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“And then we’re going to cross through the pass here…”
Finn wished that he could rest his eyes. He was used to depriving himself of sleep for the sake of his lieges, but fatigue hit him more than usual over the past few weeks. It felt like Leif’s army had never taken a point to stop and rest since taking Leonster, almost as a sort of tribute to Dorius and the others who had fallen.
“We’ll turn east and climb up this ridge…”
His eyes closed for a second, his head drooping down. August’s monotone voice was too much for him to stay awake through, even if he needed to for Lord Leif’s sake.
“And here is where we will meet with Ced and the remainder of the Magi.”
Finn’s head shot up. “No,” he said. “Ced?”
“Ced the Brave,” August said, his gaze snapping towards Finn. “Do you not know him? The Silessian who leads the Magi who have been working hard against the Empire?”
He was unable to respond, looking back at August slack-jawed. It had to be a coincidence, he thought. Ced was a rather common name for Silessians because of the legacy of Ced the Crusader; there was no way that it was that Ced.
“Sir Finn?” Leif approached his loyal guardian, making sure that he was fine.
“I do not know him,” Finn said, breaking the awkward silence.
“I met Ced in Munster once,” Leif said. “He said that he was the son of Silesse’s queen, a knight who became queen after King Lewyn disappeared. At first he was here to search for his father, but he saw the plight of the people and had to help them! He’s always been very helpful - as a matter of fact, he taught Asbel how to use Grafcalibur.”
“I can only aspire to be like him,” Leif thought.
“It is that Ced,” Finn muttered.
“Huh?” Leif asked.
“Nothing, my Lord. What do you command me to do when we leave?”
“I wish you luck, Lord Leif!”
Those were the words that Finn heard when he returned to his liege, fresh off of a sortie to fend off several dragon knights. He froze when he saw the person that Leif was speaking to.
Leif turned around to greet his loyal knight. “Sir Finn! This is Ced the Brave.”
Ced looked at the blue haired knight strangely as he dismounted from his horse. Something seemed strangely familiar about him, something about his mannerisms, but he could not remember where he had seen him before.
“Ced the Brave,” Finn repeated. He took a long look at Ced’s face, realizing that he was looking at the spitting image of his younger self. The same pointy chin, the same mop of hair, even the same facial expression, fierceness tempered with youth. His hair and eyes were green, a testament to his mother, but otherwise it was as if a younger version of Finn travelled twenty years forward in time.
The younger man was visibly uncomfortable as the man scanned his form. He had no reason to distrust him, especially if he was Leif’s loyal knight, but he felt that something was off.
“Your mother is Erinys, correct?”
Ced gasped. “How do you know her name?!” he exclaimed. He could not understand how that man knew his mother’s name. Perhaps Karin or Misha told everyone, but the fact that the man would say his mother’s name before anything else raised questions.
Opposite him, Finn put down his brave lance. As he got up, he fiddled with his right hand, first taking off his glove and then sliding a ring off his finger - a simple, inexpensive bronze ring. He showed the ring to Ced, a blank expression on his face. Ced leaned in to look, finding that his mother’s name was imprinted on it.
“You…”
Ced jumped back, his hands trembling as he made the realization as to who this was.
“I am Finn, your father.”
In the background, Leif let out a confused huh. He knew that Finn was married during the war, but had no idea that he had a son.
“You deadbeat! Do you have any damn idea what happened since you were gone?”
“Is Erin…” Finn trailed off.
“Mother is dead!” Ced screamed. “She loved you until the day she died, even forgave you after abandoning us! After she had given birth to my sister alone, my sister who literally has never seen her father!”
No response came from Finn. At this point he had been numbed to everything, even his own son angrily relating the news of his wife’s death. Deep inside he grieved, but he knew that he had a mission to follow - nothing could get in the way, or so he had been saying for the past sixteen years.
“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?!”
Finn silently kneeled down again to pick up his brave lance, looking to return to his work of fighting off dragon knights.
“Ced, wh-”
Ced for his part also silently removed himself from the situation, running out away from everyone in Leif’s army.
Ced soon found himself at the foothills of Thracia’s mountains. He looked around. After seeing that no other human was in sight, he screamed. He was seething with rage: finally found his father, yet he was unable to get him to answer for abandoning his family. Abandoning his family for someone else, no less.
“Ced, what are you doing?”
He was shocked by the sound of another human voice and turned around to see the source of the voice. It was a man with longer green hair and a distinctive white and blue striped scarf: none other than Lewyn, the living Crusader who was king when Ced was young, up until his disappearance.
