that which certainly doesn’t explain Camus’ drawn expression and the fact that Eduard has already heard Ludwig talking quietly to Naoji over the matter of Camus’ sudden penchant for nightmares.
Of course nightmares are commonplace enough and were it anyone other than Camus prey to them Eduard might be less inclined to worry about a cause beyond anxiety about the upcoming exams or passing illness. The very fact of Camus’ abilities and his now apparent taciturnity worries Eduard far more than he would like to admit openly.
It is possible that even if there have been visions they are no more than Orpherus working himself into exhaustion or Naoji sleeping through the start of one of his exams but if that were the case Camus would have already spoken up. There is a muted hush over the greenhouse now that Camus will say nothing and worse still, the lurking suspicion in Eduard’s mind that it is not Orpherus who will fall afoul of any particular crime. As strange as it might be for him to say it, Eduard would almost rather that Orpherus be the one subject to any such occurrence because Orpherus at least has all the luck of the Devil when it comes to escaping disaster. It makes him wonder sometimes, at the ease with which Orpherus escapes anything quite severe and he knows enough about the old Crusader legends to almost wonder if there is some champion of the infernal host that cleaves to Orpherus’ side.
The Holy Roman Church is filled with secrets and Orpherus’ family perhaps may be privy to some. Of course that is entirely speculation on Eduard’s part; he hardly knows anything of the matter beyond the scrawled documents of mad ancestors anyway. Boarder barons Ludwig called them; the somewhat noble von Sekt Braunschweigs. They were that for the most part, soldiers defending an empire’s boundaries, perhaps almost as savage as those they sort to hold it against. Their blood burns bright in Eduard’s veins; alight with a certain cruelty, a maliciousness that stretches beyond all necessary intent. It’s no wonder that they were almost as savage as their enemies after all and occasionally that cruelty transmuted into something else.
There are old crumbling folios of notes, pages covered with demented scrawl. It’s not a common occurrence among their line but that touch of madness has always been there. Ancestors who would have willingly traded away their immortal souls for the sake of power and recognition.
All the noble families have their histories of course and of the families of the current Strahl candidates, Eduard sometimes morbidly wonders if they simply chose the worst of the bunch. Orpherus’ family may have served the Church well but they were most likely fanatics for their cause.
“Deus vult.” Orpherus is fond of saying in his blackest moments, when what he means to say is that God has nothing to do with it at all.
Ludwig has been known to joke about the fragility of his line, of their penchant for marrying their cousins and siring crippled bastards.
“You’ve never actually bothered to count my toes.” Though Eduard has looked now and Ludwig isn’t quite so abnormal at least physically, though it probably doesn’t bear speculating on just how many generations of inbreeding have produced that pallor.
If he knew anything much of Naoji’s native land Eduard might speculate about his lineage too but Naoji is only ever vocal on the matter of his family’s rejection.
“Japan doesn’t want me back.” And anything else he might say would be lost in the bottom of his whisky glass.
Perhaps then Camus is the most obvious oddity of them all. The only one who’s honest about his difference.
There was talk only last year with an accident prefaced by one of Camus’ visions, that the smallest of their number had actually cursed someone. The very thought of it makes Eduard laugh because of all of them Camus is the least likely to wish anyone harm. Orpherus is forever wishing unholy death upon his enemies of which there are many depending on Orpherus’ moods. Eduard too sometimes wishes that he might find an excuse to kill one person in particular but he is content to wait at least with time on his side. Having threatened his stepmother at Christmas, he’s probably already done enough to secure him some peace of mind for the year to come. Of course the way to strike at her wasn’t directly but to insulate appalling fates for her daughters and to remind her just how much he is his father’s favoured son. In that his father’s naivety plays into Eduard’s hands. There is nothing that he cannot do if he takes the necessary precautions and it is time that his stepmother realise the nature of the creature that she has forced him to become.
There was once a time when he would have sympathised with her plight, would have even offered comfort if only he had known how but those days have passed. He must survive it all, will survive her and see to his own ambitious schemes beyond the illusion that she has erected of his mother. He’s not entirely sure that he can sympathise with his own mother now when it comes to mind though perhaps her naivety was the worst of her sins, her belief in a man who was of too simple a mind and too high a station. Nevertheless, his father will die eventually and Eduard can exercise his vengeance then. There’s no point in rushing the matter really.
