Chapter Text
Mustafa was a man of few words, but those he did speak held truth. So on that quiet, balmy evening - the night before the rain fell - when he looked earnestly into Henry’s eyes and said “I love you as I loved my own son” it should be known that he told no lie.
Henry had carried it around with him since. It had baffled him beyond reasonable comprehension, to be on the receiving end of love. He’d lived almost completely devoid of human contact for so long that to hear he was cared for left a rather unsettling feeling within the confines of his heart.
And he often wondered if there was even much of his heart left.
He was always smiling - he was almost infamous for it. His pale face permanently set in a quirky little grin, his giggling voice popping out chirp after chirp of badly timed puns and wise cracks. Here he comes... people would say, and he knew what they meant. He unnerved them, unsettled them. It made sense, when he thought about it, he did talk way too much about blood.
He didn’t always mean it. Sure, the idea of dying just fascinated him. Where does one end up once their corpse has collapsed in a rotting heap, he wondered. But the whole “I love murder, I have such a thing for killing” shtick was mostly for a reaction. Who could blame him, after all that time in solitude. Having people look at him felt great. Having people fear him felt even better. Nobody would try to hurt him out of sheer terror he would hurt them back, so, so much harder.
Plegia was a desolate land, plagued with poor farming thanks to its thick desert wastes and near to no rainfall. It was hot, it was humid. The poverty rate was alarmingly high, if you didn’t get work in the King’s army you were almost guaranteed to live your life out in the slums. Hell, even the mad old King himself was a tear away who’d grown up on the streets - not a drop of royal blood left in all of Plegia, Henry assumed. Their system was corrupt, their rulers and leaders all cherry picked by who was the most psychotic it seemed. Henry figured he might’ve had a chance at becoming King, had he tried hard enough.
But politics wasn’t really for Henry, all things considered. He was content to just exist. He found it difficult to feel bad about his poor start in life when the entirety of Plegia was stricken with it. That’s why he was so well known for being “that cheery oddball” - who could find time to smile in times like these? Gangrel’s men whispered of assassination plots, on the Exalt of Ylisse, on the Prince, blood to be paid back for the thousands of Plegian lives lost under the previous Exalt’s bloody rule. Henry liked the thought. He almost found himself blaming Ylisse for his troubles.
But he knew it wasn’t true. His parents didn’t abandon him because of poverty, or because of fear, or because of some fancy Exalt with royal blood on his royal throne in his royal old fucking country. His parents abandoned him because he was a skinny weed with magical affinity.
There were three divisions in Plegia - the assassins; those who picked pockets, broke into houses and murdered you without leaving a trace, the barbarians; who were most suited to work for the King, leaving bloodshed and chaos in the wake of their axes, and the lesser populous but still quite useful sorcerers. The sorcerers and dark mages were very rarely looked upon favourably. Magic was a dangerous and confusing entity and most people feared what they could not understand. The Grimleal were almost entirely sorcerers and mages and they were widely feared and abhorred, and it shone such a dark and eerie light on anyone with magical affinity.
The notion of abandoning your child because you don’t want to be associated with a death cult who worship an evil dragon God overlord is still, in Henry’s eyes, a little out of line. As soon as he cast his first mini spell - a very weak Nosferatu at age 5 - his barbaric parents sent him off to what they called the “Magic School”, but it was just an incarceration centre for magic kids, with a devout Grimleal headmaster raising up a little army of would-be devotees to the religion.
Henry was almost immune to the call of Grima, it seemed. Throughout every lesson, and every beating, and every fucking punishment, the other kids caved and begged for forgiveness, begged to be offered to the Fell Dragon. But not Henry. He endured every whack, every spell, he basically absorbed it. Wanted to use it, to fuel his sick need for vengeance.
He was sure his parents were long dead by now, under Gangrel’s distopic rule not many had a chance. But if they weren’t, he would’ve killed them himself.
He was just broaching his twenties when the first whispers of war against Ylisse began to truly break. Things began to change; people were called on to fight - bandit raids on Ylissean villages - despite not being enlisted. Poverty stricken villages with no pennies to their name were raided for suitable men to stand on the frontlines. It was sad, Henry thought. These people couldn’t fight. These people were given no weapons, some were raiding Ylissean border towns armed with kitchen cleavers.
With a burning curiosity he decided to join the army, anyway. He didn’t have a lot to lose. And nobody stood to lose him, unless you counted his various animal friends.
It didn’t take much to convince Gangrel, despite not being Grimleal nor magical himself, he seemed to instantly trust that Henry would fight for him. The man was a nutter. Though Henry supposed he didn’t have many options.
That’s when he met Mustafa.
~
Mustafa was broad, and tall, towering above most of his soldiers. He was a leading General in the Plegian army, commanding a fleet of hundreds. Many respected him for his tactical prowess, many for his sheer strength and power.
He had served under two Plegian kings, and Gangrel was the third. Each more savage and psychotic than his predecessor. They never lasted very long. In Plegia, you were only useful for as long as you could stay out of the line of an assassination plot. And with the politics system as janky and corrupt as it was in Plegia, there was always someone looking to stick an arrow in your pulse point.
His morals screamed to him almost daily that the war, the fighting, the bloodshed, was all wrong. But he was a General. Not a politician. It was his job to follow orders, not question them.
Mustafa carried a great deal of guilt on his shoulders. His son, Alcinder, had died while fighting for the last fallen King - and rather than raise hell as he had wanted, Mustafa simply buried his son and grieved in silence. He may have been built of pure fire, pure muscle, but inside he was weak. He was afraid. He had a wife, he had a daughter, who’s to say that attempting to avenge his son would not end in their deaths? Plegia was a rotten place. He had no doubt that the King would send a fleet to his door, holding knives with his family’s names on them.
