Title: In Your Absence
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Fire Emblem 7: Rekka no Ken
Pairings: Karel x Lucius, implied Raven x Lucius

AN: Meeeeep. I've never written fanfiction before. I mean, I've written, but only original stuff. So this is my first fanfic, and of course I go and include one of the most difficult characters to write in all of Fire Emblem 7. Lucius isn't so bad, but Karel was quite ornery. I'm still not sure I got him right. Anyway, I have no basis of criteria upon which I can judge if I'm a decent fanfic writer, so reviews would be very much appreciated.

In Your Absence

The sharp clang of sword kissing sword reverberated around the tree trunks, and Lucius rushed towards the sound, clutching a book of Shine to his chest and struggling through thickets and brambles that tore at his blue robes and pulled his hair. For an hour now he had crept his careful way through the underbrush, avoiding the Bern wyvern riders that had ambushed them and searching for his scattered allies in this expanse of wilderness. Now, he fought his way past grasping branches in a pathless, sun-dappled forest, following that steady song of clashing metal.

St. Elimine, let it be Lord Raymond, he thought, for Raymond would always be his lord, and no matter that Lucius must call him Raven in the presence of others. Not for the first time he chided himself for becoming separated from the company; the air had been full of wide, beating wyvern's wings, lances had speared down like rain, and he had lost his bearings in the confusion of it all. Lord Raymond would have a dialogue with him about that, he was sure.

The piercing clatter of the sword fight came from just up ahead where, at last, the forest opened up and a gleam of open sunlight shone beyond the dense foliage. Lucius emerged into a bright glade, and he jerked to a halt, his breath catching in his throat.

A quick glance told him that none of his allies were among the dead; the bodies strewn about so carelessly in the clearing wore Bern colors. Lucius breathed again. Another glance, and he gagged, turned his face away from the carnage. So much blood staining the grass, so many men and wyverns lying dead in the sun, wounds still fresh and bleeding.

And in the eye of this sanguine storm stood the swordmaster Karel and his lone opponent, a young wyvern rider who had lost both mount and lance, and now fought only with a sword she couldn't hold up any longer and whatever was left of her courage.

The Shine tome hung heavy from Lucius' hand as he slipped around the edge of the glade, sidestepping around a severed wyvern's head that still oozed blood onto the grass. Bitter bile threatened to boil up the back of throat again. "M...Master Karel," he said, moving into the swordmaster's line of sight, trying to get his attention.

Karel remained still as stone, his fierce eyes never straying from the wyvern rider, the elegant curve of the Wo Dao held ready. For all that he had been outnumbered, he had no serious injuries that Lucius could see.

The wyvern rider's breath hissed out through clenched teeth, and one hand clutched her stomach where a dark, crimson stain had spread through her clothing. She could not raise her sword point off the ground.

"Mercy," she said, dropping the sword and falling onto her knees. "I submit myself to your lord's mercy. Take me to him, please."

Lucius' tense shoulders relaxed. "Of course," he said, approaching the woman and holding out a hand to her. She looked at him as though he had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "We will take you to Lord Eliwood."

Karel moved.

More quickly than Lucius could follow with his eyes, Karel closed the intervening air space between himself and the woman, the Wo Dao singing through the air in a downward cut.

"Stop!" Lucius said, and even as that single, horrified syllable left his lips, the wyvern rider dove for her sword, and Karel's blade cleaved into her arm, once, twice, severing the arm at the elbow. She barely had a moment to scream before Karel brought the sword across her throat in an elegant sweep, turning her shriek of pain into a liquid gurgle.

Karel turned.

It was those eyes that made Lucius step back, those feral, hungry eyes. Karel stabbed his sword into the ground and advanced. Before Lucius' shock-numb mind could even consider flight, Karel had him, had seized the scarf tied about Lucius' waist and wrenched him close. One rough hand tore at the collar of his robes, teeth bit at his neck, and one arm wrapped around his back and held him as surely as a band of iron.

"Stop!" he said again, and the word came out as a desperate sob. He pushed at Karel's chest with one hand and tried to squirm away, but Karel growled deep in his throat and crushed their bodies together, trying to rip the clothes off of him and hold him still at the same time. Tears of fear and anger clung to Lucius' eyelashes and threatened to fall. Anger at himself; if only he were stronger, if only he hadn't been foolish enough to approach Karel alone, when he knew—he knew—the man was dangerous. If only Lord Raymond were here.

