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code_geass
cal-reflector.livejournal.com in code_geassTitle: Code Geass: Lelouch of Britannia.
Genre: Drama, Romance.
Length: 30,000 Words and counting
Characters: Lelouch, Cornelia, Schneizel, Jeremiah, Euphemia, Milly, Darlton, Kewell, Villetta, Diethard.
Summary: Back in October 2007 I posted here the first chapter of my story. Now, eight months later, I have 11 chapters. With the mod's consent, I will repost the first chapter and link to the rest. My thanks to the wonderful readers who found the story here and took time to read it in spite of my failure to include sex or yaoi.
****
I. Prelude to the Storm
In the year 2010 of our Empire, tragedy descended upon the House of Brittania when the seventh queen consort, Lady Marianne of common birth, was felled by assassins at the Palace Aries where she resided with her son and daughter. Princess Nunally, then but eight years old, was caught by the barrage of fire and suffered the fate of an invalid, losing her sight and the use of her legs from wounds to the body and mind. The curious circumstances surrounding the attack and its subsequent investigation, which ended with little official inquiry, no suspects, and no arrests, fueled the despair and anger inside Prince Leulouch’s heart. Though possessing one of the brightest minds ever to have been borne into the royal bloodline, his tender youth could not comprehend the sudden and senseless act which killed and maimed those dearest to him and how such an event could have been allowed to happen. On that summer afternoon, four days after Lady Marianne had passed away, prince Leulouch requested the audience of his father, his Majesty the Emperor. The meeting, now commonly referred to as The First Disgrace of the Black Prince, would shape his destiny and that of the world he dwelt in forever.
Sir Alfred Huxley; the Rise of the Brittanian Empire, Harvard University Press, 2097
--
The boy stood frozen in the center of the Great Hall, the heart of the Empire, on which the sun never set and whose standard flew over more than 2.4 billion souls. To his left and right were the assembly of noble attendants at his father’s court; whose pity and amusement and derision he felt and heard through their sideways glances and their murmured whispers, passed politely behind lacquer fans and manicured hands, for it would not do to raise one’s voice in the audience of his Majesty like the impudent child had just done. In his young mind, Leulouch knew well what he was to these people; a spectacle, soon to become a cautionary tale to their own children and the subject of gossip over ladies’ teas—the happy demise of the Lamperouges and their dastardly supporter the Ashfords, who received their just deserts for attempting to scale the ladder of power like monkeys, propelling a commoner to court and His Majesty’s attention. Leulouch despised them, these worms who dressed like men, who lived by the weather of his father’s mood and clung to the lint of his robes and kissed the ground his shadow fell over, but these pitiful creatures were not the subject of his attention, for seated before him on the throne of power was the man who was the Empire, whose voice issued commands that felled nations and whose glare melted the hearts of the stoutest men. The boy, but ten years of age, was just on the receiving end of both, and the fear in him was so great it was all he could do to remain standing, shaking, for he was too frightened to flee.
Yet cold fear had one virtuous effect: the force of his father’s rebuke had doused the childish passion which filled his thoughts when he entered the hall, regaining him the use of his greatest and only weapon—his mind. Now that he was able to think once more, his courage and indignation, shattered by his father’s force of presence, was quickly replaced by the strongest instinct known to man since his creation: survival. Through the ordeal of his mother’s death, his sister’s injury, and his father’s denunciation, Leulouch had gained the most important insight of his life up until that point—that the protected existence he had led was an illusion. That the palace, with its crystal fountains and luscious gardens and smiling servants and atriums filled with butterflies and birds was no paradise, but a coliseum, where lions and men more ferocious than beasts prowled and prepared to set upon him and tear him to pieces, as they already have with the two people he loved most dearly. There was no help coming, none left to protect them after the fall of the Ashfords; he was all that was left to look after Nunally and avenge their mother, a lone King without an army against a board full of foes, every route cut off and all the audience waiting his final turn before checkmate and victory for his enemies.
So he made the only move left to him.
Placing one hand behind his back and the other before him, the boy descended until his left knee was resting against the floor. His hair, soft, black, and lustrous like her mother’s, covered his visage as he bowed low, prostrating himself before the man who held his fate in hand like God. “Forgive me, your Majesty, for that unsightly display, I was not myself. I apologize for the disgrace I’ve caused you and for intruding upon your court. It shall never happen again.”
