In That Dawn To Be Alive

I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.

This is written for Manna, aka Kitten Kisses, who requested a French Revolution 'fic involving Frey and Catria. Given that this is indeed a French Revolution-inspired AU, and the French Revolution turned into a very nasty episode of human history, this 'fic contains unpleasant things, like character death and references to torture and child abuse. These things are not depicted "onscreen," as it were, but the overall context is unpleasant.

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!"- William Wordsworth

Altean mornings renewed the spirit. Wisps of cloud painted rose and gold fringed an eggshell-blue sky, and the air was cool and fresh and invigorating. As Catria ran her horse through its paces around Liberty Park, she was not sorry at all to be posted here, so far from her homeland. The countryside was pleasant, the climate agreeable... and the camaraderie was deeply gratifying.

"Citizen Frey!" she called out to a familiar shape paused ahead of her, as though contemplating the dawn. He turned, and that simple gesture had a slow, deliberate power to it, a grace that matched the grace of his mount.

"Citizen Catria."

Catria smiled at the sound of that familiar low baritone.

"Are you well this morning?"

"In fine spirits," he assured her as Catria pulled up alongside him.

"It is a good day for the people, my friend," she said. "The Widow Anri meets her with her justice this noon."

"Indeed," he said, his eyes still on the gold-flecked horizon.

She studied his profile for a moment; Frey was not in his first youth, but the lines in his face, the gray in his hair, lent him an impressive gravity.

"You will be there?" he asked, turning toward her at last.

"Yes. I expect there to be a scene... of one kind or another."

"I hope not," he said. "The tree of liberty may need the blood of tyrants to nourish it, but overwatering will kill any tree."

"This is so," said Catria, and she thought she knew his meaning.

-x-

Catria was prepared to handle a throng of the sort that had surrounded Altea Castle five months earlier. This was a shadow of the earlier congregation; the crowd did not have sufficient zeal. Catria had long heard that Alteans possessed a certain cow-like complacency, that they were unduly servile and hence never questioned the absolute powers wielded over them by the kings of the House of Anri. It took the revolutionary spirit of the Granese among them to foment rebellion in Altea, but the Alteans themselves were so slow to react that the Revolution itself was achieved with few casualties among the Revolutionary Guards. Kept stupid by the ruling classes, the Altean peasants could neither help nor hinder their liberators.

She glanced at occupant of the cart, the woman who once had styled herself Liza, Queen of Altea. Catria had seen portraits of her- draped in blue velvet and ermine, her long dark hair adorned with a wreath of gems. The thin, middle-aged woman with the cropped hair bore little resemblance to any of the portraits. The eyes were the same, Catria supposed- large and blue, with lashes befitting a person of decadent nature. The Widow Anri looked around her with those bold eyes, either in fear or as a sort of challenge to those that had come to see her die.

Her eyes met Catria's for a moment. Catria stared back, but the cart rolled on, taking the former queen to her deserved fate.

-x-

In the four years since the Consul abolished the Kingdom of Macedonia, a new era had come into being. The Consul declared an end to feudalism and superstition alike, and manor houses and temples yielded their riches to the new Republic. Freedom cleansed every moment of life- no longer were certain foods reserved for holy days or certain fabrics reserved for those of a particular rank. No longer did a person's place in society dictate whether "you" or "thee" came from their lips in conversation. Catria reveled in both the greater freedoms- as when she took up a pike on behalf of the Republic- and the small ones, like simply being able to walk down a street without having to avert her eyes should one of her "betters" pass by. Never in the history of the continent had a people known so truly what it was to chart their own destiny.

The fires of liberty could not be contained within Macedon's borders, and so spread inexorably to the neighboring lands- first northward into Grust, whose king accepted a constitution and signed away the "birthrights" of his children. From there the revolution flowed north and west up the continent until it reached the shores of Altea- Altea, entrenched in the injustice of divine right. Altea proved an obstacle until its neighbor Gra, ruled by a lesser branch of the House of Anri, experienced its own blossoming of liberty. From there the path of revolution ran straight to Altea Castle, whose fall was one of the most glorious things Catria ever had seen. Men and women of all nations and all walks of life- former aristocrats of Grust, Republican Guards of Macedon, Granese volunteers, and whatever Alteans were swept up by passion for their freedom- burst through the ancient stone walls and reached the very throne room to capture the queen and her two children.

Altea in its degeneracy was ripe for liberation; the capital fell in a day. Catria and her sisters-at-arms then took up the task of policing the newly freed citizens of Altea, guiding them toward the Consul's vision of the modern state. The people must give up clinging to old notions of king, faith, and law, and must instead embrace the three highest ideals of the Revolution. Liberty. Equality. Brotherhood.

