Chapter Text
Lueur looks terribly disappointed when it is Sigurd who greets her after breakfast.
“Where is Seliph?” she asks. While not an ungrateful guest, Lueur has been slow to warm up to others and Sigurd knows that his presence is undesired. Perhaps comparing her to Lumera was incorrect. She does seem like Alear in his early days at Lythos, hesitant to do anything with anyone other than the trusted few. She voices her dismissal with more emphasis, much like Rafal. Her demeanor with anyone, whether human or Emblem, is aloof like Nel’s once was. Sigurd remembers Camilla’s observations.
“He requested that I accompany you today. I believe he wishes for us to be better acquainted.” Perhaps a slight stretch of the truth, but Sigurd leans on the plausible deniability of surmising his son’s intentions. Seliph had asked him to follow Lueur today, after all. The mention of Seliph’s wishes smooths away some of the creases of irritation in Lueur’s expression, although it does not banish them entirely. With anyone else, Sigurd would have extended his arm as a friendly, fond gesture. He knows better than to try this with Lueur.
They walk in silence, and Sigurd makes no comment when her steps lead them in the direction of the courtyard. Lueur is clearly testing him, as she looks over her shoulder to see if he is still following.
“Was it really Seliph who asked you to accompany me?”
“He made no request of me to do anything but walk with you.”
The unspoken question is answered with a concealed response. She can tell that he does not want her in the courtyard. Sigurd’s will means nothing to Lueur, though, and she firmly marches herself toward the lilies.
Part of Sigurd knows that the endeavor might do more harm than good, but he wishes to reach out to her. His son cares for his mother, and he ought to do the same. Even Rafal’s sharp exterior could be peeled away eventually with time and patience, so he should not abandon her heart as forever out of reach. Perhaps common ground would help? She must feel so alone.
“Princess Lueur, I did not accept Seliph’s request merely because he is my son. I know that you are hurting. I would not presume anything of you, but I do wish to be of assistance in any way possible,” Sigurd tells her, bowing his head. She ignores the gesture.
“What do you suppose you could do to assist me?”
“Perhaps offer a listening ear, or simply sit with you so that you are not alone.”
“My children are more than sufficient for that,” retorts Lueur with more bite than she seems to have intended. Her demeanor is more defensive now, exactly as Sigurd had suspected. He steels himself for the possible response to his next words.
“If I may be so bold to say, I believe that their presence is another source of your pain.”
She turns sharply to regard him. Her expression barely conceals her affront, still attempting to cut the figure of a disciplined general.
“How very interesting of an observation you have made, Holy Knight,” she hisses. “Is there anything else you have decided upon as you inspect me?”
The lilies seem to wilt under her gaze, as though frightened that they will be swept away by her anger. Sigurd does not falter, but instead pushes onward.
“I do not speak of this as an accusation, or a judgement of your character. I understand how you feel when those you love are a reminder of what you have lost.”
“You have Seliph now. You have been reunited with a child you believed lost to you forever.” Lueur takes a step closer to Sigurd, and he holds back the urge to recoil. “Your world is safe from threat. How could you possibly understand anything I feel?” Another step, with more intent. Lueur’s fangs flash in the sunlight. “Your existence is as close to idyllic as possible, and yet you expect me to believe that you suffer in the presence of your family?”
Her eyes are narrowed in anger, frustration, grief, jealousy . Sigurd cannot hold fault in her for any of those emotions. For all that Lueur claims indifference toward Sigurd, he is a new focus of Seliph’s attention and love. Not only has he gained what she has lost, he receives it from the child still with her. There is no way for her to know how Sigurd feels. He holds his own temper down, smothering it until its embers fizzle away. Responding in kind will help nobody here.
Sigurd remains silent as he searches for the right words. Finally, he asks, “Lady Lueur, has Seliph spoken to you of my death?”
Lueur’s anger gives way to confusion at the sudden change of Sigurd’s tone and the conversational direction. It takes her a moment to respond.
“You were executed,” she answers.
“Indeed. Seliph hesitates to speak ill of me, but the truth is that it was my actions that led to not only my demise, but of many others as well. People dear to me, who relied on me, died because of the decisions I made. It is the greatest regret of my life.”
“Attempting to portray yourself as worse than me is not the consoling gesture you believe it to be.”
“That was not my point. What I mean to say is that I carry the guilt of those deaths even now. When I see Seliph and Leif, I am reminded of what they lost because of me. They have implored me not to dwell on my mistakes, but there is no forgetting what I have caused.”
Sigurd places his hand over his mouth and exhales slowly. Something squirms in the pit of his body. Words that he could hardly say to his fellow Emblems seem to protest their leaving his lips, becoming a bitter concoction that turns his nonexistent stomach. He presses onward nonetheless.
“I know that you see your dragon children in your Emblems’ eyes. They are a source of grief for no reason other than their very existence, and you carry this sadness within you like a knife held to your own throat. We should not forget our failures, but to exist under their shadow robs us of the chance to become something better. Perhaps I have no right to say this while I struggle with my own, but I believe it to be true.”
Red eyes tear themselves away from blue for the first time. Lueur, always so willing to stare anything down without fear, turns her head from Sigurd. She seems unable to tolerate his presence so close by, taking a few steps to distance herself and face away from him entirely. Her arms wrap around herself.
“My Emblems are not the children I lost.” Lueur’s voice is so soft that Sigurd nearly does not notice her speaking. “My children, my dragon children, are gone forever. And yet, I can still see them so clearly. The way Alm smiles, the way Seliph’s eyes widen when he is caught off-guard, how Lyon holds his hand out to me, when Takumi focuses to aim his bow, all of it is— they are not my children. I know they are not my children. The Emblems were formed from my prayers, and yet I see my children in them every time I look upon them, as though they never left, as though they never died—”
She inhales sharply and sobs. That is the last sound Sigurd hears from Lueur. She makes a brisk exit from the courtyard, moving so quickly that he hardly has enough time to give chase.
Seliph peeks over the top of his book and glances to his left. His father walks past with Alear accompanying him, both carrying practice lances and speaking with animated fervor. Seliph’s eyes dart to the right, and he sees his mother watch the retreating forms with a deep frown on her face. Something happened on the day that he asked his father to accompany Lueur, and Seliph cannot say whether the change is for the better or worse. Neither speak to one another, but the energy in the air between them seems different. Lueur does not look upon Seliph’s father with annoyance or irritation (try as she might to mask her emotions, Seliph knows his mother well enough to see), nor does his father carry himself around her as though handling fragile glass. This is not the change Seliph wished for, but perhaps placing them together without others to act as a buffer had been a poor idea. At least there is something akin to progress.
There are other matters of concern as well. There is a mother who sees her failures and a father who sees his sins when they look upon Seliph. What is he to do to help them? They are trying, he knows. Neither wishes to place the dead where Seliph walks, but his very existence is a reminder. He is possessed by ghosts he has no knowledge of, placed there by parents who are so haunted by their own shortcomings. There is nothing he can do to change that, but are Sigurd of Chalphy and Fell Princess Lueur to be punished by the sight of their son forever?
Seliph sighs and closes his book, unable to further maintain this façade of reading.