Raymond...what do I do?

And the answer came to him, almost as if Lord Raymond were right there whispering into his mind.

Use the book, stupid.

Oh, yes. He still held Shine in his hand.

Twisting his body to gain some leverage, Lucius swung the book up with a strength born of desperation and slammed it into the side of Karel's head, knocking the swordmaster away from him.

Not exactly how it's supposed to be used, but at least it worked, he thought, frantic fear in him so deeply that his breath came in gasps and his heart hammered in his chest.

Holding the side of his head, Karel drew himself up, his teeth clenched and his lips forming a derisive snarl. He pinned Lucius in place with his eyes. Anger burned in those depths, but control shone there as well, that keen bit of rationale and sanity that had been missing moments before.

"You hit me," Karel said, and the barely controlled calm in his voice chilled Lucius more than even the wordless, lustful growls had. Karel removed his hand from the side of his head and revealed a purple bruise where the corner of the book had hit him in the temple.

"I...I had to. You wouldn't stop."

Karel moved toward him, and with every step he took forward, Lucius took a step back, retreating before Karel's steady, patient advance until his back hit a tree.

"That is enough," Lucius said, pressing back against the tree trunk and wishing he could burrow into the wood.

"Stop me."

Karel closed the distance between them, slipped a hand around to the small of Lucius' back and drew him close. He smelled of blood and sweat and menace, and in a mockery of tenderness he kissed at the painful place where he had bitten Lucius' neck. The heat of Karel's breath on his skin sent tingles of sensation down Lucius' limbs.

Lucius trembled; his head swam. No, no, I mustn't faint, not now. The glaring sun beyond the shade of the tree...the heat of Karel's body...the chemical aftermath of adrenaline...and suddenly Karel was not just holding him close, but holding him up as well. Shine fell from Lucius' hand and only the thud of the heavy tome on the ground brought him fully back to his senses. "I...I thought you said my blood meant nothing to you," he said, forcing his clouded mind to think clearly.

"It is not your blood that concerns me at the moment, monk," Karel said, and he pulled back enough for Lucius to look into his eyes and see a pensive quality beyond the ravenous hunger. "You come upon me in my killing rage, yet I do not kill you. You strike me, yet I do not strike back." Karel leaned in close again, so close their breath mingled. "Do you know you are the only person to injure me and live?" he whispered. "And that alone is enough to fascinate me."

Karel captured Lucius' mouth with his own, and Lucius parted his lips for the swordmaster without even thinking. With slow leisure did Karel plunder Lucius' mouth, acquainting himself with the taste of it as he explored with his tongue. Lucius moaned in the back of his throat, a primal, helpless answer to Karel's thorough administrations.

Not at all like Lord Raymond, Lucius thought. Lord Raymond who kissed him breathless, who laid him down with calloused, demanding hands and made him forget every vow of chastity he'd ever spoken, who was always careful of him even in the heat of lust.

Lucius twisted his face away. "Stop," he said, pushing against Karel's chest with one slender hand, brow knotting in anger at the utter presumption of the man. "Stop or I will tell Raven." He should not have brought Lord Raymond's name into this, he knew, but what else could he do with the Shine tome out of reach?

For the longest time, Karel regarded him in silence, and in that odd way of one in a tense situation, Lucius began to notice inconsequential details. The susurrus of wind-stirred leaves, the crows pecking at the eyes of the corpses in the glade, the pattern of blood droplets staining Karel's clothes...

"The mercenary," Karel said at last. His smile was biting. "The one you lie with."

"No!" Lucius said, but he blushed deeply and felt another stab of anger at Karel's sharp laugh.

"And now you deny him," Karel said. "How disloyal of you."

"I...merely fight alongside him..."

"And when the fighting is done, you service him between his sheets," Karel said. "Anyhow, you will not have to tell him. He will know."

"How—" Lucius began, but then his eyes widened in understanding. He reached up to clutch his neck, where he could feel the painful mark Karel's teeth had made.

Karel's hand rose to rest lightly against Lucius' face as the swordmaster leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "He will see that, and he will know another man has touched you. And the next time you break your vows with him, all you will be able to think of is me...and all the things I may have done to you if I hadn't chosen to walk away."

And he did walk away, pulling the Wo Dao from the ground and sheathing it as he went, leaving Lucius to collect himself and find his own way back to the others.