A collective murmur arose from the gallery at the boy’s reversal in attitude, interjected with a few sneers that soon fell quiet. Leulouch never looked up, keeping his eyes on the floor, the very image of a wayward son humbled into submission by his master and repenting his transgressions. When the hammer that was his father’s command to expel, banish, or execute him did not fall, he looked up and saw his father seated and looking away, as if the shameful creature kneeling before him—his own flesh and blood—was not even worthy of his disdain. When the Emperor finally spoke, the cold, quiet words echoed through the Great Hall and through the chest of everyone who heard them.
“Be gone from my sight.”
He rose slowly, gracefully, the nobles remarked amongst themselves later that evening in their post dinner gatherings, for a tyke who had just begged like a dog and been spared a fate on the streets or worse. Retreating backwards, Leulouch maintained his posture of submission towards his Emperor until he reached the gate to the Great Hall, whereupon he turned and made his exit, the majestic double doors closing behind him loudly, shutting away the prying and unforgiving eyes of the lion and its pack of hyenas.
Overhead, the sky, which had been a clear expanse of blue and white when he arrived, had transformed during the time of his trial into a menacing overcast, the sound of rolling thunder audible in the distance as spots of wetness appearing on the granite plaza foreshadowed the imminent storm. A palace footman came up behind the unescorted prince with an umbrella, but Leulouch declined the servant’s gesture, preferring to walk alone to the place he once called home but was now only a cage devoid of life and familiarity and warmth. As he walked, the rain grew into a torrent until rivulets ran down his face and soaked through his royal garbs. An imaginative bystander might have remarked that Heaven itself was mocking the young prince, reminding him cruelly with every lash of rain his helplessness, his loneliness, his powerlessness to do anything for anyone including himself, but if they looked closer, looked beneath the dark bangs that obscured the young boy’s face, they would have seen that Leulouch was smiling.
For Leulouch had many reasons to be pleased: His enemies who witnessed his act of subservience today would dismiss him as finished; count him as dead and forget about him, satisfied that the Lamperouges and her allies have been sufficiently dismembered, never to rise again. But they did not realize that he had avoided the checkmate against all odds and lived to fight another day, right in the midst of his unsuspecting foes, where he would learn their identities in time and make plans for each and every one. And the boy, rather than becoming discouraged, saw the brewing storm in the sky as a sign; happy after days of mourning that his purpose in life had found him: to destroy those who murdered his mother, who came close to doing the same to his sister, who ended his idyllic world of peace.
On that day, Leulouch V. Brittania’s childhood came to an end.
Story Continued here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3816236/2/Code_Geass_Lelouch_of_Brittania
Genre: Drama, Romance.
Length: 30,000 Words and counting
Characters: Lelouch, Cornelia, Schneizel, Jeremiah, Euphemia, Milly, Darlton, Kewell, Villetta, Diethard.
Summary: Back in October 2007 I posted here the first chapter of my story. Now, eight months later, I have 11 chapters. With the mod's consent, I will repost the first chapter and link to the rest. My thanks to the wonderful readers who found the story here and took time to read it in spite of my failure to include sex or yaoi.
****
I. Prelude to the Storm
In the year 2010 of our Empire, tragedy descended upon the House of Brittania when the seventh queen consort, Lady Marianne of common birth, was felled by assassins at the Palace Aries where she resided with her son and daughter. Princess Nunally, then but eight years old, was caught by the barrage of fire and suffered the fate of an invalid, losing her sight and the use of her legs from wounds to the body and mind. The curious circumstances surrounding the attack and its subsequent investigation, which ended with little official inquiry, no suspects, and no arrests, fueled the despair and anger inside Prince Leulouch’s heart. Though possessing one of the brightest minds ever to have been borne into the royal bloodline, his tender youth could not comprehend the sudden and senseless act which killed and maimed those dearest to him and how such an event could have been allowed to happen. On that summer afternoon, four days after Lady Marianne had passed away, prince Leulouch requested the audience of his father, his Majesty the Emperor. The meeting, now commonly referred to as The First Disgrace of the Black Prince, would shape his destiny and that of the world he dwelt in forever.
Sir Alfred Huxley; the Rise of the Brittanian Empire, Harvard University Press, 2097
--
The boy stood frozen in the center of the Great Hall, the heart of the Empire, on which the sun never set and whose standard flew over more than 2.4 billion souls. To his left and right were the assembly of noble attendants at his father’s court; whose pity and amusement and derision he felt and heard through their sideways glances and their murmured whispers, passed politely behind lacquer fans and manicured hands, for it would not do to raise one’s voice in the audience of his Majesty like the impudent child had just done. In his young mind, Leulouch knew well what he was to these people; a spectacle, soon to become a cautionary tale to their own children and the subject of gossip over ladies’ teas—the happy demise of the Lamperouges and their dastardly supporter the Ashfords, who received their just deserts for attempting to scale the ladder of power like monkeys, propelling a commoner to court and His Majesty’s attention. Leulouch despised them, these worms who dressed like men, who lived by the weather of his father’s mood and clung to the lint of his robes and kissed the ground his shadow fell over, but these pitiful creatures were not the subject of his attention, for seated before him on the throne of power was the man who was the Empire, whose voice issued commands that felled nations and whose glare melted the hearts of the stoutest men. The boy, but ten years of age, was just on the receiving end of both, and the fear in him was so great it was all he could do to remain standing, shaking, for he was too frightened to flee.
