disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem.

teaser: secondary characters have a tendency to die off in the first act, and no one remembers them

notes: assumes that the PoR data transfer with the Ike/Soren A support was not used

/Someone Else's Funeral Song/

And perhaps you should have died, so you would not have to know…

Pelleas thinks this. He thinks this because it is halfway true. If the knife had found its mark in his breast instead of halting at the bosom of a maiden of light, he would have died a hero. He would have been remembered as a king that had loved his country, a boy that had been foolish.

Instead, what is he? A mockery. A hollow image. A dispensable pawn in a game of chess.

He is not good enough. He has never been good enough. Even for those shining months when he thought that he had finally found his place and his home and his family, he had known. On some dark, unacknowledged level he always knew.

And now he has nothing, nothing but his own heavy heart, telling him with every step he takes that he is coming to the point where he cannot keep pretending to himself anymore. He cannot live this lie, not when he is surrounded by so many great men and women, who do so many great things.

Ike. And Micaiah. And Elincia and Sanaki. And Tibarn. What grand joke of fate has placed him beside them? Men and women who were born to greatness, to do amazing things, to change worlds merely because they deem it necessary. Men and women who blaze a fiery path of radiance with every careless step they take.

Pelleas remembers dirty orphanages and clothes four sizes too big and frozen feet in winter and going to bed starving for a scrap of anything and remembers the hate and the ignorance, and the whispers of a spirit that it could give him power.

Men like Pelleas shrink beside men like Ike.

In the vast grand scheme, they are unimportant. Their very presence within the story perverts its context, and makes a mockery of their greatness, and no one remembers men like Pelleas at the end of the story.

They usually die, anyway.

-

And who is this woman? Pelleas wonders now, as he has never allowed himself to wonder before.

How could he have allowed himself to be tricked into thinking he her son? This woman of dragon blood, this powerful creature of desperate love and cool smiles. He had seen only a woman in the first days of meeting her, and he had been foolish to let the image of a loving mother take hold.

She loves a man whose place Pelleas has stolen. And Pelleas is a clumsy theft. He wonders how long before she realizes that the man standing before her is not the baby she lost.

He never uses the Fenrir tome. Instead, he lies and says he lost it.

When Almedha finds out that he is a lie of everything she wants, she will leave him, and Pelleas will need something to remind himself what it was like to have a mother who loved him, if only for a few uncountable months.

Tibarn says nothing, but then Tibarn does not think highly of him to begin with. Pelleas cannot blame him. Tibarn is a king that every king should want to be. Brave, courageous, wild and reckless, but leveled and controlled.

Pelleas is like a pale reflection, ineffectual wherever Tibarn is effective.

"You must forgive him," Elincia tells him gently, putting one hand on his shoulder, because she is too kind to understand him. "Tibarn… isn't quite used to the frailties of the beorc."

It has nothing to do with that. But he smiles at her because she can never truly understand. Elincia is like Tibarn. She was meant for what she does, meant to sit on her throne. The life she leads was not one that she stole, but one that was mapped out for her.

"It's quite alright," Pelleas lies, and looks away. She's so shining, this queen, and he wonders if he's ever looked like he was meant to rule, if there was ever a time when someone looked at him and thought: this must be the king of Daein.

"Your mother…" Elincia begins hesitantly, then finds the strength within herself and goes on. "She wishes to see you."

He tries not to wince. Who knows who his mother is? All Pelleas knows is that she does not wish to see him. She is probably a stone, and she has probably not thought of him in many long years.

All he knows is that it is not the woman who hovers just at the edge of the troupe, looking at him like she expects him to suddenly remember all the things he cannot ever remember. And he knows she holds herself by a fine thread of sanity, and he knows how easy it would be to break and watch the stone pieces of her resolve crumble down.

"Please," he says, his voice strange to his ears. Where is the emotion? It as if he is talking from a distance. "A moment."

"Of course," Elincia says and stands from her position beside him.

For a moment, only just so, he thinks that there is a pressure on the back of his hand, fingers gripping his own in a sense of empathy. But Elincia is walking away, and he is left to stare out into the woods, not sure where to go from here.