Not a day went by that he didn’t pray for his son’s peace. He had never been a religious man, the Grimleal being the only living religion left in Plegia and he thought the entire notion of it was absolute fucking crock pot. Who worshipped a dead dragon who’s only goal was to end mankind? Mustafa wasn’t a judgemental man but the entire premise seemed bonkers. So he prayed directly to Alcinder, beginning forgiveness, wishing him peace and well rest.
Mustafa’s wife, Marun, was a gentle lady. She mourned her son, this much was obvious - but without a hateful bone in her body she found it difficult to comprehend Mustafa’s guilt. The King is the reason for his death... not you. She would whisper it over, and over, praying one day that her husband would believe her. Their daughter, Tira, was too young to understand the war at the tender age of eight, but she felt the pain of losing her dear big brother. She wanted to become a strong general just like her Father and fight for “the right reasons”. It never failed to make Mustafa smile, that with all the hate and evil in his world, his dear wife and daughter could lift his spirits no matter what.
He doubted that he would ever forgive himself for allowing Alcinder to die in vain. He doubted that in whatever time he had left on Earth that he would ever truly feel at peace again. Fatherhood was the one thing that brought him joy, that left him rooted to the Earth.
He missed his son. How he wished that once he passed on, he was able to join him in spirit.
~
Mustafa stood, silent and completive, on the dying market’s edge one morning - his mind awry with thoughts. The stalls were almost empty, barely a ware to be had, but the people were out in flock - anything to make their world seem normal. Everyone had heard the whispers by now.
Mustafa’s presence in the city had been Gangrel’s idea. The General is watching over you. Nobody try to run.
He was being used as a threat. Even stood there, tall and imposing, he felt weak. He felt useless. A pawn in Gangrel’s plan.
“Hey, mister General!”
Shocked from his thoughts; Mustafa looked down, he stood at a towering 6”5, to see a petite young man with snowy white hair, snowy white skin and a charmingly endearing grin etched onto his face. “Good day, boy.” he said deeply, taking in the boy’s robes. They were fondly familiar.
“Boy!” the boy chuckled airily, “I’m older than I look, you know!”
“I shall take your word for it.” Mustafa replied. He raised an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”
“Not really.” the boy shrugged, his voice was high in pitch, light and delicate. It was charming to listen to. “Just saying hello.”
Mustafa smiled warmly. He wasn’t one for small talk, but it was pleasant to see somebody smiling for once - not many bright faces in Plegia anymore.
“I’m joining your fleet!”
Mustafa crossed his thick arms and tipped his head. “Is that right?” The boy made a sound of affirmation. “King Gangrel usually equips me with fighters and soldiers. You’re saying he shall offer me a mage? I take by your Grimleal robes that you’re of magical affinity.”
The boy wagged a finger. “Well firstly, I am a mage.” he said. “A pretty good one!”
Mustafa suppressed a chuckle. The kid had attitude, he’d give him that much.
“But I’m not Grimleal.” he gestured to the markings on his cloak - the eye pattern that Grima’s followers wore to honour his name. “This is just the only cloak I have.”
Mustafa let out a hearty laugh. “Ah, because it’s so cold here in Plegia!” he said sarcastically. “How ever would you cope without your cape?”
The boy grinned widely. “You got a point!” He didn’t remove the cloak, however, but he did seem to be surveying Mustafa with interest - as if waiting for him to say something else.
Mustafa had nerves of steel, and so he didn’t. He stared hard back at the boy, fascinated by his raw enthusiasm.
“Not one for small talk, are ya, General?”
Mustafa shrugged noncommittally, and then looked away from the boy’s dark gaze. His eyes were almost red in colour, a swirling amber colour with flecks of fire dancing in his irises. It felt as though he was staring directly into his soul. “I’m a man of few words, boy.”
“The name’s Henry.”
“Henry, is it?” Mustafa looked back. “Doesn’t sound very Plegian.”
Henry shrugged. “I didn’t choose it.”
“Of course. Perhaps you could ask your parents?”
“They’re dead. Maybe. Hopefully!”
Mustafa was startled by the cheery boy’s optimism and didn’t know how to respond.
“Don’t worry!” Henry quipped. “They deserve it. I promise.”
“I shall take your word for it, boy.”
“Henry!”
“Then, I shall take your word for it, Henry.”
Henry grinned and chuckled airily. “I hope I get to kill lots of people while I’m fighting for you, General.”
“We shouldn’t talk pleasure in killing, Henry. It is but a duty we carry out to protect the people.”
Henry seemed pensive for a split second, but then cracked his cheery smile again. “Nah, I definitely take pleasure in killing people. ‘Specially if they deserve it.”
Mustafa rubbed his brow line. Under his own decision, he wouldn’t allow what was clearly a mentally maladjusted boy fight in his army. However, it wasn’t his decision, it was Gangrel’s. And ultimately, an unbalanced boy with a penchant for murder was a fighter more worth having than a poor village merchant with no combat skills at all.
“Well, gotta be off!” Henry giggled. “The crows will be wonderin’ where I am!”
With a swish of his cloak, he was off, floating easily through the crowd of market goers, that sparkling smile visible even as he reached the opposite end of the stalls.
Usually new recruits cowered under Mustafa’s height, his imposing stoic personality - yet this tiny mage didn’t show even an ounce of fear.
What a strange young thing.
~