Title: Hidden in the Shadows
Fandom: Vagrant Story
Rating: G
Length: 1400ish words
Content notes: Discussion of religious and political persecution, homophobia, and safe spaces in a medieval-esque setting that does not have the same (or sometimes any) terms for such things.
Summary: Even after coming to accept his desires, Hardin had assumed them to be unusual.

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Of course Hardin had heard before encountering the brethren, the derisive suggestion that there were men who loved men, and women who loved women. It was a jest, sometimes a taunt among those he served with in the PeaceGuard, that someone might choose to turn from the ways intended by the creator so many of them believed in. Hardin thought little about such talk, for even had he believed in any gods, it was nothing he was ever likely to encounter in his own life. These sorts of attractions were surely quite rare, and certainly no one he had ever met was such a person.

Certainly he himself would never harbor such unusual desires. ...Certainly not.

Among the brethren of Müllenkamp, no one spoke of the subject as if it was unusual. If there was jest, it was the same good-natured teasing about where a man might have spent the last night, whether it was a man or a woman who was suggested as his partner - met with the same sly refusal to confirm and a smile that served the same purpose. Those who followed Sydney had no such prejudices as the followers of St. Iocus, which Hardin supposed was hardly strange given Sydney's own inclinations, and his openness about them. For who would follow the teachings of a man whom they considered to be some sort of perverse heretic?

Hardin still found himself thinking of these inclinations as unusual at times, in spite of discovering his own and coming to accept them. So he was an aberration. No one among the brethren of Müllenkamp thought less of him for sharing Sydney's bed, nor of the other men who had done the same. An aberration, perhaps, but not an abomination, as far as the brethren or their gods were concerned.

It was only gradually that Hardin began to wonder if he had been mistaken about being an aberration as well.

Their numbers grew slowly but steadily as they traveled the land, while Sydney preached to the common folk of his ancient gods and the end of the ages. This was not unexpected, in Hardin's view; given Sydney's charisma, given his words of corruption among those in power and the wrath they provoked, it was no wonder that his words found welcoming ears among the oppressed and overlooked. And so there were those who left their villages, escaped lives that smothered them, and came to follow Sydney.

This was no surprise. What surprised Hardin was how often these men or women, after leaving their past lives behind, wound up in the same type of romantic entanglements as he had - men who loved men, women who loved women. Not all of their converts, by any means, but certainly more than Hardin would have expected.

He was mulling over the oddity of it over a cup of wine one night after they had made camp, idly watching two couples sitting and talking together by another of their fires. Two men, two women, but the men in each other's arms, the women huddled together under a single blanket. How was it, he wondered, that Sydney encountered so many such people, when before he met Sydney, Hardin had never met a single one?

"There have always been men who loved men, and women who loved women, and those who love both." Sydney's voice at his shoulder, and Hardin glanced up as Sydney came to sit down beside him. "You only did not see them, for they hid themselves from you."

"...I would not have judged them," Hardin said, somewhat defensive. "I did not judge you when we met, did I?"

"Considering the influence of the cardinal, the spread of the teachings of his false saint throughout the land," Sydney pointed out, "they could not assume you would not. Not you, specifically, but any person who might witness them in such 'blasphemous' activities might be a threat to their freedom, perhaps their very lives. More so one who was in service to our puppet king at the time."

Hardin nodded reluctantly. He supposed he understood.

Sydney fell silent as well, only surveying their camp as Hardin did for a time. Then after a long moment, he spoke again. "Once I too thought it surprising... to find that it was not only myself."

...He had? Hardin looked over to Sydney more sharply, curiously - for it seemed almost an admission. Sydney was so... shameless about his consorts, be they man or woman. And yet he had thought it strange?

"It was an assumption, born of ignorance," Sydney continued dismissively. "Neither had I knowingly met another with similar desires for much of my life, for we have been belittled and abused. It is only natural that so many of us should secret ourselves away in the shadows, hiding from the supposed 'Light' of Iocus's lot, which would destroy what the gods have created us to be. As their Light grows brighter, the shadows grow more stark, and man is divided - forcibly separated from our own kin. The oppressed and the oppressor might as well live in separate worlds, for though we walk amongst one another, yet we never truly see."

At this at least, Hardin could nod, understanding. He certainly felt as if he had left the world he knew far behind - and good riddance, for it had nothing left to offer him. And of course... this world of which he had previously known nothing was the world that held Sydney.

Perhaps Sydney heard it in his heart, for he rested a hand lightly upon Hardin's shoulder, looking out over his followers. "Their cruel Light continues to increase, blinding those who encounter it, scorching the gods' creation, pervasive enough to overcome even the shadowed places where such as we might hide," he said, almost absently, yet his voice held the same tenor as when he preached. It was a distant intensity that suggested a vision, a prophecy upon his tongue, come from yet another world - that which no other mortal might know. "Those who live in this manner - the poor, the despised, the exploited, the forgotten - they find themselves pressed into the deepest corners, for the bounds of the shadows in which they live have been driven back, mark by mark, further and further, and they find themselves at risk of exposure. Exposure before their fellow man, who is no longer their fellow, for he knows only the Light, and they only the darkest shadows which still persist in the most secret places, where the Light cannot reach them to burn..."

His voice trailed off then, and Hardin waited, silent in his fascination. Watching Sydney's eyes as the faraway look faded, bringing him back to this world - the one he had shown to Hardin, when the world Hardin had known had betrayed him, pushing him from the light into the shadows of which Sydney spoke.

As if to prove it, Sydney offered him a small, reassuring smile. "...And those who have spent their lives thus are always welcome to shelter in the Dark, among our Lady's order. Accustomed as they are to the shadows, they take to it far better than most - and as the Light further blinds and blights our homeland, it may be the only refuge they have left."

It was not an easy life - they were frequently hunted and harassed by both the king's men and the cardinal's, they could not speak of their beliefs openly without calling down the wrath of the many who put their faith in the state-sanctioned religion, and using even the gods-given talents the Dark had unlocked within them would earn them accusations of witchcraft. But indeed, for now the two couples by the fire were laughing, embracing without shame. Not far away, a refugee sat side by side with a former knight, sharing her meal with one who might have expelled her from the land had they met two years prior. Sydney was at his side - and none would even look twice at Hardin reaching out, resting his arm around Sydney's waist.

The only refuge, perhaps, and it came with its own troubles, but Hardin suspected they all would agree - it was far better than hiding in the shadows, fearful and alone.