Yet cold fear had one virtuous effect: the force of his father’s rebuke had doused the childish passion which filled his thoughts when he entered the hall, regaining him the use of his greatest and only weapon—his mind. Now that he was able to think once more, his courage and indignation, shattered by his father’s force of presence, was quickly replaced by the strongest instinct known to man since his creation: survival. Through the ordeal of his mother’s death, his sister’s injury, and his father’s denunciation, Leulouch had gained the most important insight of his life up until that point—that the protected existence he had led was an illusion. That the palace, with its crystal fountains and luscious gardens and smiling servants and atriums filled with butterflies and birds was no paradise, but a coliseum, where lions and men more ferocious than beasts prowled and prepared to set upon him and tear him to pieces, as they already have with the two people he loved most dearly. There was no help coming, none left to protect them after the fall of the Ashfords; he was all that was left to look after Nunally and avenge their mother, a lone King without an army against a board full of foes, every route cut off and all the audience waiting his final turn before checkmate and victory for his enemies.
So he made the only move left to him.
Placing one hand behind his back and the other before him, the boy descended until his left knee was resting against the floor. His hair, soft, black, and lustrous like her mother’s, covered his visage as he bowed low, prostrating himself before the man who held his fate in hand like God. “Forgive me, your Majesty, for that unsightly display, I was not myself. I apologize for the disgrace I’ve caused you and for intruding upon your court. It shall never happen again.”
A collective murmur arose from the gallery at the boy’s reversal in attitude, interjected with a few sneers that soon fell quiet. Leulouch never looked up, keeping his eyes on the floor, the very image of a wayward son humbled into submission by his master and repenting his transgressions. When the hammer that was his father’s command to expel, banish, or execute him did not fall, he looked up and saw his father seated and looking away, as if the shameful creature kneeling before him—his own flesh and blood—was not even worthy of his disdain. When the Emperor finally spoke, the cold, quiet words echoed through the Great Hall and through the chest of everyone who heard them.
“Be gone from my sight.”
He rose slowly, gracefully, the nobles remarked amongst themselves later that evening in their post dinner gatherings, for a tyke who had just begged like a dog and been spared a fate on the streets or worse. Retreating backwards, Leulouch maintained his posture of submission towards his Emperor until he reached the gate to the Great Hall, whereupon he turned and made his exit, the majestic double doors closing behind him loudly, shutting away the prying and unforgiving eyes of the lion and its pack of hyenas.
Overhead, the sky, which had been a clear expanse of blue and white when he arrived, had transformed during the time of his trial into a menacing overcast, the sound of rolling thunder audible in the distance as spots of wetness appearing on the granite plaza foreshadowed the imminent storm. A palace footman came up behind the unescorted prince with an umbrella, but Leulouch declined the servant’s gesture, preferring to walk alone to the place he once called home but was now only a cage devoid of life and familiarity and warmth. As he walked, the rain grew into a torrent until rivulets ran down his face and soaked through his royal garbs. An imaginative bystander might have remarked that Heaven itself was mocking the young prince, reminding him cruelly with every lash of rain his helplessness, his loneliness, his powerlessness to do anything for anyone including himself, but if they looked closer, looked beneath the dark bangs that obscured the young boy’s face, they would have seen that Leulouch was smiling.
For Leulouch had many reasons to be pleased: His enemies who witnessed his act of subservience today would dismiss him as finished; count him as dead and forget about him, satisfied that the Lamperouges and her allies have been sufficiently dismembered, never to rise again. But they did not realize that he had avoided the checkmate against all odds and lived to fight another day, right in the midst of his unsuspecting foes, where he would learn their identities in time and make plans for each and every one. And the boy, rather than becoming discouraged, saw the brewing storm in the sky as a sign; happy after days of mourning that his purpose in life had found him: to destroy those who murdered his mother, who came close to doing the same to his sister, who ended his idyllic world of peace.
On that day, Leulouch V. Brittania’s childhood came to an end.
Story Continued here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3816236/2/Code_Geass_Lelouch_of_Brittania
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