-

"Oh, so you're still alive?"

Like they're always surprised. Like he was a secondary character meant to be used only in the first act. That's how they say it when they see him, and sometimes he's just as surprised.

His tome is heavy, weighed with a goddess's blessing. For a moment he feared that Yune would withhold her blessing on him, such a ridiculous fear because blood and sovereignty doesn't matter to a goddess who created the world.

But he had feared.

And Sephiran is spewing out those hateful things, so contradictory to his calm, soothing voice. Confirming all Pelleas's deep-seeded doubts and fears. Confirming his own inadequately, naming all his hopes false, and all his dreams lies.

He isn't like Ike or Micaiah, or the rest that stand with them. He is nothing more than pawn, and nothing less than a fabrication.

And this holy man, this great duke of Begnion, acts as if this is nothing, as if he has not torn down all Pelleas ever was, or had ever dreamed of being. He acts as if this is nothing more than a story told to a child at bedtime.

The cool smirk, the slight tilt of the eyebrows, the gentle words the seep and melt his skin. It means nothing to Sephiran that Pelleas is boiling inside, his stomach churning with acid, his arms and legs shaking with hate and grief and denial at what is true.

Everything is a lie. He is a theft. He stole the life of another boy, maybe another orphan who was waiting for his parents to rescue him in some godforsaken place, beaten and battered while Pelleas merrily stole what was his by right.

Sephiran does not care.

His fingers lift, his lips move in incantation, and all his rage pours into the dark spell. The mark on his hand burns, reminding him of what it isn't, reminding him that there is another out there with a mark that proves him false.

This is for you, he thinks, wherever you are. And this is for every other unimportant child and adult who's deaths mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, whose actions barely make a ripple, who die quietly and are mourned by few.

Because Pelleas stands here, and he is not dead, and his voice is not silent, and he isn't going to just survive, he is going to fight. And fight. And his voice will be heard, and it's heard now, him screaming it as loud as he could as the darkness swells and peaks and Sephiran is lost in a tide of black ink.

He lets the spell go, fading into the air.

Sephiran looks surprised, and turns to Ike, as if he half expected to find the general having dealt the killing blow. But it is not Ike. It is not Tibarn. Or Micaiah. It is just Pelleas, sweat rolling down his face, his chest heaving, and his fingers white over his ancient, dark tome.

Pelleas falls with Sephiran, his knees hitting the ground. Sanaki is screaming in the distance, but Pelleas does not care. All he can think now is that he took down Sephiran, and that will always mean something.

He looks up at the senator's face, smooth and timeless, a smile curving at the tips, and nothing makes sense anymore.

-

"Micaiah," he says and the silver-haired maiden turns to him, one hand on her breast as if she knows what he will say. "I'm not—"

"I know, I know." Micaiah looks at him strangely, gauging his own emotions. "Oh, Pelleas, I'm sorry. What Izuka and Begnion and everyone did. I'm so sorry."

"No, it's alright." He takes a breath, breathes in the air, free of control and Ashera's judgment. "Do you know who Mo—Almedha's—son is?"

"Yes," Micaiah says softly, looking anywhere but into his eyes. "Do you want to know who?"

"No. I'm too weak for that."

"Pelleas—"

"I've taken it from him, haven't I?" Pelleas looks at his hand, turns it over, and looks at his mark of the Spirit Charm. What a lie. What a waste. "I'm a thief, and a coward, and if I could put a face to… I would never be able to live with myself, and I'm not strong enough for that."

"You're impossibly strong, Pelleas," Micaiah protests softly, and makes no hesitation to grip his wrist. "He wouldn't want it, even if he knew."

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't. It was his and I took it." He closes his eyes, and fights the pain. Fights the pain of his fake and twisted existence. "Almedha knows. I—I told her. And she—I don't know what do now."

"Let's just go home," Micaiah suggests, turning her head to look at Begnion. Pelleas remembers then that her own existence was a half-truth, because Begnion was hers by right of blood. "Things will make more sense in Daein. You're still my king, Pelleas."

