A/N:- Fluff. My poor attempt at.

Yzak Jule has fought great battles, watched nations rise from the ashes of their own destruction, flown twisting dust and gun smoke trails through the stars with the fierce glint of destiny in his eye. He has seen the tears of fallen heroes and watched as empires burn. In his day, the heir of house Jule has seen Fate, looked her in the eye and laughed in her beautiful dead face.

He was there when the great gun of Genesis fired in blinding light and breath-taking power; a stunning display of destructive beauty that blazed across the cosmos and played havoc with all their hopes. He was there when Junius 7 fell in burning shards to the Earth, its dreadful intent shattered into a thousand smaller hatreds. He stood against the inferno of wrath that its fall ignited, and held fast to his place in Creation as all around him others wavered and fell away.

He was there at the turning of the tide, in desperation, horror and fear as the master finally revealed his hand and all the pawns were swept away to reveal the king with his dread and doomed queen. Then and there Yzak took up his sword again, his true spirit, and set his shoulder alongside the myriad other heroes his age had turned out.

In the years that followed, he set himself beside another queen and her king as their fierce, guardian knight. He has walked the halls of power with strength and determination and a burning vision for the future. A cause and a hope and a firm, unshakable belief that this time, finally, he's on the right side.

He was there when it all went wrong again, nations and heroes and philosophers all falling upon one another again like mad dogs. He held strong through the storm and remained true to his new queen even though it nearly cost him his life and the final count of the blood that he spilled in her name will never quite stop ringing in his ears.

Yzak Jule has seen many things, some dread and some glorious and some terrible. Borne along on the tide of his own indomitable will, he has striven and overcome them all.

These days he sits and sorts through data-pads of names and faces, pleas and offers and reports. Souls and strengths set down in clean black lettering, flesh and blood categorised into numbers and ratios, the deciding vote cast without ever touching another human hand. He's a different sort of hero now. This hero sits and overlooks the field of battle and sends out other heroes in his place armed with words as their guns and riding the influence of his name as once they would have ridden their suits of steel and tech.

This hero is older and wiser and feels the cold even in the gentle equanimity of the Plants.

He sits now, another scrolling pad in his hand and looks down at a set of figures. It's an old spreadsheet, its age showing in the design of the logo in the corner and it makes him smile in bittersweet memory. The report is headed at the top with a name so familiar that he doesn't even need to read it to know it. The eyes that look back at him from the small ID photo in the corner are full of fierce pride and rebellious good-natured cheer. He smiles at the photo, returning the cocky grin with a genuine smile of wry amusement.

Over the long years that grin has in turn infuriated, cheered, exhilarated and reproached him. He's felt guilt at seeing it, and confusion and pain and love and breathtaking furious desire, sometimes all at once.

Whenever he looks back over the years at all his achievements and his falls and his glories, standing somewhere in the background, or at his shoulder or yelling furiously in his face in the privacy of their own quarters, there is this person. Every triumph is strengthened by the presence at his back, every humiliating defeat made bearable by the silent guard who turns away all onlookers before they can reach him. Every fear is soothed by the unbound laughter of one who seems to know no cares other than the likelihood of their next meal being on time. This man with his pride and his bad jokes and his clever, knowing hands that coax release from one who is as tightly wound as a coiled spring.

It's in all the quiet, half-seen things that slide into nothingness when held against the scintillating glories of war and power and treaties and armies. It's in the soft laughter and the shared joke and the stolen kiss before the others return. All the things that make life bearable and dull the pain.

His eyes scan the report, the stats and the figures for the one applying to be a bodyguard in a time that seems like a century ago, and catch on one particular figure. In the streaming sunlight that fills his Earth offices, Yzak Jule frowns down at a datapad and checks and rechecks a suspicion against the calendar display on the wall.

When the door opens and soft footsteps fall across the expensive carpets and a hand places a cup of fine tea beside him, Yzak looks up into the other man's familiar eyes and smiles a deep and enigmatic smile.

"Happy birthday, Dearka," he says softly, slowly. And as he watches those gorgeous violet eyes widen in surprise and then roll in laughing embarrassment, he considers to himself that at the end of it all, it's all the small things that go to make up the greater magnificent whole.