Sometimes he wonders whether or not his father pays any attention to the whisper of their family’s latent insanity. It’s not likely that he does at all and perhaps it is only Eduard who takes care to study the history of their line. For a bastard son it is imperative that he know the nature of his lineage and it is doubly advantageous to be knowledgeable of that of others. That the Braunschweigs have inadvertently hidden their insanity can only count in his favour because there’s much to be learned from the scrawling of relatives that the rest of the family tried to hide. Perhaps Camus’ family may be similar and in thinking that, Eduard finds his thoughts turning to the unfortunate Victor Glifis who surely must have been one of theirs cast aside. Of course his occasionally hearing Camus whisper to Ludwig softly of ‘failed experiments’ as if such things are the grandest joke of all may or may not have any bearing on that theory. It makes Eduard wonder just how many wasted husks were cast aside before they bred Camus.
Ludwig likes to talk of absurd breeding experiments sometimes when he’s partially inebriated but Eduard can never really tell if he’s imparting information or making jokes at his family’s expense.
“Eugenics is the biggest joke of all really. Who decides what’s biologically advantageous anyway? I’m hardly qualified to comment on the matter.”
Not that Eduard doesn’t understand the advantage of selectively breeding among the noble bloodlines. Nobles marry for rank and power after all. There’s none of this nonsense of love to be considered really. Orpherus will marry for status; Camus may marry out of boredom, Naoji out of a perverse desire to insult his homeland further and Ludwig… Eduard cannot imagine him married at all. There probably won’t ever be anyone powerful enough or intelligent enough or nearly perfect enough for Ludwig, though Eduard immediately realises that he’s in fact elucidating his own bias now. He can’t picture himself married either though he supposes that he’ll just have to go off and father his own bastards somewhere eventually. He wouldn’t really want to subject a wife to his current state of mind so perhaps procuring a child through unofficial means would be a little kinder. It’s not as if legitimacy can’t be bought anyway, when his own was purchased with his mother’s life after all.
Perhaps it she hadn’t died, he’d still be nothing. The bastard son of an aristocrat and nothing more; that alone wouldn’t do him any good. Certain strata in Kuchen must be peopled with the illegitimate children of noble Houses anyway. There are a handful at Rosenstolz itself or those who are near enough and whose titles have been procured suspiciously close to the wrong side of the sheets. In fact beyond Rosenstolz’s hallowed halls Eduard suspect that one Ischtar Baamilia’s legitimacy was procured in exactly that fashion. Why else would the Herzog have adopted a girl to raise as a son if not to pay back a debt of blood and if that isn’t at all the case then other suspicions will be enough to clip her wings soon enough. It’s not Eduard’s concern anyway; she’s no threat to anything anymore. The hierarchy of Kuchen is ruthless so she’s better off out of the battle anyway; there are only so many places for bastard heirs to fight their way into power after all.
Granted, Eduard hadn’t always thought that and in the past he would have found such struggles painfully pointless. There was a time when he would have misunderstood it all, when he might have even willingly aided such action thinking that somehow it would help achieve a more egalitarian system. Now of course he realises that he’s never wanted that at all. He is part of the ruling class and for all his unfair advantage it likes it that way. His friends and lovers are fellow aristocrats, their families are influential, they have the wealthy to buy up whatever portion of ‘justice’ they desire.
Orpherus’ rhetoric is a grand illusion t cover the danger of his smiles and when Eduard thinks about it, Orpherus has never once said that he believed that the people should be given any portion of authority over themselves though he’ll happily let others think that to be what he means. That’s aided to a certain extent by the nature of Eduard’s obvious bastardy, the guise he wears of the half-breed commoner misplaced among aristocrats. Eduard is a noble, his father’s heir and future Strahl besides but it certainly doesn’t hurt his progress to let them believe that he thinks otherwise.
He and Orpherus are well suited to each other, in their corruption and their lies. Orpherus would rule for the benefit of the people given the chance just as Eduard would weed out the worthless amongst the aristocracy should the necessity arise. They will do all of this for the good of their nation, for the sake of the people, for a kingdom built on lies. Perhaps Orpherus is right then that the ends justify the means, the people would benefit from Orpherus’ installation into power and from a studious pruning of the Strahl so Eduard really cannot fault their methods. That they cloak their motivations in the presumed honesty of their results means nothing to the greater working of the state. As long as the kingdom survives what does it matter as to why?
