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The months pass slowly in Ferox, where the landscape remains a frozen hellhole well into the spring, broken up only by a summer thaw that hardly seems worth the effort.
(Perhaps Gangrel is biased—Plegia is in large part desert, after all—but he can’t help but wonder why they couldn’t have found a more temperate climate to squirrel themselves away to when the war ended.)
The part he hates most of all is tilling the half-frozen ground, just for a few measly vegetables and herbs. Toiling in the dirt like a worm suits someone like him, he supposes, but if not for the generous stipend from House Ylisse they would have surely starved long ago.
He’s hacking away at the frozen ground with a half-rusted hoe when the back door opens.
“Come inside… Gangrel. I made… tea.”
He wipes the sweat from his brow—what better than sweating and freezing at the same time—and turns to Emmeryn standing in the doorway. She certainly still talks like she’s hit her head, but she’s getting better—and stronger—every day. Even he can see that.
“This isn’t exactly going to get done by itself,” he says, though his heart isn’t in it. He hardly wants to be standing around freezing his buttocks off, after all.
“Just… a short break,” she insists. “You’ve been working… so hard. You deserve it.”
“No point in keeping me around if you’re not going to put me to work.” He has no problem tossing the hoe off to the side to be forgotten about, though. Emmeryn laughs at what he hadn’t intended to be a joke and ushers him inside.
The house they share is small but cozy, and roomy enough given that it’s just the two of them, he supposes. A fire crackles in the hearth almost all hours of the day and night—for his whining as much as for Emmeryn’s health. Now, the fire is working to heat the kettle that’s been hung over it for tea.
Emmeryn gestures for him to take a seat, but he hovers nearby while trying to look as casual as possible. She’s gotten better, but her hands still shake sometimes, and the last thing he needs is for her to spill boiling water all over herself…
Thankfully the preparation of tea goes off without a hitch, and soon enough they’re sitting at the table with cups of tea in hand. Gangrel is more interested in warming his hands with it than drinking it, frankly.
“How are you feeling?” He’s well past the point of pretending not to be concerned. Considering he followed her to this gods forsaken place just to keep an eye on her (why that brother of hers let her go off on her own he’ll never understand), it’s not a charade he could have kept up for long. And it’s just the two of them out here, after all.
“Better… I’m getting… stronger,” Emmeryn says proudly. “Thank you… for being so… patient. And staying with me…”
She says this sort of thing often enough that he shouldn’t be surprised by it anymore, and yet it catches him off guard every time anyway. He clears his throat to hide his embarrassment, but it probably doesn’t work, since a blush tends to show quite clearly when you have gray skin.
“Ahem… well. It’s not like I have anywhere else to go. My own kingdom calls me a tyrant, your brother’s would have me strung up before high noon, and if I’m going to squirrel myself away in some godsforsaken land… I might as well keep an eye on you in the meantime.”
Emmeryn smiles at him. She does that quite a lot, though he’ll never understand why. She reaches out for his hand. When she first started doing such things, he would pull away. Now he’s content to let her do as she pleases. Trying to talk sense into her is like trying to talk to a brick wall most days. So he lets her hold his hand and says nothing. He only smiles at the thought of what Chrom would say if he saw the two of them sitting there like that.
(It’s certainly not the warmth of her hand in his, chasing away the chill from being outside all morning, that’s making him smile. Not in the least.)
“And besides, it’s my fault that you’ve ended up like this. Only fair that I stay until you’ve healed.” These are words he’s never said aloud. He hates the pitying gazes he gets from her when he talks about their shared past. It feels like the ghost of the woman she once was haunting him from beyond the grave. (After all, she’s not that same woman any longer. She can hardly string a sentence together, let alone run one country and inspire another to revolution.)
The pain in her eyes is different this time around, and damn it all, it hurts him to see her like that. Now, at least, he can admit that to himself.
“What about…after?” she asks, frowning at him. “When I’m…better?”
“I… suppose I haven’t really thought about it,” he admits. It’s hard for him to imagine such a thing. She was getting better, certainly, but the best healers in Ylisse weren’t convinced she would ever make a full recovery. Most people who took a dive like hers didn’t just get up and walk it off… most of them didn’t get back up at all. The fact that she survived was a miracle. “You won’t really need me around then, will you? Though you don’t really need me around now, I suppose. After all, I’m sitting in here when I should be digging the garden, having you—the infirm one—making tea for me.”
“Gangrel… you don’t…” She either forgets what she wants to say or stumbles over the words, because she makes a frustrated noise instead. Sometimes she still gets like that, he notices—loses her train of thought suddenly, or can’t find the words she’s looking for. “What about… if I don’t…?”
“Hm? If you don’t what, my dear?”
“If I don’t… get better…” Emmeryn finishes, squeezing his hand for support. “I don’t want you… to leave. But I don’t… want you to stay forever… just because you feel guilty…”
Gangrel winces at the raw pain in her voice. Gods, but she could play his heart like a fiddle, couldn’t she?
“Gah. Were you this daft before you hit your head, too?” When in doubt, he always retreats to the same kinds of petty insults. “If I were to leave, where do you think I would go? I have no family or friends, no home to call my own. And if we’re being honest, I’ve… well, I’ve grown accustomed to your company. …fond of you, even.” It almost pains him to admit it. Mostly because he knows how completely psychotic all of this is. He murdered this woman. Perhaps he didn’t shove her off the cliff himself, but being responsible for her jumping to her doom was no better. Worse, perhaps.
It’s even worse that she seems so damn pleased to hear that. The anxiety and pain melts right off her face. They’ve been holding hands the entire time, and he’s only just now realizing how… odd all of this is. He always thinks about how Chrom would dice him to pieces if he knew about their arrangement, but he’s never realized just how crazy this entire situation really is.
He pulls his hand away from hers and she looks at him, puzzled.
“And besides, if you ever do recover those memories of yours, I doubt you’ll want me around any longer,” he says with a sigh. “You can say you forgive me for my past all you want, but it’s not as though you remember what I was like. Or what I did to you.”
“Gangrel… you’re… special to me,” she insists, smiling at him as she always does. “You watch over me… protect me… help me get better… you’re a kind person.”
“And you’re delusional. Just ask your brother; he’ll be happy to tell you how wrong you are.”
“Maybe… it’s better… I don’t remember,” Emmeryn says. “Maybe… the future… is more important.”
He knows she doesn’t really understand what she’s saying. At least, that’s what he tells himself, because the alternative is really so much worse. Or, at least, he knows it should be. The selfish part of him—and that’s a large part, mind—is delighted with the prospect.
Delighted… to think he would ever think of the Ylissean Exalt in such a way. He probably would have had anyone who talked about such things strung up in the old days, with Aversa cheering him on in the background.
“Robin’s gotten into your head, I see. But it’s your brain. If you want it to stay scrambled… well, that’s really your business.”
She reaches out to take his hand again. He lets her. If she’s going to thank him for his patience in hanging about, well… he can be patient for a while longer.
(Forever, perhaps.)