But she's always known and had faith in who she was, and what she believed it. She didn't shape her ideals because she thought she finally had a mother who needed her, and a country that had to be protected. She always knew who she was, and what she was.

He shrugs. "I'm no one's king. I'm not sure I ever was."

"It doesn't matter to me about blood or heritage," Micaiah says, her eyes blazing with her righteous light, like the first time he saw her, her hair wild from desert wind and her cheeks pinked from exertion and her whole body steeled with will and inner strength. "He wasn't—isn't—fit to rule."

Yes, he could accept that. Orphans rarely made good kings, or good nobles. Orphans were always orphans, waiting for the day when they were alone again.

And looking into Micaiah's eyes, so full of live and conviction and boundless love and strength and wisdom, he knows something that she doesn't know. For the first time.

He is not fit to rule either, and now it is time to do one thing right in his life.

-

"But I can't," Micaiah says.

It is such a hollow lie that Pelleas nearly laughs. Of course, she can. It seems to him, now, that this was the road they would be on no matter what happened. No matter if he had signed the blood contract, no matter if Izuka picked another orphan, no matter if he had died to break the curse, or along the road to the tower.

Daein has been Micaiah's since the first day she had opened her eyes and beheld the world.

He hopes that the history books will at least remember him fondly for giving them their most precious queen. Micaiah is destined for greatness, and she will stay when she probably should go. Women like her—men like Ike, who left when he should have left and did not look back at the broken pieces in his wake—are meant to be so much more than anyone else.

Pelleas is meant to step graciously into the shadows, and watch.

There is only a brief moment of doubt—but what will become of me now?—before it fades and acceptance takes its place. Yes, Micaiah must be queen. How could she not be? She is more queen than he was king. The people speak her name with reverence, and barely remembered his. Only Micaiah seems to care that he sits on the throne of Daein.

"I couldn't… not anymore," he tells her, sitting across her from her in the rooms she claims are too lavish for her taste. If her hair is mussed, and her lips swollen, and every part of her body shining happiness and joy, he ignores it. "Not now, knowing that it's another man's."

"I told you, he wouldn't—"

"I stole his life," Pelleas goes on, knowing that this is an old argument, and one he usually tries not to have with Micaiah. "And everything that was his. And what's worse, I didn't put it to good use. I didn't do anything. I just cowered and worried and hesitated. I should have handed my crown to you long before any of this mess started."

"Pelleas, please," Micaiah pleads softly, tears forming at the tips of her eyes. How beautiful she is, looking like that, like she is preparing to take some great burden onto herself in the name of something even she doesn't quite understand.

"Micaiah, I'm going to make the official announcement about my… true heritage tomorrow." For the most part, that has stopped stinging. "The people will be angry with me, they will hate me, they will think I tricked them, deceived them. And they will be right."

"No!" she snaps, shooting to her feet. "Stop saying that Pelleas. You have done nothing but love Daein. Even before Izuka—even before! I know. I can see it."

"I have no more love for Daein than the next citizen," Pelleas answers calmly, sitting while she stands. "And that's the true problem, Micaiah. I am a citizen of Daein, not it's king. I cannot rule knowing that I have no more right to do so than the man on the street begging for coins."

"Pelleas…" Micaiah whispers.

"It could have been me," he tells her, closing his eyes. "It could have very easily been me. The people, they saved me by believing in the deception, by giving their support to their false king. I owe them something. I will repay my debt by giving them the woman who will rule them best. Please, Micaiah, let me name you tomorrow."

Micaiah sighs, her eyes closing, and she looks to Pelleas exactly as she did the day he asked her to become his general. Like she knows she is taking on a great burden that maybe she doesn't wish to take on, but she'll do it, because this is what is for the best.

"Yes. I will." Micaiah opens her eyes and looks at him. "But—Pelleas. Will you stay then? Will you stay and support me in court? I—I need you to stay with me."

He thinks of the orphanage that has been the only home he has ever known. He thinks of the jeers of the other children, of the burning Spirit Charm on the back of his hand. He thinks of Micaiah's, now worn so proudly, like it's a brand of honor rather than shame. He thinks of regular people, with no amazing skills, he thinks of men with simple means and simpler ways. Men whose voices are not heard because they are of no great importance.

