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Xander kneels within the royal chapel, hand pinned to his chest and head sunk low. He submits before his god and guidance—a carved statue of bronze on black granite, adorned with bright ruby eyes and sharp obsidian claws. It stares down at him, wings spread and teeth bared, silent and grim and holy.
Xander prays to the Dusk Dragon. For all that he is, he prays for safety, for counsel. He pleads that his strength might hold him tall, that his courage be unbending and his reason be firm. And finally, as he presses his knee into polished marble and grinds his teeth until they ache, he prays for clarity.
As is the fickle nature of faith, he’s granted none.
Xander is troubled. He’s just come from the throne room, where his father cried for the fall of Hoshido and Nohr alike. Mad with an unnerving glee, he announced himself in front of not only Xander, but Leo, with his royal advisor and guards scattered throughout the chamber. Any objection was denounced, deemed forfeit in face of his divine right as king.
For his father to wish so openly for their demise—it’s beyond grounds for treason. Had any single other even pondered the thought, they would be hunted and speared. With a remarkably sharp pit in his stomach, Xander wonders what there is for a king to betray.
Leo, after witnessing the outcry, offered the thought that their father is being controlled. That Corrin has insisted on the case, claiming a third threat puppeteers their cause. He was earnest, as if such a truth might settle the dust and clear a path forward.
Their reality is not so kind. It’s difficult to even begin unraveling the idea that their father is not their own, of the implications and consequences it would bring. A case of manipulation is not the simple solution they’re hopeful to find. At the core of their dilemma, which is a struggle to even ascertain, nothing is so frank and easy.
Xander opens his eyes slowly. His brow rests furrowed and his breaths fail to even. He looks up to his deity, and quite respectively it gazes back down. There is a way it speaks, Xander knows, but he’s yet to understand it. Never has he yearned more to hear a single voice.
Footsteps echo through the chapel, bouncing off the walls and bringing Xander to attention. He stands abruptly and turns, watching as Leo, tight-faced, strides past the arching pillars and empty pews. He wears dark robes and gloves, solemnly matching the inky marble.
“Brother,” Leo says, meeting Xander at the statue’s base. He has an exhaustion around his eyes, light purple smears lining their sockets. “Elise is missing.”
“Missing?” Xander had ordered Leo to call their troops to arms and ready for battle at the Bottomless Canyon—and Elise, by her name, is not exempt from Xander’s behest. To run is beneath her, despite their enemy’s unfortunate identity.
“She’s taken her retainers,” Leo continues. “I believe she’s going to join Corrin.”
This should not come as a surprise. From the moment Xander learned Camilla had abandoned her position, he knew Elise would give just as readily. She’s never been one to persevere through loyalty alone, at least not in any way Xander understands.
But still, hot frustration festers at the base of his skull, dotting into a familiar headache. They have been abandoned, again, for a cause shrouded in uncertainty. The worldview they had woven tightly is unraveling through his fingers.
Xander can see himself mirrored in Leo, his expression cross and pensive. The weights they bear are not unalike, and with every loss their shoulders carry more. Leo’s eyes drift downwards, looking at the ground as if seeing through it.
“Father—he wasn’t always like this,” he says, barely above a mutter. “He’s changed. This is definite, and you must realize that.”
Xander has, and he gives the thought pause. It’s true that as time has taken its toll, their father has corroded. That wrinkles have etched a dusty frown in place, that his eyes sit lifeless and sullen. And never was their father without his flaws—lavish, with the inherent greed of man and a lust for power—but it was not so defining of his character.
No, this has not been lost on Xander. “This isn’t denial, Leo. Do not misunderstand me.” His harrowing change is why they’re faced with grief. This would not be a discussion had their father been who Xander remembers him as. “But that alone is not indicative of what you’ve come to think.”
“Corrin insists he’s being controlled,” Leo says, as Xander thought he might. “I understand your doubt. But we—”
“Corrin is a traitor, in both body and mind.” Xander speaks over Leo strictly, silencing him. “You are wiser than this. I know your trust is not so blind.”
Leo’s eyes narrow. He raises his chin and sets his jaw. “And neither is my loyalty. Even if father is right-minded, do we have no cause? Are we to accept his decree, accept downfall, simply because you won’t consider the thought of mindlessness?”
“It is not that I won’t consider it,” Xander says firmly. He stands his ground, looking at the last of his knitted family within reach. “It is how the consequence of either outcome is grim. It is how to abandon a king is not only an action, but a statement—an ideal. And as we are, we have more to consider than ourselves. Sane or unwell, our positions do not change. And we must proceed loyally as how we fit to them.”
To betray their king, or for their king to betray them—both are lofty assumptions in and of themselves, and both hold consequences. They are not so far-fetched as to be unpredictable, but the ultimatums of either are sour.
Leo’s shoulders fall. He gnaws the inside of his cheek, his exhaustion rippling through any defense. “And those positions, brother?”
