Flightless Bird

a/n: Written circa January 2009.

I wrote this for a friend, as part of a fic exchange. Rath just isn't the talkative type, so in the end I was reading supports and fic for inspiration when this popped into my head; that both Lyn and Rath do have something that the other one wants. And, by extension, being together completes them... I suppose. I really have no idea what happened with the fic though.

Rath didn't need anyone.

Or, at least, that's what he thought.

He'd never had a need for anyone else before. He was a man of the plains, a true nomad - a man who went solo by himself and travelled around with only his trusty steed for company. His horse was a companion, to an extent, but she was as quiet as he - she didn't feel the need to fill long empty silences, and neither did Rath. They were content with the silence. There was a bond between them, and that was all that really mattered.

Rath didn't really have any need for human contact or company. He'd tossed that all aside a long time ago when he'd been thrown out to the will of the plains when he was a child due to some prophetic vision. It may have been a prophetic vision, a vision that had put all the tribe in danger, that had to be contented with, but-- Rath never really understood how a chieftain could throw out a member of his tribe just like that, no qualms or questions asked.

He couldn't understand how a father would so easily and obediently throw out his own son.

That thought had always wormed away at him, and he'd had to live on it for many long, hard years. It took a long time for it to dull down to the back of his mind, to curb his face into an expressionless mask that didn't convey what he felt inside. By that time, Rath had lost mostly all human contact. He didn't trust essentially easily, but he had no real idea what trust was. It was like that for everything: anything he felt, he couldn't explain in as many words. All his emotions were frayed - things he understood in theory, but could never completely realize what they were.

That was probably why when he first saw her, he didn't really understand either.

At the time, it was compulsory. There was a Sacaen woman in danger and the course of action was to naturally help her, no matter who she was. But there were other things at the time. Beyond that simple compulsion, there was another underlying one. Just her, generally - she was striking. She didn't deserve to die. Rath wanted to save her, and so he had. She looked as surprised as he had felt distantly inside himself. Before he'd known it, he'd been drafted into her cause, a cause he really didn't have any reason to fight for, but he had. Because it was for her. A fellow Sacaen (or, that was what he'd told himself).

And that was how he met Lyndis, as she was formally known. To him, it was Lyn. Always Lyn. A Sacaen woman hidden behind other burdens thrust upon her.

And, it was also then that he fell in love with her.

Though of course, it wasn't something that he realized. After the uprising at Caelin and Lyn's success, Rath had slipped away back into the fields of Sacae. To do what he had always done without any complaint. To keep living.

Only, there was always a dull nagging about Lyn in the back of his mind. He didn't know why, and that always frustrated him more. The plains had always been enough for him before, but now there was something missing from them. Or perhaps someone.

He never really intended to keep any sort of tabs on her, to keep any sort of contact with the Sacaen girl masquerading as a Lycian noble, but he'd found her again. If by a sort of fate or chance Rath didn't know. That didn't matter. She was there and there was finally something for him to watch over again, as he had once down with the plains.

There was always something about her that made him continue watching her from a distance. There were the outer things, but also little things, too. First was how striking she was - her clothes were Lorca, he recognized, the last one of them. She wore them with pride and hadn't turned to wearing stuffy corsets and battle armour like what normal Lycian noblewoman would. She was still Lyn, even though she was forced to be someone else as well, trying to force two sides of herself to coexist even though it wasn't possible. Her eyes always shone with a greater instinctual intuition than he'd ever seen before - with intellect and insight into everything she did. The smile that lit up her face when she conversed with others, her rare laughter during the long crusade: it was enthralling.

She was the only reason he was here, he repeated to himself over and over, and that was what drew him to her. Out of relation because she was a Sacaen. Of course. He didn't know what else was going through his mind beyond that.

Lyn too seemed to have drawn to him: out of gratitude for him saving her life, and for the presence of another Sacaen, he imagined. But he used the opportunities given to him and talked to her. Slowly, but surely. Rath was not a man of many words, but he spoke enough words for the past ten years of his life within weeks when he spoke to Lyn.

