Chapter Text
The fire seemed to be taunting him, and Gilbert hated it.
It danced across the walls, from far below to the corners of a barely-visible ceiling. The flames were beautiful, horrid ballerinas that turned into clawed hands before his eyes. They threw shadows across the far corners, sharp and jagged like the rocks the cavern was carved out of. The diamond cuts that covered every single centimetre of surface were long and pointed towards him. Maybe the cavern was actually carved into a vein of diamond, but it was impossible to tell now. Everything was soot and dust and dried blood.
The fire came from the pit before him. He'd been forced to the floor, his nails digging into the crumbling rock at the edge. His skin would become hot and cold in waves, his face glistened with sweat and he thought he would be sick. His knees stung, and, as he looked over the edge, a string of blood and saliva dropped into the mess of flames and stone spikes packed into the floor. Certain death. It was an efficient, but messy, killing machine. If Gilbert had to choose a way to die, the pit would be bottom of his list. And if he had to pick the pit, he hoped he would fall in a way that would kill him instantly, instead of leaving him skewered and burning. His neck and shoulders stung at the thought.
Not that he was the one facing this death, and that was the worst part.
“Thirty seconds.”
Gilbert choked back a sob and looked up at the twin cages dangling before him. A pair of terrified faces stared back, with puffy eyes and drying tracks of tears streaking down their cheeks. They were well past tears now, only room for numb terror. This wasn't real. It couldn't be! Everything had happened so quickly, and Gilbert wanted this to be a bad dream. He would give anything to wake up, safe in his bed. But the blood in his eye from a split forehead and the sting of his scraped palms told him it was really happening.
How could he choose?
His little brother hiccupped quietly, rubbing his runny nose with the back of his hand. Gilbert could see the bruises covering his legs, and face; the police were never the kind to be gentle. Ludwig had always been a strong, serious boy, and Gilbert barely recognised the broken, terrified mess he'd become. He barely understood what was going on, and didn't know why they were being kept here. It was because Gilbert was a reckless idiot, but the boy couldn't know that.
Céline simply sat at the bottom of her cage, having accepted her fate. She could see the spikes and charred bones through the bars across the bottom floor, and knew they would be the closest she got to a proper grave. He would choose Ludwig, of course. His brother was the most important person in the world. She was probably willing to die for the child herself, but he could not do that to her either.
Gilbert turned to the man behind him.
Emperor Roderich III, leader of the Eurasian empire, autocrat, and a brutal one at that, stared boredly back at him.
"You really are taking your time. Weighing up your options, or just panicking?" He waved a hand. "Actually, don't tell me. I don't care."
“Please,” he begged, “there’s gotta be some other way. Take me instead.”
Roderich’s allowed a smirk to twist his smooth, fine face as he thought. Or acted like he was thinking. This all seemed so routine to him, like he knew every plead, bargain and defeat by heart, like the monotony of playing with people's lives was so tedious to him. The man was sitting on a heavy, wooden throne, dwarfed by his regal maroon robes in a way that would be comical, if Gilbert was in a jokey mood. He looked like sickly, rich boy playing at emperor.
As it was, Gilbert just lay on the floor, handcuffed and beaten and cold for the first time in his life. Eurasia didn’t get cold, but down here there was no room for light, and even the fire was too far away to heat up the frozen rock. Gilbert's shoulder ached. He was just glad his body had settled on a temperature.
The Emperor’s eyes flashed through his delicate glasses with nothing but pure evil. As far as Gilbert could see, there was no goodness left inside of him. Everyone said it. Maybe he had been human when he was born, but his bloodline was poison and Roderich was the result of his own fate. A monster raised to retain control, to not be the weak link in his family’s chain.
To his right stood General Zwingli in his decorated military uniform, holding a gun aimed for Gilbert’s head, in case he tried anything. His eyes gave away no emotion, as usual. Zwingli never missed, and Gilbert didn’t want to do or say anything that might make him turn his gun on Céline or Ludwig.
"Well, there is a third option," Roderich, tapped his chin with a finger in pretend thought, smiling, "I probably should have mentioned it, before you had to decide who should live. How silly of me. Must've completely slipped my mind."
“Will they live?” asked Gilbert, afflicted with hope. "Both of them?"
“Of course."
“You promise?"
Roderich studied him. “You are in no position to demand such a thing, but, be that as it may, I promise. I swear on my life, and theirs, that they will be free to go. No harm will come to them." No more harm, anyway.
"Then what must I do?"
Another wicked smile. "Oh, I think you already know that."
Gilbert turned back to look at the terrified faces before him, then looked down at the vortex of fire calling him. The two cages, Céline in one, Ludwig in the other, swung lazily above the pit, the chains holding them to the ceiling creaking and groaning.
"Ten seconds." Roderich's hand hovered over a pair of levers, on the wall next to his throne. "Or I'll be forced to drop them both."
"Don't do it, Gil!" cried Céline.
"No! Wait, choose me instead!" Ludwig looked close to tears, "I don't mind! I can face it, just please don't leave me!"
Ignoring their pleas and protests, Gilbert turned back to Roderich.
"I choose the third option," he whispered.
“Good boy.”