“We are devout princes,” Xander says. “And whether that devotion lies in following our king despite his madness, or betraying him while he still may be just—is something I do not know.”
For a moment, Leo’s expression hardens. He drags his eyes away, casting his glare aside. Xander knows he came looking for answers, but they’re stuck as they are, rooted in the soil of their kin. They cannot move forward without risk, but they most certainly cannot stay stagnant. All they have is their dismal choice.
“Leave me,” Xander says sternly. “Continue to ready the troops for battle at the canyon.”
Leo’s lips press tightly together. “What of Elise?”
“We know where she’s gone. We shouldn’t divide our resources.” A quiet and hanging moment sits. “Go, Leo.”
And he goes. Xander is left alone with the Dusk Dragon—cold, radiant, and most of all, hushed. Dim streams of light flush through stained glass windows, reflecting off the floor in diluted plum and scarlet.
It is not bright—Nohr truly never is—but the luster flooding the marble is enough to keep Xander wary. A keen glare flickers off the dragon’s eyes and is all but blinding. It isn’t often Xander finds himself feeling undone, but he cannot think here. Not while he’s so remarkably seen.
He turns his back to the statue, away from the pews and arches and windows, and promptly goes to the far side of the chapel. He walks past holy tunics laid out for ceremony, beyond fat waxy candles and glossed stony pillars, until he finds himself at a door.
It’s a rotting wooden thing nestled into a corner, nearly hidden behind a tapestry. It’s unremarkable in every sense except its decay, with even its metal braces dull and unpolished. Xander grips its shoddy handle and opens it, confident he won’t be disturbed from within.
The door reveals a cobblestone stairway. He takes to the steps, worn and crumbling with age, winding down to a small undercroft below the chapel. And like its door, there is nothing special about the room. It will only serve to lead Xander farther beneath topsoil—which is precisely where he wants to be.
The undercroft is dimly lit from glass lanterns built into the walls, magically illuminated and in dire need of replenishment. The ceiling is vaulted and gray, and the chamber itself ends quite abruptly. It’s nearly a glorified closet, expanding only far enough back that it would take Xander a few arms lengths to reach.
The lanterns shine weakly onto tattered hymn books and rusting candlesticks, all rendered useless but too holy to discard. Xander steps over the dross and begins to mute each light, until he stands solitary in bleak darkness.
There is comfort to be found standing deep into the dirt and clay. Where bones rest and roots live, entwined together like veins clinging to muscle. Here, beneath his holy sanctum, is where Xander’s home truly lies. Nohr thrives beneath the surface—it builds down and it spreads.
He thinks idly of the throne from where his father sits atop it.
Xander’s eyes begin to adjust to the dark, barely enough to see the thin outline of stone set into wall. He traces one carefully, rubbing off the dust and grime and letting it fall away.
His father’s condition is regretfully complicated. By who could he be possessed, and why, and for how long? The change was slow, but of course Xander remembers who he was. Such is growth, he thought, as he himself changed in tandem with his father.
However, if what Leo suggests is true and their father is not himself, but another. If he has been bewitched and lost beyond understanding—Xander wonders if he has already begun to sink into treason through abiding by a tyrant who is not his own.
And yet, if this is his father—if this is the path he’s chosen, right-minded and dutiful—does Xander carry the right to see Nohr independently of him? Flattering an alternate vision, loyal as he is, bears its own grave conclusion.
But by that end, what exactly has Xander been swearing his loyalty to? Can he say, under oath and in front of his god, that it does not differ?
Nohr—it is his arms and legs, and throat, and mouth. Without it Xander is nothing, and it will live well beyond him. He stands at the mercy of his country, and would be a disgrace to assume otherwise.
Xander kneels, and he prays again. But he doesn’t pray upwards to his chapel and throne as he did before. Now, by the grace of the Dusk Dragon, he prays down. To the soil and rock, and to the magic which seeps through. To what lies below him, and to what slumbers, to what lives and what dies. For the sake of the depths, and the dark, and for muted holy glory.
Xander will pray to his people. They hold his steadfast loyalty. He is not what reigns above him, but what writhes and struggles and prospers beneath.
And if nothing else, he will do right by them. He is but their vessel, and they are his voice. Xander will go with his nation into the ground, with silver spades and wooden rakes, and plow alongside them in honor.
He is a prince loyal to Nohr, and to his god devout. He will dig with his hands if he must, claw into dirt until his fingers raw and his nails chip and bleed. For them, he will. It is all he can offer.
Xander stands. Despite the darkness, he feels as though his vision has sharpened. He leaves the undercroft lightless, climbs the crumbling staircase, and leaves through the wooden door.
The chapel is just as he left it—dim and empty and polished. And Xander has not changed, either. He is no less himself than he has ever been.
He is not his father. And his father is not his country, nor his people, that much is certain. It is a resolution Xander will carry starkly, no matter where it will lead him.
And he will follow it into the depths.