WHO: Gunnar & Pius WHEN: During the Training Trip WHERE: Vespera SUMMARY: Pius has Concerns. Gunnar tries to help him out. CW: Serenitas is Serenitas, but aside from that. :shrug:
Prince Gaius was being warmed by the flames of the fire prince. Prince Titus...was at least not fighting with Prince Kyoujiro, but Pius was not sure where he’d run off to. Most likely trying to drum up some pre-training sparring somewhere less obvious. He had a way of sometimes just...disappearing that drove Pius up the wall. And both princes were giving him a lot to worry about lately.
Really, it was the way that Prince Gaius was cozying up to Prince Kyoujiro’s warmth that most concerned him at this moment. It wasn’t that anyone was...doing anything visibly untoward. Rather, both princes were seemingly innocent in their interactions with these foreign dignitaries. It’s just that Pius had been serving them for years now, and he realized that something had changed. Something subtle, certain, but something nonetheless...and it had a lot to do with the change in their expressions when they looked upon their new “friends.”
Luckily, he’d devoted no small sum of his hours of training to be of assistance to the prince with lessons on stoicism and decorum. So though he was inwardly wringing his hands, outwardly he was just standing not so far from Prince Gaius’s tent, his expression schooled, his shoulders straight. Not really guarding, because there was nothing to guard him from at the moment—be it curious eyes or assassins’ blades—but not sure where else to be.
Every morning, recently, he’d been checking his hair for greys. So far, at 21, he had not amassed a single one, but he had a feeling the day was coming sooner than later. He felt very twisted up inside, because he hadn’t been trained on the possibility of Prince Titus or Prince Gauis getting too close to a prince or priest or anything else from another country. It just...wasn’t done in Serenitas, so he while he had known it was possible to feel that way (he’d felt that way about Gaius for many years now)... But maybe the princes would continue to hold themselves to Serenitas’s standards. Maybe he was worrying about nothing.
He wished he had someone he could ask.
He sighed and finally decided that just standing around doing nothing wasn’t helping him, he began to walk the tents, trying to see if anyone needed help with...anything.
Gunnar didn’t worry so much about princes and their inner lives. Donnersburg didn’t have royalty. They were a people who were forged in the nightmarish landscape around them, practically carved from the rock. And even so, Gunnar didn’t follow the politics of countries like Serenitas and Guren if it didn’t impact where he came from.
Besides, he had a tent stake to deal with. He had told Jeremy to hit the stake a couple more times or else it wouldn’t remain stable because that patch of dirt had been too soft. Clearly, Jeremy did not listen and was nowhere to be seen. He muttered to himself as he pulled the stake out and pulled it back a few more inches into harder dirt.
He hit the stake, the mallet in his artificial hand, hard a few times. But his hair -- which he had delayed getting a haircut (mostly because he didn’t particularly care for the Serenitas look) -- kept on slipping into his eyes. He had a bandana around his neck that he liked to use for whatever purpose he needed at the time. Clean up some oil? Check. Tie a wound? Check. Push his messy bangs out of his face so his fiery red hair doesn’t literally catch on fire? Check. In fact he had used it as a headband earlier to put the stake in the ground of the one corner that seemed properly anchored.
But he came across a different problem. His hand refused to drop the mallet. His fingers were locked into place. He blamed the cold air and he could only bring one tool to this little camping trip.. And Jeremy. Stupid Jeremy. It didn’t happen often, but he needed to reboot his arm. He felt for the button just below his elbow and pressed it but, no, that didn’t want to respond either. He really didn’t want to go to the fire to better warm it to help with the reboot because he didn’t want someone to ask “what happened to your arm?” And other obnoxious questions. Donnersburgians understood but other cultures… not so much.
Besides, the two princes sitting by the fire getting cozy seemed like something he definitely didn’t want to have anything to do with. Romance go elsewhere please.
As he fussed with his arm, the other corner of the tent -- not the one he staked, this one hammered by Sasha -- decided to unhook itself. Sasha is not as bad as Jeremy because she actually listened and this was probably just bad luck.
“Arrrg! Hey, you… um!” He pointed out to Pius with a head jerk.. What was his name? The twin princes’ servant. Something very Serenitas, “Pius? Could you get that for me? Thanks!” His tone sounded more pinched with frustration rather than outwardly angry or bossy.
Ah, an actionable request. That was all Pius really wanted. In a second, he had stopped meandering between tents and had taken up Sasha’s corner of the tent. He hooked the fabric back onto the stake and then looked around for a mallet to better secure it with. He looked oddly peaceful in this moment, as though this small task was somehow a huge relief. It certainly did not appear to be any kind of obligation.
