Title: Fire and Chronos

Author: pikachucranstongirl

Story Category: Baten Kaitos

Rating: Teen

Disclaimer: I don't own the Baten Kaitos universe. Title comes from Barry Manilow's Can't Smile Without You…I don't own that either.

Main Character: Lyude

Pairing: Lyude/OC, Lyuvann/Almarde (mentioned), Kalas/Xelha, Gibari/Savyna…

Generation: Eternal Wings and The Lost Ocean

Summary: As a reward for Lyude's help for restoring the ocean to the world, the Great Whale decides to physically bring his soul mate to the Baten Kaitos world...


Chapter 5


Lyude looked at Myst. She was smiling, but it was more of a pained smile. He laid a hand on hers and she beamed at him. Perhaps taking the office of Emperor would be a bad idea. "Would you prefer that I not take the office?" Lyude whispered while they were being interviewed by the press. Her blue eyes met his garnet ones.

"Lyude…I…" she stuttered as she looked down at the floor. "You'd do that for me?" He nodded. Lyude would do anything for her, the woman that he loved.

"Yes." He answered quietly. She shook her head.

"No, take the office, Lyude. It's important to you." Then she left. Lyude blinked, surprised that she'd even left before the meeting was over and also frustrated that she wasn't telling him what was wrong with her.

'Can't she see that she's the most important thing in my life?' He thought. She was even more important to him than some stupid emperorship position. He had pushed himself past several press members to find her standing on the balcony. Due to the cold brought on by the ocean, Myst had crossed her arms across her chest.

"I'm not sure that I can make you and Alfard a good empress, Lyude. Back where I'm from, the ton considers my father beneath them even though he's the Duke of Wyndmoor and they have censured me in the past for doing anything out of the ordinarily considered acceptable for a debutante to do. Even though nothing happened between us when we were in bed together after one of my episodes," She snorted, gathering her thoughts together before adding, "I would be considered by the ton to be a scarlet woman, one who was too free with her favors before she married."

"That's why you'll make a perfect Empress, Myst. You're different from those stuck-up Mintakian women that I would have been expected to marry one of if you didn't come back." Lyude blurted out as he grabbed her hands. "I have faith in you. You're a breath of fresh air…and if Alfard isn't ready for an Empress like you, well, they'll have to be because I am." She gasped at his declaration.

"How is it that you fell in love with me when I was supposed to be Kalas's Guardian Spirit?" Myst asked.

"I…I'm not sure how it happened but I fell in love with you when I heard Kalas arguing with you about me." He had happened on Kalas without knowing the details about the Guardian spirit that dwelled within Kalas."You were pretty angry at him, if I recall."

"Kalas was being incredibly stubborn." She agreed, looking off into the distance.

"Thinking about your family?" He knew that it was unfair that both he and the Great Whale had consigned her to living here if she missed her family. She looked at him and smiled brightly.

"My family's right here, Lyude." she replied, shaking her head. It was then one of their conversations when she was Kalas's Guardian spirit popped into his head. She had explained that once a man and a woman were married, the woman left their birth family behind to live her married life with her husband and the man did the same.

"I just thought that it was unfair that I'd separated you from your family. Your father and your brother." She looked at him, confused. Lyude wanted her to be happy with him, not resenting him for taking her away from all she'd ever known and thrusting an impossible position upon her.

"The only family I have back there is my father." She explained."And home for me is wherever you are, Lyude. Do you really think that I have what it takes to be an Empress?" Lyude nodded. He truly believed that of her, even though he knew the Mintakians would be slow to accept her.

"Yes, I do." he reaffirmed his answer.


They moved back to Mintaka so that when or if Lyude got elected emperor, he could move into the imperial manor. Lyude insisted that Myst move in with him so he didn't have to sneak around and have the imperial critics assume he was cheating on his wife. "I'm sorry, Lyude," she told him stubbornly. "But I refuse to even step one foot into the Imperial Manor. Emperor Geldoblame isn't the only reason. Have you forgotten that I grew up with my father's stories of Emperor Olgan's assassination and how Sagi was blamed for it?"

Lyude looked at the carpet and fidgeted as he thought. "...can I at least hope that you'll change your mind, Myst?" he asked, sounding like a kicked puppy.

"You can...but don't expect me to change my mind." She told him. Lyude nodded before sighing. He just pulled her close and hugged her.


Lyude opened the door of his old residence, where his wife lived. Since the election, Myst lived in the house that he'd lived in since he was a few months old. He hoped that Myst would be awake. Lyude opened the master bedroom door and found her reading a scroll. "Hey..."

"Lyude!" She exclaimed, got up and ran straight into her husband's arms. Lyude kissed her hair and tightly hugged her. Between his duties as the emperor directing the reconstruction effort and fending off the critics for assuming that he had a mysterious mistress, he'd been forced to visit her less. He wanted his wife, but not like this.

