Chapter Text
Violet lay still and her milk white skin wan with illness. Her arms useless at her side, bandages only just hiding the cruel metal from his view. Not that it mattered when he knew the flesh and blood arms were gone because of him.
She had been a queer child when he had first taken her into his arms. Blue eyes that seemed so dead of emotion that she truly fit the part of an empty doll. A small, beautiful perfect doll that had been turned out into the battlefield because of him. Gilbert had used her as a tool for his own advancement.
As the years passed, he could no longer justify his cruelty to a child that had been maltreated throughout her life. For all that Violet, named for a divine deity by him, was a young woman in years and appearance, her mentality was akin to a child in many ways. His loathsome self still loved her as a man loved a woman.
They called her the Warrior Maiden of Leidenschaftlich throughout the war. A killer, a weapon and one in the form of an avenging angel come to reap the souls of sinners. On her hands was the blood of many. Gilbert gulped as he looked at the unconscious Violet, knowing that if there were any innocent party in the brutality of the world – it was her.
Used and abused before adolescence had truly begun.
"There is a garden, vast and gay, where the flowers bloom all year. Winter comes and winter goes leaving the glorious bounty of the divine untouched. Tis a garden blessed and…" He read to her a tale of something beautiful.
She stirred. And his heart skipped a beat as he placed down the novel awkwardly with his prosthetic hand. Hope stirring in his chest at the thought of seeing her blue eyes. He wanted to gather her into his arms and to give his vow of never letting her go. Except he could not do so without further damning her to a life of death and fighting. He was from many generations of army officers, the only exception being his older brother, who had gone against tradition to join the Naval service.
He could not help but to compare her to the goddess she had been named for. Fallen to wander amongst mere mortals with no memories of a time before being found amidst death. Only to be cruelly used as an instrument of more death as easily as men wielded a rifle.
“I’m so sorry,” Gilbert murmurs guilty of not merely the physical injuries to her body but the deep scars to her mind and soul. And for daring, the vile devil he was, to profess from deep within his hear a love that shook him to the core. “Violet…”
Her name was a prayer upon his lips.
Violet. Violet Vio-let. Violet. A chant to what gods existed for her safety; her wellbeing, her happiness, and most selfishly for her love.
“Colonel, it really is not appropriate for you to remain here after hours,” the infirmary matron stood at the dorway, chiding him without a care to his new rank of Colonel. “Miss Violet requires time to heal in solitude.”
You’re wrong… Gilbert had to bite back the vicious retort, knowing that the matron had doted on the blonde girl. Had he not witnessed her carefully teasing her blonde hair free from clumps and matts. Singing softly beneath her breath as she gave such tender care.
“Violet does not like being alone. “It was a timid response he gave that lacked the fire of what he’d wanted to fire back in protest of being dismissed. “If…when she awakens, I must be with her. I am all she has. “and she was his everything.
How shameful he acknowledged his improper feelings were, did not stem the wild tides of them. He loved Violet who held no name but the one he had given her with everything he possessed. What troubled him the most was the reality that he could not act upon such things. Not when Violet was a mere eighteen to his twenty-eight. Never when all she knew was him, war and violence.
Violet deserved something better. Which was why he had already penned the ardent letter to his distant cousins, the Evergardens, for want of a normal situation that a young woman like Violet deserved.
It was heavy handed of him to profess his desire for her to fly free, only to take these heavy decisions into his own hands. Gilbert could only pray that one day it would show fruit for her benefit. He did not dare hope that a day would come when he would lack shame if he pressed his suit.
It would be okay, Gilbert thought serenely, if such a day would not come. Providing that he did not lose her presence in his life even if her heart was led to another. Her happiness and freedom would eclipse whatever desires he himself held selfishly within his heart and soul regarding her.
He turned to the one entrusted with Violet’s care. “Forgive me, Madam, I leave her in your worthy hands.”
It is to manners bred and trained into him he falls back upon. As much as his chest hurts at the thought of leaving the bedside, the other woman has the right of it, it isn’t appropriate. Violet is to be an Evergarden, a young lady of gentry that deserves every respect owed to her and more.
She will not be his Violet any longer, for in the time ahead she will surely become her own Violet.
A selfish man like Gilbert can only pray for that Violet to hold him kindly. No matter how undeserving he might be of such regard.