Every act and every breath of hers must affirm the Consul's philosophy, and so Catria had fashioned herself into the picture of a woman of the revolution- her hair cut short and unadorned by combs or ribbons, her face untouched by paint or powder. Around her brow she wore a band of white- for purity- to commemorate the most proud moment yet of her career, the day she and her sisters stormed the Old Prison of Macedon and the Consul declared them "new lilies," stainless blossoms compared to the rotten, gilded lilies of the aristocracy.

Frey had not made quite so dramatic a transformation as he refashioned himself from royal knight to Inspector of Public Prisons. He wore clothes both simple in cut and sober in color, and Catria supposed they were an expression of his own self as much as they were of political affiliation. But that was fine- let a man be himself! As a true-born citizen of Altea, Frey had the right to serve in the new Assembly, where he made an impressive speaker. Words came from him with the same deliberation that colored his every gesture; his pace was not that of a slow man, but of a thoughtful one. When he spoke, Catria felt the words reverberate through her breast, and abstract ideas seemed to burst into life and color. Frey didn't come up with these ideas on his own- they came from the pamphlets, from the pens of philosophers, but he spoke of them with such conviction than none hearing him could doubt their truth. None could doubt that all people must be free, must be equal, or that on the day in which all men knew themselves to be brothers, equality and liberty would follow as naturally as the sun did pass through the sky.

-x-

With Altea liberated, now the path was open to the Consul's true goal- the old Holy Kingdom of Archanea, no longer at all holy and soon to not be a kingdom. Catria went to the cavernous old building that once had been the holiest temple in Altea to hear the Consul himself speak of this next great campaign. Consul Michalis was a tall man and a handsome one; when he had been the Crown Prince, people had said of him, "He looks like a true king." Now those who beheld him- tall and broad-shouldered, with clean features and hair like a mane of fire- said, "He looks like a true Leader."

His words did not disappoint; if his speaking voice didn't have the deep resonance that Frey possessed, the Consul spoke with clarity and passion as he insisted on the need to relieve Archanea of the weight of long centuries of injustice.

"Think of the curs that slink through the courts of Millennium Palace- the expatriates of Aurelis, who hold themselves above other men. When the even the court of Aurelis could no longer contain their wickedness, Holy Archanea welcomed them- welcomed the slaveholders, who chained the proud and virtuous savages of the northern plains, and denied them the rights of men."

From the corners of the old temple, Catria heard a score of tongues hiss at the perfidy of nobles.

"Holy Archanea, whose king demanded from us the tribute of taxation yet gave us no aid in our times of need. Holy Archanea, whose nobles feast from tables laden with gold plate and heaped with savory meat while the people go hungry, without even a crust of bread in their bowls."

Nothing lit the fires of revolution in Catria's heart like the memory of hunger. She would always feel the famine in the pit of her gut, would always taste the bitter acorns she and her sisters had lived upon, the roots choked with dirt they had eaten just to survive. She would always see her mother's wasted body as it was lowered into the ground, see the sad bundle of the grey lifeless child, starved in the womb, folded in her mother's cold arms.

She raised her arms high and it seemed the cry came from within her very soul.

"Down with Archanea!"

It was too soon, she could see that. The Consul wasn't ready yet for their participation, and he paused for a moment before he continued his oration.

"Holy Archanea, whose great bishop speaks of the light and love of God above while his true master, the king, condemns untold thousands to darkness and poverty..."

But passion now spread through the audience like fire in an arsenal.

"Down with hypocritical priests!"

"Down with the nobles who would make of us slaves!"

"Down with those who deny the brotherhood of man!"

Catria knew his deep, strong voice, rising above the high-pitched clamor. It spurred her to raise her arms again, still higher, and to call out with such ferocity that her throat seared.

"Death to slaveholders! Death to the bringers of famine! Death to the king and all of his bishops!"

It seemed a thousand voices joined hers. If they had been that moment before the gates of Millennium Palace, it would have fallen more easily than even the Altean capital. At the Consul's command, they poured out the double doors of the old temple- came out the broken windows, even. It was madness, it was ecstasy. It was revolution. Frey found her in the tumult, caught her up in his arms and held her above the crowd. He lifted her as though she were a feather, and Catria felt she was flying. The sky above them was purest blue, with flights of pale doves spiraling upward to heaven.