Or at least it should be that simple.
The convictions that Eduard carries throughout the day are easy enough to believe when he doesn’t have time to stop and think but at night when he’s alone it’s harder to believe in the justified corruption of his own nature. It’s not that his stepmother is at fault to hate the child of another woman brought into her house, not as if his half-sisters are to blame because like his father they are kind, perhaps almost too kind to him and his father really isn’t responsible for Eduard’s shame. Regardless of what he chooses to blame if anyone were to ask him, he is at fault, he’s fully aware. For all the careful words and omissions, it is him who is rotten. Orpherus has never been to blame. It’s Eduard’s fault that he has always been senselessly grasping for the light. What does he know of purity anyway? Nothing but some boarder baron’s bastard son who knows nothing of nobility or birthright. Except he doesn’t believe that either. He’s not worthless because of the accident of his blood and already he’s contradicting himself in his mind.
It would be so much easier to give in to the darker side of his nature of course, so much easier to be just as cruel and heartless as he might desire but there’s just one flaw in his grand design; he’s not entirely sure that he knows the first thing about being wicked and pragmatism doesn’t make him inherently wrong after all. So he’s left again with a lack of extremes, a moderation in his nature that gives way on occasion but never entirely, never completely is extinguished. He couldn’t ruin his half-sisters even if he wanted to regardless of what his stepmother might think; he might even be incapable of lying about the matter outright which equally is no help at all. Which leaves him with the obvious solution, the trick that he’s always relied on; misdirection and omission and Eduard is really rather good at those. Misinformation under the guise of implied information is what he does best when he considers it in any rational sense.
At last then it may be time to question his future though the cards and wonder if they will promise him damnation. Yet for all his troubles as he shuffles the deck in slightly trembling hands the harsh glass of interpretation grants him mercy. He doesn’t even realise that he’s questioning his own corruption until the ten of cups falls upside-down. Then the Magician stares up at him; both articulate communication and a hint of esoteric pursuits and suddenly he finds that he is smiling. Even the two of coins promises him balance and harmony within upheaval, though he’s not entirely sure what he thinks of the four of cups with its promise of spiritual rejuvenation. The cards promise good tidings and with that reassurance Eduard is quite happy to believe in the potential of self-fulfilment once again.
Tucking the box carefully away under his bed he barely has time to stand up before he finds that he has his own weaver of words standing sleepily in the doorway. Orpherus rubs his eyes before quietly shuffling over to the bed and getting in all without saying a word. Eduard watches bemusedly as Orpherus curls up under the blankets and seemingly goes to sleep. He pauses a moment before giving in to the extent of his wicked intent and leaning over to whisper into Orpherus’ ear.
“Are you getting up for breakfast then, Orphe?”
“No…”
“Come on, we’ll be late for class.”
“Don’t make me go, Ed.”
“I don’t know if I can do that, you slept through all of Monday morning too.”
“No… not going. You can’t make me. It’s too early.”
Orpherus pulls the blankets tighter around himself and looks like he’s attempting to burrow into the bed itself. He doesn’t stir till Eduard climbs into bed with him.
“Aren’t you going to class?”
“Orphe, it’s just past midnight.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t tell me you walked here with your eyes closed.”
“No… I talked to Lui at some point.”
“At some point?”
“I think so. He was going somewhere.”
“Somewhere?”
“Mmm, think so.”
“Going to Naoji’s room maybe?”
“No, I think he wanted a sandwich…”
“Are you sure that wasn’t actually Naoji wearing Lui’s dressing-gown?”
“Maybe…”
Eduard sighs faintly. Mostly incoherent Orpherus in the middle of the night is always a source of endless exasperation and distraction.
“Maybe I ought to go get something to eat?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, the floor’s too cold. You might lose your toes.”
“Orphe?”
“I’ll get cold if you go.”
Eduard gives up and pulls Orpherus closer instead.
“Ed…”
“Hmm?”
“Are you going to get me something to eat then?”
“No.”
Orpherus lets out a huff.
“Are you hungry then?”