And, maybe, he could do good here. Maybe there was still a chance.

"Of course," he tells her and Micaiah's smile breaks the room.

Now he thinks of things he will never have, he thinks of Micaiah's hair falling down her back and her golden eyes and her legs as they walk away from him. And he smiles back at her.

He leaves before Sothe wakes up, dozing in Micaiah's bed.

-

Almedha's appearance in his chambers is a surprise. She has returned to Daein, as its queen mother, but she has not seen him in many months. He cannot blame her, though his heart aches for all the ifs that are never answered.

"Mo—Lady Almedha," he says and bows. "What brings you to me?"

She looks at him in a way she has never looked at him before and he feels naked before her, and he cannot help but remember when he first saw her, this tall and proud woman and thought with some wonderment: this is my mother.

"Pelleas, I…" she falls silent and bites her lip, her fingers working at the veil between her fingers. She has taken to wearing it once more. "I've done you a disservice."

"No, none at all. I… we were both deceived." He looks away, carefully from her, because it is hard. This is a woman who wanted her son desperately, and he was not what she wanted.

"I've found it so hard to look at you," she says, her words like heavy stones in Pelleas's heart. "Knowing that for a moment, I hated you. I hated you for something that was beyond your control."

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

"Pelleas!" Almedha grips his wrist hard, looking his eyes from the sheer of her veil. "No. Please. I haven't been able to look at you because… how could I? I was a foolish, selfish woman who could only see that you weren't my son. I didn't see that you were just a boy and you had wanted your mother, too. This is all my fault."

"Almedha." Something feels like bursting in his heart, some hope that he didn't realize that had managed to stay alive despite everything he did to destroy it. "We've both made mistakes. I suspected the truth long before I told you, and I… I wanted so much for you to be my mother."

"I wanted to deny the truth, too. I wanted you to be my son." She closes her eyes and inhales the room sharply. "This place holds so many memories for me. And so many of them are unhappy."

"Then why did you stay?" Pelleas steps back from her, wondering where this strength in him came from. "Prince Kurthnaga would have welcomed you back in Goldoa."

"Because I cannot go back. I'm not—" Almedha breaks off and lifts her hands, showing them to him, as if he will understand. "I'm nothing now. I'm not a laguz, I'm not a beorc. I'm… I'm just here. How can I go back to those people who remember me only as what I am not anymore?"

"We both are, then," Pelleas tells her soothingly. "I'm just a court jester who played at being king. I'm just an orphan who matched a description. I'm a man of simple means and simple ways."

"No matter what you are, Pelleas, you are my son." Almedha smiles at his surprised choke. "I have no face to put to my son's save yours. When I first saw you, my heart loved you for being my son. And then I loved you for being Pelleas. I don't know where my other son is, but I think he is happy, and think I that you need me here, and if you will have me I will still be your mother."

"I—I—yes. You'll always be my mother, Almedha, because you were there when I needed one the most. You loved me unconditionally, you labored for me." Pelleas feels his eyes wetting and looks out into the sunlight spilling across Daein. "Just because we are not related by blood does not mean… that does not mean we are not family."

Almedha sobs, and Pelleas understands. She sobs now for the baby she has lost, great tears of sorrow rolling down her face. Pelleas takes her arms and holds her close as she cries for someone he is not.

She feels more like a mother to him now than she has ever felt before.

And he feels like he has lost a brother.

-

In the history books of Tellius, years and years later, there is a small paragraph within the chapter dedicated to the great and golden rule of Micaiah of Daein, the Priestess of Dawn, the Bringer of Light, and the Freer of the Oppressed.

It says:

Pelleas. A citizen of Daein. Fought the Goddess Ashera. A loyal confidant to the queen, attributed to the beginnings of democracy in Daein.

Nothing else is known.

notes: out of all the characters in Radiant Dawn, I think Pelleas is my favorite (the fact that he was a kickass Archsage helped, too). So tragic, no matter what happens. He either dies or finds out that everyone was using him. That's really, really sad. And even worse, other than Macaiah, no one cares. But I love you Pelleas!