The Forgotten Zodiac

When the two were escorted off, Soren turned back to Mewt. He spoke to the prince for a few more moments before assuring that he'd come back later to review some more tactics with him, before turning and coming over to Ike, Elincia, and Ritz. He inclined his head slighlty in respect to the trio... quartet, smiling a bit as he noticed Greil.

"Fine time for a visit, wasn't it, Ike?" Soren asked quietly, only glad that the tension was averted before things had a chance to go foul. He hung at the edges of the group, unsure if his prescence was wanted or not.

Elincia smiled at Soren, then looked back up at Ike. "Ritz would like to hold him too, Ike," she chided lightly. "But you can have him back after that. Unless Soren wants to try again," she offered. The mage got a little red in the face at the suggestion, before shaking his head.

"I don't want him to start hating me before he can even talk," he excused.

"...Right," Ike sighed and slipped his thumbs into his pockets, leaving his fingers hanging loose. Instead of continuing to watch Elincia and long for his baby, Ike turned to talk Soren. "He won't hate you, I'm positive. He <i>looks</i> just like Elincia, so he has to <i>act</i> like me. That means he can't possibly hate you." The blue-haired Beorc barely met Soren's eyes through this conversation, completely distracted by everything going on around him. "Oh, by the way, Lucia's in the throne room in case any nobles show up. In case you were wondering why she didn't come with us."
Ritz laughed, both at Ike's eagerness to be close to Greil and at the blush that crossed Soren's face. "What happened last time Soren held him?" She critically examined Soren, then shrugged. "He doesn't look /too/ bony. Not enough that a baby should notice."

Soren smiled slightly at Ike's words, muttering under his breath. He turned to look at Ritz at her question. "He's afraid of me," Soren said. "I made him cry when I held him."

"Yes, but he was very tired at the time," Elincia reminded. She turned her gaze up to her husband. "Do you think we can let Soren hold him after Ritz?" she asked, knowing that Ike tended to be a bit clingy with their new child.

Ike sighed and nodded. "I can hold Greil later, tonight. Let Soren hold him next." While he did look longingly at Greil, Ike did nothing to make Elincia doubt his response. He pulled the sling off his neck and held it out to Elincia, since she seemed to be the person Greil was revolving around.
Ritz laughed again, thoroughly enjoying watching Ike adore his son. "You haven't really let me hold him yet, so Soren will have to wait an awfully long time." This was both a subtle dig at Elincia for still holding the sleeping child, but also a repeated request to hold the baby. Ritz couldn't wait to give birth. Not only would she stop being pregnant, but she would also have an angel like that to hold.

"Of course," Elincia said, smiling somewhat sheepishly as she gently passed Greil into Ritz's arms. She trusted the other girl to know how to hold the child, but still kept a close eye on her until she was satisfied that Ritz really did know what she was doing. Smiling, the young Queen turned and took the sling from Ike, just holding it in her hand until she needed to put it to use again.

"I don't <i>have</i> to hold him. Really," Soren said, but he knew that at this point that Elincia and Ike were going to insist that he hold Greil again, so he didn't really protest any more. He knew that he could always just excuse himself and go find Lucia, but that'd probably earn him some teasing later that he'd prefer to do without. He curled his hands around his tome and watched Greil, noticing that the little boy had opened his eyes when he was passed over to Ritz and was blinking up at her.

Ritz took Greil easily, holding him with some obvious skill. When he opened his eyes, she laughed and beamed down at the week-old babe. "I hardly blame Ike, I don't think I could ever put him down." She looked up at Soren, smiling at him. "If you want to get out of it, I'd love to take your turn."
Her offer was immediately refused, not by Soren but by Ike. "You can't do that!" He hurried to explain his reason to protest so admantly. "If Soren never holds him, he'll always be crying. If Soren holds him, Greil'll get used to it. Right?"

"Hopefully," Soren said, sighing resignedly.