“No.”
“Orphe?”
“No…”
“No?”
“No.”
“Go to sleep, silly. You’re not making any sense.”
“I think I want some apple strudel…” And what that last incoherency Orpherus seemingly falls asleep again.
And Eduard smiles bemusedly because really, balance and harmony have never seemed so pleasantly strange.
+++++++++++
“Deus vult!” was the motto of the First Crusade pronounced by Pope Urban II, literally “God wills it.”
Ludwig’s comment about his toes is a reference to polydactilly.
Eduard owns a deck of Marseille tarot cards while Orpherus simply has a normal deck with the four extra cards being the knights of the various suits which are missing from the modern deck.
The first season anime artbook uses both Victor Glifis and Ischtar Baamilia as the spellings for the names of the characters from episodes three and eight respectively.
There’s a half-hearted round-about reference to “Prince Maker 2” in there as well.
Set during the Strahl candidates’ final year at Rosenstolz. Tying in with a couple of things here and here.
Eduard on the topic of his presumed corruption.
Fortune
Disclaimer: Meine Liebe belongs to Konami, Yuki Kaori and others.
++++++++++
The library at Rosenstolz is extensive and often contains many rare tomes jumbled in amongst the school books. Eduard has always been surprised at just how much information and misinformation sit happily alongside each other, especially on the topic of the esoteric. There isn’t much of course, mainly old pamphlets on the topic of witch-burnings, perhaps the odd copy of some papal manual and the like. Not that many people really bother to look.
Mostly Eduard professes a disinterest in such exotic subjects anyway and looks askance when Orpherus casually flips over playing cards in the game of predicting events. Eduard has his own set of course, not a regular deck with four extra cards like Orpherus, but one of French origin purposely made for guessing at the game of chance. He doesn’t use them much and mostly they sit idle in a box under his bed but recently he’s been tempted to question the nature of fate.
Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be he has a tendency to forget about the idea when caught up in school work and the sometimes tedious process of reminding Orpherus to eat. Orpherus has a habit of forgetting the essentials when worrying over a myriad of things and more often than not would go several days wondering why he had continual headaches before realising that it was due to a lack of food.
Just this lunchtime Eduard had found Orpherus sleeping in the greenhouse and prodding him in the direction of the dining hall had produced a rather grumpily ungrateful response. At least Eduard already knows from long experience that when Orpherus snarls that he isn’t hungry, he rarely means it and may just be overtired into the bargain.
Camus has also been tired of late, his expression shuttered and weary and Eduard can only hope that whatever it is that troubles him is at least something Camus finds that he can discuss with Ludwig. With such thoughts in his head it is almost easy to give in to the temptation to reach for the box under his bed again. It’s hardly as if the cards will give him an immediate answer and Eduard isn’t fool enough to expect it but they might perhaps betray some indication as to that way that things may go. Of course that would also be what troubles him.
The fall of the cards may lead him down an unwanted path of self-fulfilling prophecy, the indication of disaster being the trigger that will set him upon that path, so he finds himself afraid to ask. He’s not entirely sure what’d he’d ask anyway because there is nothing specific to question. What could he say? Nothing really because it is just a feeling in the air that disturbs him, a certain wrongness of sensation that sets his teeth on edge. There is something brooding about the atmosphere in the Academy and he can think of no particular explanation why. There will be final exams soon, the end of their schooling; it should be no more troubling than that which certainly doesn’t explain Camus’ drawn expression and the fact that Eduard has already heard Ludwig talking quietly to Naoji over the matter of Camus’ sudden penchant for nightmares.
Of course nightmares are commonplace enough and were it anyone other than Camus prey to them Eduard might be less inclined to worry about a cause beyond anxiety about the upcoming exams or passing illness. The very fact of Camus’ abilities and his now apparent taciturnity worries Eduard far more than he would like to admit openly.
It is possible that even if there have been visions they are no more than Orpherus working himself into exhaustion or Naoji sleeping through the start of one of his exams but if that were the case Camus would have already spoken up. There is a muted hush over the greenhouse now that Camus will say nothing and worse still, the lurking suspicion in Eduard’s mind that it is not Orpherus who will fall afoul of any particular crime. As strange as it might be for him to say it, Eduard would almost rather that Orpherus be the one subject to any such occurrence because Orpherus at least has all the luck of the Devil when it comes to escaping disaster. It makes him wonder sometimes, at the ease with which Orpherus escapes anything quite severe and he knows enough about the old Crusader legends to almost wonder if there is some champion of the infernal host that cleaves to Orpherus’ side.