“These tents aren’t too old, but they can be fussy. I think there might be a possibility the Ca— Er, that our professor picked these just to give us a challenge. Their design seems very simple, but it can be something, can’t it?” He smiled up at Gunnar, his face a mask of calm as he moved to see if the other pegs needed a whack or two. Yes, this was something he could actually fix, and it was so good.
Gunnar felt relieved that someone from Serenitas stopped by because they could take requests pretty easily. He struggled a bit more with his arm that just did not seem to want to reboot but he listened, “I mean, it is important to learn how to be resourceful. You never know what kind of situation you could find yourself in.
“We’ve met in class, but...well, I don’t think I’ve introduced myself directly, Pius.” He rose to salute Gunnar in the style of a Serenitan soldier. “My brothers—and some friends—call me Py.”
“Pius,” he repeated, then grinned, “So my guess happened to be the correct one.” And Py. Gunnar didn’t know if he fell into the category of proper time to use nicknames. Where he came from, nicknames or what other people decided for you. And apparently in Serenitas and Guren it was a lot more intimate. He didn’t feel like arguing with people about it. People can be so touchy.
“I’m Gunnar,” he felt his face grow red with frustration. And he knew this would be like ripping off a band-aid times 1 million. “Hey, Pius, I know we just officially met but do you mind pulling on my hand right here as hard as you can? It needs some warmth but there is no way I’m going to the fire prince and asking for a favor.”
He held out his hand with the clenched mallet.
“Pull your arm…?” Pius tilted his head, not sure if this was some sort of curious Donnersbergian joke. Still, Gunnar probably had a reason for the strange request, so he gently took Gunnar’s wrist between his hands, glancing up just once to make sure that was really what Gunnar actually wanted. Then he gave it a yank. Not with his full strength, because he was worried he might cause Gunnar some kind of damage right as they were about to do field training, but he put almost his full strength into it. “Is it...working?” he asked behind a clenched jaw.
“Yes, pull my arm!” Gunnar exclaimed. He did not joke about this sort of thing. Maybe some others from his home country would but that wasn’t his style. He nodded once as Pius gave him an are you sure? look. He pulled the other way as Pius pulled. He winced and knew it would hurt, much like ripping hair out suddenly. If only his reboot button was working.
It budged a little, enough to feel sore, but it did not let go. Gunnar let out an exasperated, unintelligible grumble. He looked over at Pius, his severe look suddenly seeming a bit crestfallen, “No. I need heat. Normally, the heat compressor prevents it from freezing up like this, but I must have hit it when I stumbled a bit earlier. I just need to reboot it but the reboot button is frozen…” He clicked the tiny button near his elbow and showed it to Pius. “Sometimes if I remove it, it will automatically reboot but it is fused tightly. We could make a fire but that could burn the skin and that will put my arm out of commission completely for a few days until we can get back to the motor pool.”
Pius stared. Was he supposed to understand all of that? He probably was. He’d been in those magitech classes for weeks. But it still sounded like an entirely different language. As Gunnar continued, he began to smile—like an odd instinct to placate his fellow student—but by the time he was done explaining, Pius’s smile looked very crooked and strange, and his eyes were a little frightened.
(He was definitely going to fail that class. Light guide him, but he was going to fail…)
“Heat,” is all he got out of it (so he repeated that word and that word alone and nodded). Gunnar needed to warm his arm up. Well, they could probably find a way to do that easily enough...
Gunnar rubbed his forehead, idly wondering if someone from Serenitas understood anything he said, “I may have to ask the fire prince,” he perked his eyebrows up, twisting his mouth to one side. He did not want to do this, “To see if he can warm it up.” He rolled his eyes. “He probably will find an excuse to not help someone from Donnersburg but.”
Then suddenly, after Gunnar idly clicked the switch, he jumped because he felt a tiny shock. His hand dropped the mallet as it clammered to the ground. His artificial fingers twitched, indicative of it rebooting.
“Oh, thank goodness!” He rolled his eyes. “I really didn’t want to go over there.”
Pius frowned, looking down at his feet. Probably Prince Kyoujiro could help Gunnar, but right now, he seemed to be very wrapped up in Prince Gaius, and what if other people were noticing the easy way they’d come to smile at one another recently? What if Prince Gaius got in trouble? He was supposed to protect the prince.
And he wasn’t sure what the best way to do that was anymore. He leet out a soft sigh when Gunnar’s arm started working without heat.
“I...don’t think we should disturb the princes anyway,” he mumbled vaguely, very carefully avoiding Gunnar’s eye.
