Challenge 016: Trapped

The world has always been an ugly place.  Ephraim has known this since he could first understand the spoken word, when his father would sit by his bedside and tell him of the ways of the world - of the great games of politics, the swish of cloak and dagger, of the tragedies and inevitable cruelties of war, of the truth of what being a ruler means.  For though it may be peaceful, the undercurrents of politics and intrigue yet remain, ready to snatch away the hard-won tranquility at a moment's notice.  Renais needs a strong king to pave the way, and there are things he must know to be a proper ruler.

After all though all Magvel has been at peace for near eight hundred years, Renais still keeps a standing army far beyond what would be needed to deal with the occasional group of bandits raiding in the south.  No, there never truly is peace.  Border Mulan in the west sits, watching silently, a reminder that war can and has broken out at a whim, with nary a warning.  Without tension, without the chance for war, what use have men for armies?  There will always be war, Fado says, and war brings with it the chill touch of death - whether it comes from the distant archer's arrow, the paladin's lance, or the knife in the back.  At first, he merely nodded silently while Fado spoke, committing to memory what his father said, ever the dutiful son, never truly understanding the meaning inherent in the words.

What he does remember are the stories he read.  Between his studies, Ephraim still finds time to devote to his sister.  Every night, he sits by his sister's bedside and reads to her.  He reads the stories she asks for.  Some nights there are heroic tales, stories of the great deeds of the five heroes who defeated Fomortiis, of the forging of the Sacred Twins, of Latona's eventual sacrifice, and of the final parting of ways of the remaining four heroes.  Other days, there are tragic stories of doomed romance, soldiers parting ways, making and losing fortunes in the service of Jehanna of the White Dunes in the name of a distant love.

And for a time, he takes these stories to heart, and he truly believes that this world of honorable war and heroes could possibly yet exist.

But by the time Grado invades, he has long been disillusioned.  Skirmish upon skirmish, battle upon battle, the fighting and killing he has known since he was old enough to fight has worn him down.  There is always war without end, and he is not the one who can break the cycle.  The motives of men have always been the same, and he has seen them all a thousand times.  They might be mercenaries, bandits, soldiers, or even rebels, but they fight for the same things.  The green recruits fight for glory or money, the veterans fight for duty and their comrades, and the very oldest soldiers, the men who fight even after their comrades, their friends have long since been killed, they fight to stay alive.

But what does he fight for?  Eirika still reads those stories, the tales of the Five Great heroes and the epic tales of chivalry and romance.  Though she understands the necessity for fighting, at least intellectually, there is yet a part of her that believes in those old tales.  And when Ephraim sees his sister, he sees the innocence and blind trust she can place in others, and wishes for it to never disappear.  He fights for his sister, so that she may be spared the horrors of the world.

So when he blazes a trail to Vigarde's throne, he stops at nothing.  The Fluorspar blocks his path to Grado's capitol, and though he admires her honor and pities her fate, he strikes her down, not because he hated her or what she stood for, but because she stands in his path.  War knows nothing of mercy, and he cannot afford the time to take her captive, not with Myrrh's ominous warnings and the news of Eirika trapped within Jehanna hall.  When she lies dead before his feet, Ephraim feels nothing, not even a lingering sense of regret.  When he leaves, there is no stirring eulogy for a noble soul - only goes so far as to bury her corpse, rather than leave it rotting in the fetid water of the Za'albul swamp.  He presses onwards.  Vigarde falls, then Caellach, then Valter, and at long last, he is reunited with his sister.

Ephraim knows Eirika has killed.  He can see it in her eyes, in the hollow look she has when she looks at the steadily dwindling number of tents every night when their army retires.  He can tell, because she is haunted by the specters of those she has killed, and, paradoxically, Ephraim is relieved.  She still feels sadness, still sees the faces of the dead in her dreams.  Ephraim is relieved, because the death and destruction have not yet become a part of her, because she has not yet deadened her heart as he has, because that means she can still forget the horrors she has seen, because she has not yet changed the way he has, because she has not yet seen the true depths of human depravity.

After he is reunited with his sister, Ephraim takes it upon himself to become her sword and her shield, to ward her from the truth of warfare.  While the Demon King may wish for the end of the world, for the extermination of the human race, for the utter destruction of all of civilization, he has his mortal supporters, nonetheless.  Riev is but one - there are many more, deluded by the seductive promise of power, the silent whisper of money.  Ephraim knows: men have many motives, and, by their very nature, everyone has a price, whether it be wealth, authority, idealism.  So he forges on ahead of the rest, alone, and returns with bloody hands and a clean conscience.  There are things Eirika should not see, and it is his duty to make sure she does not see them.

Years after Fomortiis's death, long after peace has once again settled across the face of Magvel, Ephraim still lives in the past.  Of the thirty three companions he has traveled with, everyone else has moved on, put the horrors of war behind them, he yet lives in the eternal dream of war without end, always looking for any trace of hostility, for any hint of those daggers in the night which his father had warned him of.  Perhaps Myrrh understands him best.  "You have trained for war for far too long, long enough that it has become part of you," she says.  "This peace... it is not something you can possibly understand, not anymore.  But, even in times of peace, there is still conflict.  You need not feel alienated."  And then he understands what he should do.

The coronation of Queen Eirika is a happy, grandiose affair, marred only by Ephraim's announcement of his formal abdication and subsequent retirement to the Darkling Woods.  There are those who question her ability to rule, but they are quickly silenced, and most never heard from again.  And throughout Magvel, there are stories.  It is said that fortresses which formerly were used as bandit strongholds can be found in ruins, abandoned without a trace, massive stone blocks torn from their foundations, that erstwhile warlords or rebel leaders are found assassinated, that a pair of mysterious travelers wanders across the face of the continent, and that, shortly after they pass, the area finds itself devoid of the criminals which normally are omnipresent in populated areas.

There are some things Eirika should not see, and for her sake, Ephraim has become trapped within a labyrinth he has built with his own hands.