Chapter Text
Corrin has a crush on her older brother.
That’s not something she’d ever come out and say so bluntly, but she knows that it’s true. By now, she’s not so naive that she can mistake her feelings for him for anything but romantic. She’s always known that Xander was particularly special to her, but now she knows her feelings for what they truly are.
It’s strange, but then again, it isn’t, when she thinks about. Of course, she knows that desiring a relationship with her own brother is always strange, but when she considers her options and her situation...Xander is a handsome and strong man, one who has always been reliable and dependable as she grew. Even when he is stern, he is kind to her, and he is everything that she thinks a prince should be.
She’s read story books about the princesses locked away in towers, and Xander suits the role of the prince, of the knight in shining armor, better than any man she knows. Perhaps there is another man out there to rescue her and whisk her away, but she doesn’t know him. She only knows Xander, and so, Xander is the only one that she wants.
It’s as innocent as any crush on her own brother can be, and whenever he’s close to her, she feels her heart skip a beat, and whenever she knows that he’ll come to visit her soon, she’s giddy and excited. She knows that he’s just a little bit more affectionate toward her than he is her other siblings, and she also knows better than to assume that that means anything. He’s likely only doing it because he feels sorry for her, locked away as she is, but she’s happy nonetheless, knowing that she shares something with Xander that the others don’t.
She wants to marry him someday, but she’s too old to hope for something that silly, that impossible. With the way her father keeps her hidden away from the world, she’ll be lucky if she ever marries, but she’s almost glad that she might never be married off. Even if Xander has to take a bride one day, and even if that will hurt her plenty, she wouldn’t have to pretend to love someone she couldn’t care less about.
Corrin has a crush on her older brother, and she knows better, she really does, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling the way she does.
Her whole world is turned upside down when she discovers that she isn’t truly a part of her family. Everything she’s known throughout her life feels false, but through all of that, she can’t stop thinking about the fact that none of her siblings have any blood ties to her. As wrong as she knows it is to focus on something like that, she continually catches herself thinking, None of my brothers and sisters are really my brothers or sisters.
Her feelings for Xander have not faded; if anything, they’ve only grown. She stays with the family that raised her partially because of her love for him, and she wonders if this means anything. He’s always known the truth, which means that he’s never really considered her his little sister. If that’s the case, then maybe, now that she knows…
But that has to be wrong. He’s always treated her so well that she knows he must hold familial love for her, and even if she knows the truth now, she’s loved him since childhood, practically. No matter what, her feelings were wrong when she saw him as a brother, and she shouldn’t stop seeing him as a brother, just because she happens to be adopted, in a manner of speaking.
Xander has always been there for her as an older brother, and he will always be there for her. If she pushes their boundaries too far, she’ll risk losing that. She keeps her feelings to herself, deciding to be content to have him as only her brother. Now and forever, she’ll at least have him close, even if that’s as close as they’ll ever be.