Gunnar continued to flex his fingers in and out to really get it working again. He glanced up at Pius and was about to thank him for his help but then Pius mentioned the princes. He perked his eyebrows up again as he blew his bangs out of his face.
“Yeah, they look like they… want to be alone. Have a private tutoring session in a mecha, if you know what I mean,” Gunnar said.
Pius turned at least four shades of red, to the point that he looked almost purple in the face. He didn’t know the saying, but he could guess the meaning all too well. He swallowed thickly, his posture stiffening.
“Prince Gaius is sworn to celibacy,” he replied, sounding a little wooden, like someone had just tugged the strings to a puppet. “And in Serenitas...such activities are forbidden between men.”
But it was too late, because he was now thinking about Prince Gaius in a mech with the prince of Guren, looking flustered and—
“Oh,” he said, putting his hands to his face, trying to banish those wicked thoughts. “The older prince is chosen by the crystal and becomes king. The younger prince devotes his life to Crystalism, according to the writings of the Crystal Saint. That’s...how it has always been. That’s how… He couldn’t possibly want to...have such a session.” He swallowed, his heart jumping in his throat, trying to remember his training in lieu of being assigned to the princes. He must keep his face unworried. He must protect the princes. But maybe...maybe….
What if Prince Gaius would be happier this way?
There was doubt in his expression, clear in every feature.
Gunnar realized he hit a nerve and he felt a little bad about it. He kept on forgetting Serenitas had so many hang-ups about sex. So many rules. He liked rules as much as anyone but he had difficulty seeing the necessity of Serenitas’s hierarchy. Same-Sex relationships in his city state was not a big deal. One of his sisters liked women and no one had any big issue with it.
But what was it with some of these Serenitas boys and their chiseled chests and hair and yet looking so shyly at each other. Then to hear Pius go through all this, how this is not allowed. Gunnar didn’t care so much about that sort of thing, mainly because he hadn’t felt a connection to someone like that. His father often called him a late bloomer with everything in his life.
“I’m aware of how Serenitas works when it comes to their vows of celibacy,” Gunnar stated clinically. Then, he looked over at the other man and heaved a sigh, “Hey,” he said gently, “I didn’t mean anything what I said. They’re probably just friends. Shouldn’t future kings be friends? I bet that means less war.” Although, Gunnar thought, if they had a messy break-up, to war everyone goes.
Pius nodded, grateful that Donnersberg was at least easier to understand—that they were also devotees of Crystalism. It was much harder to explain things from the Simurgh students. So at least Gunnar understood why the High Priest of Serenitas could not be with a man or a woman—not with anyone, romantically or otherwise. The Crystal Sage had written that it, and so though Pius could not wholly understand, he thought there must have been some reason behind it. Some reason that Gaius could not follow the yearnings of his heart…
He had thought, now and then (recently)—no, he had wondered—if there was some possibility that Serenitas might be too rigid. What if the reason for the High Priest eschewing worldly ties was not stemming from some deep spiritual freedom. He had grown up believing that there must be some kind of payout, that it couldn’t just be that King Tiberius simply told him, “you are the second child, you have to do this.” The Light Crystal had called to Titus, but Gaius...he could feel the crystals in a way no one else could. He was not chosen, but he was. So Pius assumed that it must have been his fate to walk this path. He had quieted all heretical thought and tried to support the prince, and yet when he saw Gaius sitting beside Kyoujiro at the fireside…
“Titus will be king,” he said a little absent-mindedly. “One way or another, he will be Serenitas’s next king.” But his thoughts were not consumed by that triviality. Rather: “Do you think...could it ever be possible…if—though it is only friendship between them—but if... Can you imagine a future for them? Where they are happy? Where that bond works out?” His brow had furrowed, filled with as many lines as a map of Donnersberg’s landship routes.
Gunnar didn’t expect to have such serious conversations on this field exercise. He expected what happened with setting up the tents over and over. Because he was used to having such bad luck. This conversation wasn’t necessarily bad but still unexpected.
He knew that he was a usually dirty, motorhead who doesn’t get his haircut enough, doesn’t shave consistently. As someone once called a toxic salamander found under a radioactive rock by one of the mean girls at his elementary school. How did he present as someone who would somehow know about relationships?
Gunnar shrugged, “I don’t know. They’re an important part of the system. I personally don’t see how being celibate or only in a male-female coupling helps maintain the system. But, I don’t know. I am of the frame of mind you should do what works for you as long as no one gets hurt.”
He realized that didn’t directly answer the question so he sighed, “I don’t know either of them particularly well. I can’t say what would make them happy. You seem to know them more, what do you think?”