“King Lewyn...how…”
“Do not call me king,” he sternly instructed. “And how I am present here is of no concern to you. Tell me, why are you consumed by anger?”
“My father...I finally found him again. But he won’t take any responsibility. Nothing to say for abandoning his wife and children. Nothing!” He balled his fists up, anger still flowing through him.
“He had his reasons.”
“His reasons? Reasons?! What reasons could excuse abandoning your family?” Ced spat at Lewyn.
“War is a terrible thing, Ced. You should know this after seeing how the people of Leonster has suffered. Everyone has to make sacrifices in war. You should be grateful that you still have a father.”
Ced found that this point struck him. He knew that many of the people whom he had worked with were orphaned by the war, Asbel chief among them. Is it not better that he has a father who is alive?
“Your mother forgave him. Why are you going against her?”
“Gah! My mother? How did you-”
He turned around to find that he was speaking to nothing. Lewyn had, for all intents and purposes, vanished into the wind.
Maybe the king had a point after all.
At the Leonster army camp, Leif had brought Finn into his tent. Also there was Karin, the Silessian knight who previously spoke to Leif about Ced after the two princes had met for the first time in Munster. Leif was taken aback by the revelation that Finn had fathered children; he needed to find out more about what was going on.
“Finn, why did you never tell us that you had children?”
“I was going to tell you when I was older, but I never had the time to.” Indeed, Finn was planning on revealing the existence of Ced to Leif and the others after they had taken Leonster - a point when Leif had proved that he was no longer a child - but the deaths of Dorius and everyone else sidetracked his plans. “I did not wish to make you, Nanna, or Jeanne fear that I cared more about someone else,” he added. “I especially wanted Nanna to not feel distanced from me - I promised Lady Lachesis that I would treat her like my daughter, knowing that she had not even seen her true father.”
The only person in Fiana who even knew that Finn had sired a son was Eyvel; she understood why Finn would not tell anyone else of his child’s existence. He wished that Eyvel was with him still, as he felt that she was the only one who truly understood Finn’s emotions despite being unmarried herself.
“But what about Ced’s sister? He was saying something about her never seeing you?” Leif asked.
“Leif, in truth I did not know that Ced had a sister,” Finn said. Silently, Finn was wondering if Erinys had conceived a daughter by another man. If this were the case, he could not blame her too much - she would have been frustrated by his inability to return. It would have violated their vows, but in war, sacrifices are made.
Karin cleared her throat. “Ahem,” she said. “I can explain.”
“Go ahead,” Leif said.
“Fee is a couple years younger than Ced. He told me once that Fee and him have the same dad - it’s just that Fee was born after his dad abandoned them. ‘Course I never knew much about the dad other than that he was a knight from Leonster, at least ‘til now, but no one ever doubted that Fee and Ced had the same dad.”
“So we know for sure that Fee is Finn’s daughter?”
“Yup! And plus,” Karin added, “if the Queen was ever unfaithful, all the townspeople woulda gossipped about it! But I never heard a peep of that.”
Finn breathed out as the thoughts swirled through his head. He should have been joyed to learn that he has a daughter by blood, but he feared that she would dislike him the same way that Ced seemed to. “If I may ask, what does Fee look like?” he asked.
“Green, shorter hair, and a short temper!” Karin said. “And giant hoop earrings. That’s what Fee’s like.”
“I see...has she ever said what she thinks of her father, Karin?”
As Karin opened her mouth to respond, they were interrupted by the sound of knocking on the tent.
“Come in!” Leif shouted.
It turned out that Ced had come back to the tent, his face still red from all of the emotions he had experienced.
“Ced?” Leif asked.
“Father...I still feel sad about what you did to us, but…” Ced steadied himself on one of the poles supporting the tent, hands still trembling. “But Mother forgave you, and I must do as she did.”
“She...forgave me?” Finn questioned as he stood up, facing his son.
“Yes...she…” Ced saw the image of his mother on her deathbed, extolling the virtues of Finn, yet he couldn’t find the words to tell Finn what happened.
Not that he would be able to, anyways. Finn pulled the younger man into a hug, patting him on the back to comfort him.
“You do not need to tell me about it right now. I know that I was not there for you most of your life, but let me try to be your father now,” Finn said. “Let me try to make up for it, as much as I can.”
Perhaps King Lewyn was right, Ced thought. Perhaps his father had his reasons. But the time to learn about those reasons is not now - not when his father seemed genuine in wanting to repair the damage.
“Th-thank you,” he replied. “Thank you, Father.”
Finally, father and son were reunited.