-x-

Catria always had enjoyed mornings, and the hour of breakfast- after a round of exercise in Liberty Park, but before they each reported for the day's duty- became the most pleasant time of the day. Frey would read the latest news while Catria set out the bread and coffee; it was an hour to reflect on the world instead of simply experiencing it.

"Praise Citizen Jiol, a man of the people, a man who has taken an ordinary citizeness as his wife, a man whose daughter scorns the title 'Princess,' for she lives among the people and works with her hands. Praise Citizen Sheema, whose hands are callused with the work of the common man, whose feet are stained and hardened with the same dust that stains our feet."

Frey glanced over the top of the pamphlet at Catria.

"Yes, Citizen Jiol, who sealed his revolutionary credentials by placing a knife in the back of his sworn brother."

"You doubt his fidelity to the revolution?" Of course, Jiol enjoyed the privileges of nobility for fifty years before his sudden change of heart.

"I doubt a man's fidelity to the cause of brotherhood when his hands are coated in the blood of his own kin." Jiol's apprehension and execution of the former king of Altea had been a great deed in the eyes of the Republic, but the details of the act had caused some talk. Without a public hearing, without a trial and the process of law, the execution did smell a little like murder. "And as for his daughter Sheema... well, I have heard nothing but praise for her character. It is fortunate that she enjoys the air of liberty."

"Why would she not?"

"There are some among the Assembly- and in the military- who consider a person's family background the truest mark of their character, no matter their words and deeds. They would see a woman like Sheema sent to the guillotine simply because she carries a trace of the Anri bloodline in her veins."

"That makes no sense. By that argument, our own Consul, as the son of a king, would be unfit for his office. My commander, the Consul's sister, would likewise be unfit to lead."

"I hope that these voices do not gain the ascendancy in our government," said Frey, and it seemed the lines in his face grew deeper for a moment. "I have heard grim stories of our Grustian brothers falling into excess in their fervor for the revolution. It is said the young children of the former king were locked away in sunless cells, ill-fed and ill-clothed. I have heard that the boy was forced to drink alcohol until he could no longer stand, and the girl was told to curse her parents and blaspheme... and whipped when she would not do so."

"You cannot give credence to royalist slanders."

"No, but I hear the words bandied about on the floor of the Assembly and I wonder if these fine speakers have human hearts beneath their skin. What does it benefit the Republic to send Citizen Sheema into the bowels of Old State Prison with her two young cousins?"

Catria was silent for a while, considering his words. When she did speak, it was to voice a question that had bothered her for some time.

"What are they like?" For Frey saw the former princess and prince of Altea each week, as part of his duties.

"The Anri children? Every meeting with them is the same. The girl asks after her brother. The boy asks after his sister. They say little else of consequence."

"They never do see one another?"

"No. They are kept on separate floors. The girl has some of her former attendants confined with her. The boy sees no one besides guards and his... tutors."

Catria knew that both the children, like their counterparts in Grust and the Consul's own youngest sister, were being re-educated to acclimate to a world in which no man owed them anything on account of "birthright." There was something she didn't like in the way Frey said "tutors," though, and it must have shown in her face.

"Fortunately they are both of an age where they can still be taught," Frey said, and Catria heard a note of optimism in his voice that rang false, like an imperfectly cast bell.

"They weigh upon your heart," she said.

"They do. The Anri children were born into this world like the rest of us, and didn't ask for the place they were given in the old regime. But I see to it that they are housed and fed, and they have been granted the opportunity to accept the role they must have in the republic. I hope they do accept it. But those other children, the little boy and girl of Grust... I hear only rumors of them, and not knowing the truth... I do wonder.

"Still, the worst of the rumors must surely be false- like the tale I've heard many a time, that the Anri children have their food thrown to them through the prison bars, like animals in a menagerie."

"Not both of them," Frey said, and his face grew more severe still. He seemed in that moment quite old, quite gray. "As for the boy and girl in Grust... I pray our brothers will keep sense and compassion. There is no cause on our Creator's earth whose virtue can withstand the murder of a child."

-x-

Catria did not see Frey for some weeks; she had been tasked with the pursuit of a student of the Academy, the heir of one of the heretofore noble families of Altea. The youth had escaped from the Academy in spite of high surveillance and his capture was considered a high priority of the Republic, but Catria had little success in apprehending him. The trail of the boy name Merric went cold at the eastern coast of the island and she concluded that he had escaped by boat, no doubt bound for the court of Talys like the bulk of the royalists.