The Holy Roman Church is filled with secrets and Orpherus’ family perhaps may be privy to some. Of course that is entirely speculation on Eduard’s part; he hardly knows anything of the matter beyond the scrawled documents of mad ancestors anyway. Boarder barons Ludwig called them; the somewhat noble von Sekt Braunschweigs. They were that for the most part, soldiers defending an empire’s boundaries, perhaps almost as savage as those they sort to hold it against. Their blood burns bright in Eduard’s veins; alight with a certain cruelty, a maliciousness that stretches beyond all necessary intent. It’s no wonder that they were almost as savage as their enemies after all and occasionally that cruelty transmuted into something else.
There are old crumbling folios of notes, pages covered with demented scrawl. It’s not a common occurrence among their line but that touch of madness has always been there. Ancestors who would have willingly traded away their immortal souls for the sake of power and recognition.
All the noble families have their histories of course and of the families of the current Strahl candidates, Eduard sometimes morbidly wonders if they simply chose the worst of the bunch. Orpherus’ family may have served the Church well but they were most likely fanatics for their cause.
“Deus vult.” Orpherus is fond of saying in his blackest moments, when what he means to say is that God has nothing to do with it at all.
Ludwig has been known to joke about the fragility of his line, of their penchant for marrying their cousins and siring crippled bastards.
“You’ve never actually bothered to count my toes.” Though Eduard has looked now and Ludwig isn’t quite so abnormal at least physically, though it probably doesn’t bear speculating on just how many generations of inbreeding have produced that pallor.
If he knew anything much of Naoji’s native land Eduard might speculate about his lineage too but Naoji is only ever vocal on the matter of his family’s rejection.
“Japan doesn’t want me back.” And anything else he might say would be lost in the bottom of his whisky glass.
Perhaps then Camus is the most obvious oddity of them all. The only one who’s honest about his difference.
There was talk only last year with an accident prefaced by one of Camus’ visions, that the smallest of their number had actually cursed someone. The very thought of it makes Eduard laugh because of all of them Camus is the least likely to wish anyone harm. Orpherus is forever wishing unholy death upon his enemies of which there are many depending on Orpherus’ moods. Eduard too sometimes wishes that he might find an excuse to kill one person in particular but he is content to wait at least with time on his side. Having threatened his stepmother at Christmas, he’s probably already done enough to secure him some peace of mind for the year to come. Of course the way to strike at her wasn’t directly but to insulate appalling fates for her daughters and to remind her just how much he is his father’s favoured son. In that his father’s naivety plays into Eduard’s hands. There is nothing that he cannot do if he takes the necessary precautions and it is time that his stepmother realise the nature of the creature that she has forced him to become.
There was once a time when he would have sympathised with her plight, would have even offered comfort if only he had known how but those days have passed. He must survive it all, will survive her and see to his own ambitious schemes beyond the illusion that she has erected of his mother. He’s not entirely sure that he can sympathise with his own mother now when it comes to mind though perhaps her naivety was the worst of her sins, her belief in a man who was of too simple a mind and too high a station. Nevertheless, his father will die eventually and Eduard can exercise his vengeance then. There’s no point in rushing the matter really.
Sometimes he wonders whether or not his father pays any attention to the whisper of their family’s latent insanity. It’s not likely that he does at all and perhaps it is only Eduard who takes care to study the history of their line. For a bastard son it is imperative that he know the nature of his lineage and it is doubly advantageous to be knowledgeable of that of others. That the Braunschweigs have inadvertently hidden their insanity can only count in his favour because there’s much to be learned from the scrawling of relatives that the rest of the family tried to hide. Perhaps Camus’ family may be similar and in thinking that, Eduard finds his thoughts turning to the unfortunate Victor Glifis who surely must have been one of theirs cast aside. Of course his occasionally hearing Camus whisper to Ludwig softly of ‘failed experiments’ as if such things are the grandest joke of all may or may not have any bearing on that theory. It makes Eduard wonder just how many wasted husks were cast aside before they bred Camus.