"Soren, you've only held him once before!" Elincia said, smiling at the mage and touching his arm to reassure him. "And he was just sleepy. You'll do better this time, don't sound like you're dreading it so!" she chided lightly.

The dour mage sighed again, waiting for a few more minutes to let Ritz get her fair share of Greil time before holding out his arms. "Seeing as this is all I'm waiting around for, may I have my turn?" he asked the Ivalician noble, trying to sound polite.

"Of course!" Ritz crossed to Soren and carefully surrendered the child. "I'll have plenty enough time to hold a baby in just a few months." She replied, referencing the approaching due date of her baby.
Ike quickly jumped in to support Soren. "Look, he isn't crying yet!" He immediately realize the flaw in his encouragement and correct it as best he could. "Not that he's going to. Just that, last time, he was already crying by now."

Soren watched the little boy carefully, and little Greil watched him back. The mage glanced up at Ike as the King spoke, and opened his mouth to reply, when Greil's tiny voice slowly rose into a wail.

"Wyvern breath," Soren muttered, bouncing the child lightly in an effort to calm him. When this seemed to only serve to make the infants cries grow louder, the mage quickly passed him off to Ike.

"Take the prince back," he said, massassing his temple and looking somewhat abashed. He didn't stick around to hear Elincia or Ritz's teasing, quickly excusing himself from the group and heading back up to the castle to find Lucia.

He knew that his face was probably still red (not that anyone <i>but</i> Lucia could ever read Soren) so he took a longer route to the throne room to give him time to reign in his emotions and get them to appear normal again (which, for Soren was virtually nothing at all). He kept his pace slow and even as he headed down the halls, but took pause at a strange sound. His brow creasing slightly, he followed the noise to an oft forgotten hallway.

Surprise crossed his face. "...Mewt?"

Mewt, after ensuring the situation had been handled, had slipped away into the crowd. It was quite literally the first time he had been alone in days, and it wasn't going particularly well for him. When Soren rounded the corner, he was on his hands and knees dry-heaving. It was obvious that Mewt hadn't been eating, at least not that day, for no substance beyond that naturally created by his stomach. As was prone to someone in his condition, tears had escaped his tightly closed eyes and had slid down his face, leaving streaks clearly marked. Soren's appearance, sadly for the prince, meant nothing other than that attention would be called to the stress he was under. Other than nodding, he wasn't capable of conversation; and he wouldn't be until the fit subsided.

Soren had never been good at comforting, as was demonstrated by the fact that his first thought upon seeing Mewt was that he should just leave and pretend he didn't see anything. While that might have saved the Prince some embarassment, Soren did understand why Mewt was in this position; it had to be stressful for him, with what was happening to his country.

As it was, he was stuck at one end of the hallway, watching Mewt. Giving himself a small shake, he stepped forward, but still kept a distance from the ill Prince. He cleared his throat softly to let Mewt know that he hadn' left, but didn't say or do anything more. He even stared in the other direction for now, at least until Mewt could speak again.

For Mewt, at that moment, Soren's actions were perfect. As awful as it was for him to feel this way, the knowledge that he was constantly failing in his duties was worse. By standing off at a distance, Soren provided some level of comfort without requiring Mewt to become a prince again. However, his body soon calmed down.
After a second of breathing and doing what he could to clear the taste of bile from his tongue, Mewt broke the awkward silence in the hallway. "I'm- I'm sorry, Soren. I didn't think this hallway was used by anyone; that's why I came here." Unintentionally, his phrasing implied that the prince had somehow intended to end up in this corridor, heaving out the emptiness in his stomach. It hadn't been his plan in the slightest; in fact, he had been quite annoyed to be ambushed by his stomach in that way.

"Don't apologize to me for something I don't have a problem with," Soren was quick to answer, his reply coming out a bit sharp. The edge was unintended, however, but the mage doubted the Prince would know that, so he looked at Mewt with a slightly-less-harsh expression. "Are you done, then?" he asked, referring to Mewt's illness.