Lyn's emotions were an open page when she was with those she knew well: she cried when she wanted to, laughed when she wanted to, expressed fears and doubts. There were days when she pulled herself into an unbreakable fortress and she wouldn't spill those thoughts, and that too, was with fierce passion and determination. She was passionate about everything she did. And even more so about the plains, as that was often their topic of conversation. It was the only thing Rath really knew.

Beyond that? Lyn also had everything he'd ever craved and wanted. A loving set of parents. A loving father. Family. A place to belong: several places to belong, as when the Lorca was lost she had her grandfather.

But it didn't take a genius to figure that something was missing for Lyn with all that she did have. Or maybe no one was just as observing as Rath was of the Sacaen woman he had saved all those years ago.

Lyn craved what he had, and he knew it. Not quite the solitude, but the freedom. She longed for freedom, the feel of the wind in her hair and the endless rolling hills of grass at her feat. She longed to go about her days with no strings attached - she loved her grandfather, that was true, but she was a lady of Caelin and that had to put first. She wanted to go about her days with just her in mind, just where she wanted to be and what she wanted to do. But she couldn't.

Rath could see Lyn was like a flightless bird. The opposite to him, a lone wolf. Lyn couldn't fly away back to the plains, but was grounded in a place she loved, but didn't compare to home. Whenever she tried, grounded as she was, she would always have to trail back to a castle that was not of Sacaen desire. She longed for the place that he called home: he could see it in her eyes.

They were like two pieces of a puzzle. What one lacked, the other one had.

When he realized that, he realized he loved her. One thing he could understand was pain. He'd endured that before; and it pained him to see her face crumple like it did when she spoke of the places she'd seen and been on the plains, the places she knew she wouldn't be able to see for a long time.

She longed to be there now, he could see, as they sailed to the Dread Isle.

".... Lyn," he said, after a long lapse of silence in the conversation that he'd currently been in with her. The moon was just rising on the horizon.

"Yes? What's the matter?" Lyn asked.

"When the war is over," Rath started, "I'll take you with me to Sacae."

It was a determined statement not to be questioned, but Lyn shook her head with a sorrowful expression on her face. "My grandfather... Caelin needs... I can't just abandon it for what I want, Rath. I have to stay grounded there as long as need be. The plains may call me but I have to ignore it. I fought so long to save my grandfather, and it would break him if I left for the plains. All I can do is see them from a distance."

"Where does your heart yearn?" Rath had asked simply in response.

"The plains," Lyn said immediately, blinking several times as she felt the conviction in her voice. Slightly startled from it, she lowered it a little. "Always the plains."

"A visit. Not for forever, not this time. A visit wouldn't hurt," Rath replied. "Your grandfather couldn't complain at that."

"I could tie it in with something else... just for a few days..." Lyn said thoughtfully to herself, but the thought soon diminished. "But even if I told him that he would insist one of the Knights... and it's not the same then. Someone who wouldn't understand... someone only Sacaen would... and a Knight would want to go back as soon as we got there. Even if it was Kent or Sain, they wouldn't be able to see it," Lyn sighed.

Rath spoke softly, then. "Would a fellow Sacaen do?"

"As a chaperone?"

Rath nodded. "You'd be safe with me."

Lyn blinked, once, twice, three times, before she lightly smiled from where she was stood opposite. "Well... Rath of the Kutolah... even though Caelin may not like it... I accept."

"Lyn of the Lorca," Rath replied. "I am yours."

She smiled. "And after? In the future? Would you help me get back to Sacae then?"

There was definitely something underlying in her words. Even if she could momentarily escape now for a few hours, Rath had given her a reason for a few days. But this was more. She seemed almost to be hinting at being there permanently... and that she wanted him to help her do that.

Rath nodded. "Always."

If there were only one thing Rath could do with his non-existence as a lone wolf, then it would be to give Lyn her wings.

He couldn't think of anyone else who deserved them more.