Ludwig likes to talk of absurd breeding experiments sometimes when he’s partially inebriated but Eduard can never really tell if he’s imparting information or making jokes at his family’s expense.
“Eugenics is the biggest joke of all really. Who decides what’s biologically advantageous anyway? I’m hardly qualified to comment on the matter.”
Not that Eduard doesn’t understand the advantage of selectively breeding among the noble bloodlines. Nobles marry for rank and power after all. There’s none of this nonsense of love to be considered really. Orpherus will marry for status; Camus may marry out of boredom, Naoji out of a perverse desire to insult his homeland further and Ludwig… Eduard cannot imagine him married at all. There probably won’t ever be anyone powerful enough or intelligent enough or nearly perfect enough for Ludwig, though Eduard immediately realises that he’s in fact elucidating his own bias now. He can’t picture himself married either though he supposes that he’ll just have to go off and father his own bastards somewhere eventually. He wouldn’t really want to subject a wife to his current state of mind so perhaps procuring a child through unofficial means would be a little kinder. It’s not as if legitimacy can’t be bought anyway, when his own was purchased with his mother’s life after all.
Perhaps it she hadn’t died, he’d still be nothing. The bastard son of an aristocrat and nothing more; that alone wouldn’t do him any good. Certain strata in Kuchen must be peopled with the illegitimate children of noble Houses anyway. There are a handful at Rosenstolz itself or those who are near enough and whose titles have been procured suspiciously close to the wrong side of the sheets. In fact beyond Rosenstolz’s hallowed halls Eduard suspect that one Ischtar Baamilia’s legitimacy was procured in exactly that fashion. Why else would the Herzog have adopted a girl to raise as a son if not to pay back a debt of blood and if that isn’t at all the case then other suspicions will be enough to clip her wings soon enough. It’s not Eduard’s concern anyway; she’s no threat to anything anymore. The hierarchy of Kuchen is ruthless so she’s better off out of the battle anyway; there are only so many places for bastard heirs to fight their way into power after all.
Granted, Eduard hadn’t always thought that and in the past he would have found such struggles painfully pointless. There was a time when he would have misunderstood it all, when he might have even willingly aided such action thinking that somehow it would help achieve a more egalitarian system. Now of course he realises that he’s never wanted that at all. He is part of the ruling class and for all his unfair advantage it likes it that way. His friends and lovers are fellow aristocrats, their families are influential, they have the wealthy to buy up whatever portion of ‘justice’ they desire.
Orpherus’ rhetoric is a grand illusion t cover the danger of his smiles and when Eduard thinks about it, Orpherus has never once said that he believed that the people should be given any portion of authority over themselves though he’ll happily let others think that to be what he means. That’s aided to a certain extent by the nature of Eduard’s obvious bastardy, the guise he wears of the half-breed commoner misplaced among aristocrats. Eduard is a noble, his father’s heir and future Strahl besides but it certainly doesn’t hurt his progress to let them believe that he thinks otherwise.
He and Orpherus are well suited to each other, in their corruption and their lies. Orpherus would rule for the benefit of the people given the chance just as Eduard would weed out the worthless amongst the aristocracy should the necessity arise. They will do all of this for the good of their nation, for the sake of the people, for a kingdom built on lies. Perhaps Orpherus is right then that the ends justify the means, the people would benefit from Orpherus’ installation into power and from a studious pruning of the Strahl so Eduard really cannot fault their methods. That they cloak their motivations in the presumed honesty of their results means nothing to the greater working of the state. As long as the kingdom survives what does it matter as to why?
Or at least it should be that simple.
The convictions that Eduard carries throughout the day are easy enough to believe when he doesn’t have time to stop and think but at night when he’s alone it’s harder to believe in the justified corruption of his own nature. It’s not that his stepmother is at fault to hate the child of another woman brought into her house, not as if his half-sisters are to blame because like his father they are kind, perhaps almost too kind to him and his father really isn’t responsible for Eduard’s shame. Regardless of what he chooses to blame if anyone were to ask him, he is at fault, he’s fully aware. For all the careful words and omissions, it is him who is rotten. Orpherus has never been to blame. It’s Eduard’s fault that he has always been senselessly grasping for the light. What does he know of purity anyway? Nothing but some boarder baron’s bastard son who knows nothing of nobility or birthright. Except he doesn’t believe that either. He’s not worthless because of the accident of his blood and already he’s contradicting himself in his mind.
