Title: Reunion
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: PG
Length: 1250 words
Content notes: n/a
Author notes: Completely random medieval au! Ferio and Emeraude - because she deserves to get to not have to give up her life for her land, and her brother's found a way to do so that they might both be content with, if he could just persuade her so. (Emeraude/Zagato, Fuu/Ferio)
Summary: "I made a resolution, once. I resolved that I would never leave you to bear this alone."

oOo

"Sister!" Ferio flung himself out of the saddle, and across the clearing. His horse startled back as its rider fled, but Fuu reached from her own mount and caught the reins, leading it away. All three of the young knights turned from the reunion, in fact, dismounting under the trees and keeping a watch on the forest, not on the glade.

Queen Emeraude leapt to her feet and sprang towards her brother, wrapping her arms about him "Ferio - oh, my brother, I thought they must have caught you! So many weeks with no word-"

"No, though they tried!" He said, with a slightly forced laugh. He pulled away and held his sister at arm's length, studying her closely. Always beautiful, with a mass of waving gold hair and eyes the same green as the forest in midsummer, Emeraude had always looked like little more than a girl. Now, care had taken too much of the flesh from her bones. The sharp angles of cheek and jaw gave her back the years she had lived, the lines on her brow added onto them. There were shadows in her eyes, and bruises under them; her hair was escaping from its coiled braid, and the simple gown she wore for travelling had mud at the hems - and blood on the sleeves.

She still looked beautiful, but it was a sharper thing, honed by worry.

Ferio tucked a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. "I am sorry to have added to your cares, these past months." He said, softly. "These three girls have brought me safely away from every army and every scout which tried to capture me. And I know far more about the land than I did even half a year ago, though I have been your wandering eyes and ears for a dozen seasons now. But- enough of that. How is he?"

Emeraude glanced back, to the small tent at the far end of the shelter, the Lord Marshal guarding its door. "Zagato is holding on, with all he has."

"Then there is still a chance." Ferio told her, and she looked across at him - not down anymore, and not yet up; they were of a height. Equals, just for this moment. "You will take him to Eterna, won't you. He will be healed - he will be well again. You have to believe it."

"Ferio..."

He smiled, and pulled her close again. "I would have served you gladly all my years, sister-mine. But I know you will not leave Cephiro without a leader. And while we are being invaded on three sides at once - I know what you have to ask of me. It's alright. I promise it's alright."

The hands about his waist tightened, and the Queen buried her face in his shoulder. "I made a resolution, once." She said, he voice muffled - but it was still clear that she was crying. "I resolved that I would never leave you to bear this alone. I could stay - the Marshal could take Zagato to the hospitals of Eterna, I do not have to go-"

"You would never again be happy, if you did not." Ferio pressed his face into her hair, and took a deep breath. "You have been called to something more than Cephiro all your life, Emeraude. To heal people - to learn at the great hospitals, and be able to use that learning to help whoever came to you... You might love this land, but you love the whole world more. This... is your chance. Take Zagato. Take him, and while they heal him - you can start to learn. We will tell people that you both died of your wounds, courageously gained on the field of battle." He pulled back, and she did the same, enough to look at him wide-eyed. Ferio smiled, then, and there was nothing false about it. "You can be free, at last."

"But you- Ferio, you always said you should hate the crown! I could not-"

"It will be fine." He glanced back, at the woman who kept his horse calm beside her own, and when he turned back Emeraude's eyes had widened even further... and Ferio blushed. "I have found someone who will do an excellent job of ruling." He said, softly. "With her by my side... Cephiro would be in safe hands, you have my word on it."

"Ferio..."

"I'll need to find some new spies, of course!" He declared, with a grin. "But you let me follow my heart, when I could not bear to be locked inside walls. Now I have no fear of them; it is time that you had your life returned. Time, sister-mine, for a new resolution."

The Queen - the woman who had given her whole life to her land, all these years, wavered. So many years unable to be with the person she loved, while there was so much pressure to balance their relations with the three lands which threatened their borders - so much pressure keeping her from marrying someone whose father had belonged to just one of them, enough of a connection to tip the balance of power in the eyes of the world. Beyond that, the chance to finally follow her vocation... but to sacrifice her brother in order to claim it?

"But would they ever let you marry her?" She asked, eyes fixed on Ferio's face.

He shrugged, and his grin turned crooked - wicked. It was a grin she had seen so many times as he plotted mischief in their childhood - and it was one which could not be faked. Not to her. If Ferio looked like that, then he truly believed this plan of his would work. "When she is one of the three Knights who came to the rescue of our soldiers, when you were making your final heroic stand? Who rescued the Prince and kept Cephiro from falling to invaders by bringing him back to claim the crown? And she is not of Autozam, nor Chizeta, nor Fahren. She cannot alter the balance between them."

"She cannot improve it, either. Her home is too far away for the connection to bring any benefits, and after this warring, things may not return to the way they were before."

"But our Lords and Ladies of parliament will remember it, and that memory will be a strong ally for my arguments. And - our Chancellor is on my side, too."

"You have spoken with Clef about this- this nonsensical idea?"

"And he agrees! Emeraude - you have led this country longer than our mother did. You gave half your childhood to it, and decades of adulthood. There is nothing calling to me, and the woman I wish to marry - you must know already, she is brilliant. A little like you, but... sneakier. She will enjoy helping me negotiate my way through these politics; you are brilliant at the game, but you hate it. Stay with Zagato. Be free. Live!"

"...Shall that be my new resolution, then?" Emeraude smiled, softly, tears beginning to run down her cheeks. "To live! Do I even remember how to do so, I wonder?"

"You will remember." He held her closely, one last time. "You will remember, and I am resolved to never forget."

They stayed silent, then, for a long time. And when they let go, it was with quiet farewells, and the knowledge it would be years at the very least before they might see each other again... but that this time, both of them were choosing their fate.

oOo