Shortly after this embarrassing escape, the Assembly passed a bill to purge the Academy of its remaining royalists. The guillotine fell on a daily basis; Frey complained that if this pace continued, he would soon be inspecting empty prisons. He seemed especially agitated one morning, drinking his coffee before Catria could even put the sugar on the table. Twelve royalist bishops had gone to justice the day before, and he called it excessive. Catria did not know the details of the case and said nothing; her silence led Frey to state what was truly on his mind.

"Citizen Jiol means to introduce a new bill before the Assembly today." He began to fold the newspaper again and again until he'd made a compressed cube of it. "As the Anri children are considered a threat to public safety, he wishes to have the girl sent somewhere beyond the shores of Altea, where she may no longer serve as a focus for public sentiment."

"No one seriously considers them a threat to safety," Catria began, but Frey interrupted her.

"He means to put the boy to death."

This was news to Catria. Periodically she had to clear royalists from the vicinity of Old State Prison, but there had never been any violent protests, much less any attempts at freeing the two children. Aside from their failure to accept re-education, they were a small threat indeed to the workings of the Altean Republic.

"How old is the boy?"

"Fourteen," Frey replied, his brow furrowed in disgust.

Fourteen. Too young to serve as a full member in the Republican Guard, too young to vote in the Assembly.

"Citizen Jiol reasons that neither of the children have shown any inclination to conform to republican beliefs and are henceforth unteachable," Frey continued.

"That may be true," Catria said slowly. "Some of the royalists I've pursued, the ones who escaped from the Academy, are no older."

"Yes," Frey said. "Exactly."

-x-

Catria reported to the Courts of Justice hours before daybreak. Her commander, a tall and striking woman with a clear resemblance to the Consul, had summoned her most trusted officers for a meeting of the utmost importance. Commander Minerva wasted no time in laying the issue before them.

"The Anri boy has disappeared from his cell at Old State Prison."

Catria felt a chill pass down her neck. She had been so certain that there was little risk of escape. What had she missed?

"We know neither the exact time nor even the date of his escape. The warden at Old State reports the prisoner had not spoken in more than a week. A surgeon was sent in to examine him and found the prisoner gone, with another boy of a similar age and build left in his place." Minerva's crisp diction carried no shading of emotion as she reported these improbable events. "The impostor has been interrogated several times. So far, he will not cooperate."

She did not have to state that the escape was coordinated by someone from within the Republic; that much was obvious.

"These are the men we believe to have been part of the conspiracy." Minerva passed around a sheet, nearly twenty names inscribed upon it. Catria knew before she even read the paper whose name she would find among the guilty. A hard knot formed in her throat, but she swallowed it and spoke clearly as she traced his name with her finger.

"I know where this man resides. I will apprehend him."

She found him in Liberty Park, taking his morning constitutional. He stood by the fountain, running his hands in streams of water, almost as though he waited for her. The sky was pale blue edged in gold, and the sound of the fountain filled Catria's ears. She leveled her pike at his throat.

"Citizen Frey. I order your arrest in the name of the Republic, for you stand accused of acts that seek to betray the Revolution."

His brow creased, and her heart measured out three beats before he responded to her charges.

"This Revolution has betrayed itself."

He did not resist as she bound his hands, but he did not make it easy for her, either. There was such incredible strength in those hands.

-x-

Catria patrolled the streets the day the royalist conspirators were sent to the guillotine. Some had escaped the net and were no doubt harboring the Anri boy in secret, but a half-dozen royalists did not escape and were due to meet with justice that day. The young impostor was not among them... it was said he had been "interrogated" so severely that he was only fit for a madhouse, and there the Republic was content to leave him. Catria waited as the cart with the condemned men rolled past. Three-by-three they waited in the cart, and Frey was in the middle of the first row; even seated, he half a head taller than the other men. Not that it would make any difference shortly...

His eyes met hers for just a moment- deep blue, cold as steel, unfathomable as the ocean. Catria looked away. The creaking of the cart and the jeers of the people let her know when he had passed her by.

The End

I leave it to the reader to decide whether or not Frey was a sincere revolutionary who hit his breaking point or a closet royalist who decided to keep his head down and sabotage the Republic from within.

I tried to be faithful to the canonical political scene of Archanea in the FE games. For instance, the charges against the Holy Kingdom and its king (Nyna's father) are all entirely true. The Archanean court did provide a refuge to pro-slavery nobles from Aurelis, Michalis was able to capitalize on resentment towards the Holy Kingdom re: famine and maltreatment. And the twin children of King Ludwik of Grust were horribly abused by their father's "allies." So a lot of the 'bad stuff' in this comes right out of canon.