Birds of Fire
(kallvis, bit by bit)
Chapters
Chapter 01: Birds of Fire
Chapter 02: Miles Beyond
Chapter 03: Celestial Terrestrial Commuters
Chapter 04: Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love
Chapter 05: Thousand Island Park
Chapter 06: Hope
Chapter 07: One Word
Chapter 08: Sanctuary
Chapter 09: Open Country Joy
Chapter 10: Resolution
When Alvis first appeared to the High Entia, Kallian was much younger (that is to say, much, much younger - on the order of a Homs teenager), firmly junior to his father and standing behind the throne more to minimize his presence than to show strength in an advisory role.
But Alvis knew, it seemed, that Kallian would someday become more than just the emperor's son. Wasn't that such a natural conclusion? Every monarch must die eventually, but the monarchy itself must always live on.
Alvis had lived on. He, a smoldering god's ember, made himself component to Alcamoth once again.
Kallian, against his best determination, cannot help but be troubled by his father's decision to take a second, Homs, consort. It is not an unexpected decision; rather, it is sooner than Kallian would have liked. Is he old enough, experienced enough, to take on the role of leader to the High Entia, if and when his father is taken by the Telethia transformation?
He had hoped it would be a bit longer, yet. Until the inevitable.
Sorean informs the seer. Alvis nods, and says nothing. But he gives Kallian a single, significant look.
It confirms all of Kallian's worst fears.
"You are worried by what this portends," says Alvis, appearing at Kallian's side with nary a word of warning nor introduction.
It could be a platitude. Anyone, royal or commoner, would be quite understandably concerned by the fresh political tensions attendant to the birth of a High Entia princess who has but half the genetic composition of her governed race.
But Alvis states it as an absolute fact; as absolute as any feelings, hunches, worries ever are.
"You are here," Kallian replies. "I trust you will warn us of anything inauspicious headed our way."
As if he doesn't already know.
Once Melia is born, there really isn't much occasion for Alvis to make his presence, or his self, known among the High Entia. Melia grows. Kallian does, too. Mechonis simmers, as does the Bionite Order.
Peace is, simultaneously, both welcome and unwelcome.
So it would seem that Alvis does reappear, sporadically, simply to make Kallian's life more interesting. More stressful.
No one else discusses literature like...that.
More intriguing.
He truly is as if one of the furry white balls of fluff that populate Alcamoth's corners had been imbued with all the weight of one of those booming childrens' toys.
Kallian has not seen Alvis, privately, in over a month. He suspects, given Shulk's possession of the Monado, that Alvis has remained with the party, watching over them as cryptically as he had over Alcamoth, during Melia's youth.
Is he hurt, by Alvis's absence?
Kallian has not had the chance to be hurt by much of anything in over a hundred years. It is not the position of a high-headed prince, even those acting less than regent to an emperor.
But if Alvis would array himself as a human receptacle to Kallian's attention, he deserves all corresponding expectation, and judgement.
Alvis's return to Kallian, during the Second Battle of Sword Valley, comes decorated with a rare smile as wrapping and bow upon the present that is Kallian's chance to...to be stepped around, again.
It is not that Alvis reserves respect and military hierarchy away from Kallian, trifling with his Havres and with his calls to Dickson, Vangarre, Otharon. Alvis, in his own signature way, does not interfere with these affairs of Homs and Entia.
But Kallian cannot shake the feeling that Alvis carries some secondary mission; that just like Melia will process onward, so too will Alvis.
Of course.
If Alvis can calculate all predictable particles in motion and motive alike, why is he surprised by the Mechons' movements? Why does he frown with concern now, when never he had before? Why did it take so long for him to relent to protecting Shulk?
All of Kallian's confidence has been building to this. He has commanded the combined forces of all of Bionis in just such a way--
He raises his voice at Alvis, unwisely. "Impossible!" he proclaims. Don't leave me!
But he knows, in his heart, that he trusts Alvis. Of he course he does. He always has.
Not a vision, but a sense. In the past, perhaps Alvis would have said that his sight was hindered; he would have revealed no more than he could while retaining an appearance of omnipotence, of control.
Now, he speaks vulnerably to Kallian, delivering the same inalienable facts as ever (no fear, only concern) without the sheen of the Divine Seer.
Kallian grasps his hand as he departs, knowing that even if Alvis had predicted this display of emotion (and Kallian knows that it is not weakness), he would do well to accept it as a bold-faced ramification of his actions.
Is it his proximity to Alvis that has done this? That has turned Kallian away from the fate of every other pure-blooeded High Entia, cursed to insentience and destruction, and toward something much worse: having to watch as Lorithia uses his ether-wracked form, joined to the Havres he and Alvis had last shared, to attempt destruction of Melia's companions if not all remaining life on the Bionis itself. A new level of horror.
His mind is blank; he cannot speak, only watch.
Much as Alvis had done. And Kallian had been so close to the Monado's power for so long...
Our wish.
Alvis had granted Kallian no wishes, had done nothing but ingratiate, had he not?
Alvis had passed by the High Entia, had sieved the soon-to-be-Telethia through his lens of the future, of arbitration, of arbitrage.
But it was just as Kallian had said. He did not wish for anything more than to yield the future to Melia, his dear sister.
He had, mutually, imprinted upon Alvis, on the universe that flowed through Monado.
The fact that Alvis would be there with Melia and Shulk at the next juncture only affirmed to Kallian: all was as it should be.