It would be so much easier to give in to the darker side of his nature of course, so much easier to be just as cruel and heartless as he might desire but there’s just one flaw in his grand design; he’s not entirely sure that he knows the first thing about being wicked and pragmatism doesn’t make him inherently wrong after all. So he’s left again with a lack of extremes, a moderation in his nature that gives way on occasion but never entirely, never completely is extinguished. He couldn’t ruin his half-sisters even if he wanted to regardless of what his stepmother might think; he might even be incapable of lying about the matter outright which equally is no help at all. Which leaves him with the obvious solution, the trick that he’s always relied on; misdirection and omission and Eduard is really rather good at those. Misinformation under the guise of implied information is what he does best when he considers it in any rational sense.
At last then it may be time to question his future though the cards and wonder if they will promise him damnation. Yet for all his troubles as he shuffles the deck in slightly trembling hands the harsh glass of interpretation grants him mercy. He doesn’t even realise that he’s questioning his own corruption until the ten of cups falls upside-down. Then the Magician stares up at him; both articulate communication and a hint of esoteric pursuits and suddenly he finds that he is smiling. Even the two of coins promises him balance and harmony within upheaval, though he’s not entirely sure what he thinks of the four of cups with its promise of spiritual rejuvenation. The cards promise good tidings and with that reassurance Eduard is quite happy to believe in the potential of self-fulfilment once again.
Tucking the box carefully away under his bed he barely has time to stand up before he finds that he has his own weaver of words standing sleepily in the doorway. Orpherus rubs his eyes before quietly shuffling over to the bed and getting in all without saying a word. Eduard watches bemusedly as Orpherus curls up under the blankets and seemingly goes to sleep. He pauses a moment before giving in to the extent of his wicked intent and leaning over to whisper into Orpherus’ ear.
“Are you getting up for breakfast then, Orphe?”
“No…”
“Come on, we’ll be late for class.”
“Don’t make me go, Ed.”
“I don’t know if I can do that, you slept through all of Monday morning too.”
“No… not going. You can’t make me. It’s too early.”
Orpherus pulls the blankets tighter around himself and looks like he’s attempting to burrow into the bed itself. He doesn’t stir till Eduard climbs into bed with him.
“Aren’t you going to class?”
“Orphe, it’s just past midnight.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t tell me you walked here with your eyes closed.”
“No… I talked to Lui at some point.”
“At some point?”
“I think so. He was going somewhere.”
“Somewhere?”
“Mmm, think so.”
“Going to Naoji’s room maybe?”
“No, I think he wanted a sandwich…”
“Are you sure that wasn’t actually Naoji wearing Lui’s dressing-gown?”
“Maybe…”
Eduard sighs faintly. Mostly incoherent Orpherus in the middle of the night is always a source of endless exasperation and distraction.
“Maybe I ought to go get something to eat?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, the floor’s too cold. You might lose your toes.”
“Orphe?”
“I’ll get cold if you go.”
Eduard gives up and pulls Orpherus closer instead.
“Ed…”
“Hmm?”
“Are you going to get me something to eat then?”
“No.”
Orpherus lets out a huff.
“Are you hungry then?”
“No.”
“Orphe?”
“No…”
“No?”
“No.”
“Go to sleep, silly. You’re not making any sense.”
“I think I want some apple strudel…” And what that last incoherency Orpherus seemingly falls asleep again.
And Eduard smiles bemusedly because really, balance and harmony have never seemed so pleasantly strange.
+++++++++++
“Deus vult!” was the motto of the First Crusade pronounced by Pope Urban II, literally “God wills it.”
Ludwig’s comment about his toes is a reference to polydactilly.
Eduard owns a deck of Marseille tarot cards while Orpherus simply has a normal deck with the four extra cards being the knights of the various suits which are missing from the modern deck.
The first season anime artbook uses both Victor Glifis and Ischtar Baamilia as the spellings for the names of the characters from episodes three and eight respectively.
There’s a half-hearted round-about reference to “Prince Maker 2” in there as well.