Pius looked down at his hands. What would make his princes happy? If only they, like himself, had been born the last sons of a lower house. How different things could be. Not acceptable, but less impossible.
“From what I understand of its history, Guren favors marriages between a man and a woman. If I recall, Prince Kyoujiro is even promised to another of his homeland. And…the High Priest, if he is to correctly follow the ordinances of Crystalism…must not partake of carnal affairs—must not attach himself to another mortal. If they are to do what their people would expect…” No good could come of such a dalliance.
“If they were to forsake their duties, though…” But he paused, because he could not envision Gaius being happy with that outcome either. It would darken all his days, perhaps beyond what even the light of love might shed over them. “Prince Gaius would not be able to do so. Not without tearing his own heart from his chest, and to leave Prince Kyoujiro with its ruins… No, regardless, it would not be a happy match.” He closed his eyes, his heart pained.
“And yet… I wish to serve my prince. I wish only to increase his joy. Is it wrong? I want him to be happy. But…how can I protect him from this? If I were—theoretically—to help him in subterfuge, his inevitable self-loathing would destroy him. But to press him to ignore the workings of his heart…perhaps that, too, will do grievous harm. There is no good path, except if they remain as they are now—simply bosom friends.”
Gunnar was such an outsider in this whole conversation but he still listened. He wondered if Pius had any other friends outside his protect the Princes duties. And if he did if they weren’t Serenitans. He’ll be that ear.
It was a conundrum, Gunnar had to admit. A forbidden relationship could bring down the entire system for places like Guren and Serenitas. Granted Guren descending into Civil War means less likely to attack Donnersburg again. That would be practical if Gunnar cared deeply about politics. It was thoughts like that that reminded him of his father ranting about how their city state was a dump because of the Shadow Catastrophe and Guren’s invasion.
“It’s your job to protect them, right? Maybe you could gently express concern to remind them. But that may push them away. So maybe you could make sure if there is anything going on, you can keep it secret. I’m the type of person who would go up and be honest. Say you have these obligations and their happiness should stem from protecting the people and the knowledge and the white towers … and all that. But…”
He paused, “If I’m sentimental, I would make sure the secret remains so. But that is probably exhausting and a lot to ask.”
Pius nodded, looking a little crestfallen, because right now there wasn’t anything going on. Possibly there never would be. He had never once acted on his feelings for the prince, and Prince Gaius was a far better man than he. He might never once do more than bake for the Prince of Guren. It could all just be meaningless worry.
But if Gaius did truly love the prince, if he wanted a chance… He wondered if it was really his place to point out the difficulties of that route. No doubt, Gaius was already well aware if he had even considered them. He didn’t think he ought to tell the prince what to do, especially if he chose to chase a new dream.
Maybe he should...try to speak to Prince Titus about it. Prince Titus did not seem to realize men could love other men in the way they might love women, and he did not always have a delicate touch, but if someone was going to tell Gaius that this could be trouble...perhaps it should be his actual brother. But then, Prince Titus...well, at least he did not yet seem to have expressed an especially romantic intent towards the priest from Simurgh. But the fact that he had struggled to keep his hands off the young man—even if it was only wrestling—did make Pius wonder if there might come a day his prince realized that such things could mean something more than brotherhood or friendship...and then what?
Pius loved Serenitas. He was a son of the noble House Marcellus. His older brothers were all soldiers. They would lay down their lives to protect this country, even if they were not highly ranked. On the other hand, Pius had been chosen to watch over the princes, and so...there was a part of him that wanted—more than Serenitas’s glory—to support them, to protect their happiness first and foremost. They had treated him like a brother, though he was nowhere near as good a man as could count himself their equal. More than his blood brothers, his loyalty belonged to the twins.
After a moment, he sighed. “You have given me much to think about, friend.” He smiled, though there was weariness in it. “I know it is quite rudimentary compared to magic or magitech, but if you would like, I know how to build a fire with only flint and kindling. I could show you? Then you would be able to enjoy your own private fire pit.”
Gunnar suddenly smiled at being called a friend and immediately felt embarrassed. He didn’t have many people who would call him a friend so candidly like that. Even if it was a typical Serenitas turn of phrase. He didn’t think he would like someone like Pius. Maybe his sister Olga was right that he needed to not be so closed-minded to other people.
He put on his clinical face, however after a few moments, “Glad you appreciate it. A lot of people don’t appreciate my honesty.” Gunnar never wanted to compromise who he was to be more appealing to people. And he hoped no one would feel they would have to compromise themselves.
“And sure, I am always up for looking for other ways to accomplish the basics…”