"I miss you, Myst." he murmured. "If you would just change your mind, we wouldn't have to do this." He tried again to convince her. She looked up at him to have Lyude give her an exaggerated puppy look as she moved out of his embrace. "Just think about it, Myst...you'd have access to me whenever your heart desired, I wouldn't have to sneak out of the manor to see you and the critics would get satisfaction from knowing that their empress has finally taken the Emperor to task for keeping a mistress behind her back. Please?"

"Lyude..." Myst groaned. While she had wished that Lyude be able to visit her more often, she resented the critics for casting doubt on her marriage. "I meant what I said a month ago. I -" She closed her eyes, thinking of the advantages closely. She'd get more time with her husband and they could work on starting a family together. "I can't believe I'm agreeing to this," she muttered. "But yes, I will move into the Imperial Manor."

"Good...then I'll sneak you in tonight. The majority of your things are already in the Empress' suite." She looked at him, wondering why he'd had her things put into the chamber next to his if he didn't know that she was going to move in with him.

"Why are my things..." Myst started.

"You said that I could hope for the fact that you would move in. You didn't say that I couldn't move your stuff while I was hoping." Lyude remarked, with a sly smile. Her jaw dropped as she sat down on their bed. Never in a million years did she imagine that her husband could be that sneaky!

"You...!" She was so angry that she couldn't even bring herself to swear at her husband. "You lied..."

"I did not lie to you." Lyude interjected. "When you married me, you promised to love, honor and obey me til death do us part." She sighed, looking at Lyude as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I may have deceived you, Myst...but I haven't lied to you. I'd do anything to keep you." Heaven help her because she believed him.

"Lyude...I'm sorry." she apologized, her eyes on his feet.

"You have nothing to be sorry about." he murmured. Myst looked into his eyes and saw the truth reflected there. "I did hide the fact that I did take most of your things and put them in your room at the palace. For that, I am sorry." He felt her melt into his arms as he kissed her.

"I was being stupid, Lyude. I should've known that you would never let me feel uncomfortable no matter where we lived." she shook her head at him and then looked up at him again.

"Are you still coming with me?" Lyude asked.

"Yes." She placed her head on his shoulder. "Besides, I have a feeling that the Empress will want a word or two with you when you return to the Imperial Manor." she whispered in his ear. "When do you think that Fadroh will send Folon and Ayme when he finally realizes that you're no longer in residence?" Since Lyude had been elected Emperor, he'd had to elect a new general due to Giacomo's demise. He'd elected two. Ayme was in charge of the Air Force part of the Army and Folon was in charge of the Marine part.

"Dawn." Lyude answers as he lets her go.

"Then we better get going. Folon has no idea that you're married. If you introduce me as your wife and the Empress, he's going to faint." Lyude laughed, long and hard, at the situation. He could see that Folon would definitely be surprised. Ayme wouldn't, however...since Kalas had let it slip that Lyude had managed to get married before he assumed the emperorship.

"Do you need to get anything else before we go?" Lyude asked.

"Mm...no. As you have said, most of my things are already there." Myst replies as she sits on the bed. "We have to get you back to the manor soon. And after you get there, the empress intends to take you to task for this." She gave him a sweet, shy smile. "Why don't we practice?"

"Hmm…okay." He answered.

"Care to explain what this scroll is about?" She asked, taking one of the blank scrolls that his family had used to inscribe messages.

"What scroll?" Lyude squeaked.

"This one. It says 'Meet me at midnight', milord." She shot him a mock glare. "Perhaps it was written by one of your courtesans."

"And what if it is, Myst?" he shot back.

"Then why in the hell is it okay for you to embarrass me with your courtesan when it clearly is not okay for me to cuckold you?" Lyude had questions about the words she used. Courtesan and cuckold…what did she mean by them?

"If you are having an affair, my lady," Lyude ground out softly. "I would hope that it would be discreet enough to where it didn't reach my ears." Myst shivered at Lyude's cold answer.

"Then is it really too much to ask you to be the same, my lord emperor?" Suddenly the roleplay ceased being important to Lyude. All he wanted to do was hold and kiss her until they both forgot their own roles, but that would have to wait until they were back at the imperial manor.

"What does courtesan and cuckold mean?" Lyude asked.

"Courtesan means a high - class prostitute and to cuckold means cheating on one's husband." Myst explained. "Sorry for using words you didn't understand."

"Doesn't matter." Lyude replied as they left his family home. Silence fell between the couple as they walked to the mansion and then used the servant emergency passageway. They slipped into Lyude's suite of rooms and quickly shut the door.

"Do you think the Empress will be too hard on you?" Myst asked.

"I don't know, you tell me." Lyude teased as he looked lovingly at her. "Seeing as you are my wife."

"Hmm…I'm sure that she'd forgive you if you promised never to do it again and that you were really sorry." He laughed and kissed her.


A/N: Read and review!