Mewt nodded as he stood up, examining the floor under him. It was essentially dry, with the exception of a few drops of saliva. As convenient as this was now, it wasn't hard for Soren to discern that this wasn't the first time it had happened that day or that Mewt hadn't eaten anything all day. Which he knew, since he'd arrived shortly before lunch and spoken with the prince while he picked around his food. "I'm done."
The frozen silence recovered the hallway for another time before Mewt broke the silence again. "Soren, you... You won't mention this to anyone, will you? It's just, I'm supposed to be stronger than this. It'd be disastrous if they knew what a mess I really was, so let them belive what I tell them, okay?"

Soren took pause here, and he felt the ghost of a smile across his lips before it vanished. Mewt's words sounded not unlike something that Soren would say (and probably had said) himself to Ike or two anyone else to dismiss any worries they had about him. It was a bit strange for the mage to have the situation turned around on him like this, but because of all the times that it had happened to the mage himself, he knew what needed to be said.

"The others would want to know." He turned his gaze back to Mewt. "Not all of them, but Marche at least. If he's any sort of friend to you, he probably already has his suspicions that the situation is getting out of your control." Soren offered a shrug, then repeated some words that Ike had said to the mage numerous times. "You can't push yourself like this forever, nor should you try to." Soren sighed. "You have an entire country, <i>at war</i>, to lead. It's too great a burden for any one man. Why would you take it all yourself?"

Mewt met Soren's gaze, surprisingly unashamed of how he was pushing himself. "That's exactly why, Soren. These people have lost their homes, fortunes, families- all because they think I'm somehow capable of turning this around. I don't have a choice, Soren. I have to be good enough for them. I don't have time for this." He didn't mean speaking with Soren, that fell under the heading of diplomatic relations with Crimea. He was refering to eating, sleeping, or dry-heaving in hallways. They were all such tremendous wastes of time, especially the last one. "Who would you have me make do it? Marche's already doing too much; his wife is <i>pregnant</i> for Totema's sake. Syl, as functional as he is, is only fifteen; and his father is one of my main opponents. I can't very well trust anyone else; the higher up you go the less noble their reasons for sticking around become."

"Well, now <i>I</i> know," Soren said, meeting Mewt's gaze. "And, believe me or not, I know how you feel. You cannot go forever like this, and you know that," he said. The mage paused here, wondering if he could really tie himself down with this obligation, before deciding that aiding Ivalice would, indeed, be of some use to Crimea. If Soren were to help Mewt, this whole ordeal may be over all the sooner... "Consider me your tactician. I will help in whatever manner you need."

((Now Soren goes to Lucia.))

Mewt nodded and took a deep breath, thinking his way through Soren's offer. "Actually, there is something I could use your help orchestrating." He started down the hallway, to return to his people, but continued speaking. "If you come by tomorrow, I can show you what we've come up with so far. There's a spell piece, known as the White Phoenix, that could help us, I think. The problem is, it's incredibly complex and would have to be completed mid-battle." Before he continued too far, he stopped himslef and dismissed his topic with a wave of a hand. "I should get back to work. Go talk to your wife, I'm sure that's why you came back in the first place."

"...very well, I will be there," Soren said. He watched the young Prince move off, then continued on his own route back to the throne room, where he had been told Lucia was. He entered and found her at once, seated on Elincia's throne. Smiling at her, he came over.

"You seem lonely," he said. He'd come in from the back entrance, so he could only smile as she jumped and turned at his voice.

"Have I permission to approach, milady?" he asked, giving a slight inclination of his head as he came over.

Lucia jumped at the sound of Soren's voice and rose out of her chair. When she saw that it was only Soren, something she hadn't quite registered when he first hailed her, she dropped back into the throne, smiling brightly. "Permission granted, Lord Felirae." As he came over, she lifted her hand and took his elbow, pulling him across her and toward Ike's throne. "Won't you sit down? It's much too difficult to admire you from down here, and I don't intend to stand up."