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It’s a disturbingly easy decision to make. As easy as releasing an arrow from a bow, or as easy as carding a hand through down feathers. It’s funny, she thinks, that treason is so easy a choice. It’s funny in a way that breaks her heart all over again, and in a way that makes her laugh. It doesn’t make her cry. (Her tears are for other things.)
She’s sitting alone at a table when the idea comes to her. Pontifex Mansel has welcomed them into his home, welcoming back his niece as well, and bid them to relax for a time. The army breaks down into groups of kin and allegiances, and Vanessa sits alone. It would ache, if her heart wasn’t already shattered and bleeding. To distract herself, she watches the rest of the room. There Princess L’Arachel, the Pontifex, and her knights, and over there Gerik’s troupe, and others elsewhere. Princess Eirika moves between the groups, hands on shoulders and little smiles and words Vanessa can’t hear, and Prince Ephraim laughs at something one of his knights says.
It’s the laughter that makes her think of it. He laughs, and Vanessa is alone , in a room of people grouped by allegiances and family bonds. He laughs , when all of Vanessa is scraped raw and mourning. It lights a fire under her ribs, hate churns through her diaphragm and leaves her gasping. He laughs , and she’s alone . She can hate him for that.
She will hate him for that.
She hopes he’ll die, choking on that laugh. She hopes she can make him die, choking on that laugh .
She pauses, turning that thought over in her head. It’s an ugly, ragged-edge thought, but she has an ugly, ragged-edged grief, and she would burn the palace down to make him stop smiling.
Eirika draws her attention away, moving close enough for Vanessa to hear the swish of her skirt. Smoothly, she sits next to Vanessa, and gently takes one of her hands. They don’t speak and the silence between them is easy, or at least as easy as it can be. Vanessa is grieving and Eirika holds her hand gently and slowly rubs little circles into the back of it.
The fragments of her heart throb, and she curls her body so she can lean into Eirika and rest her head on the princess’ shoulder. Her ponytail tickles her cheek as it hangs low, and Eirika reaches up with her free hand to rest it on the back of Vanessa’s neck. They don’t speak, and Vanessa spends a long moment wrestling her sobs back into forcefully even breaths. They don’t speak, and Eirika only tips her head over, resting her cheek against the top of Vanessa’s head.
Her shoulders are stiff, her whole body held firmly into shapes that won’t shatter to the touch, but Eirika hums something quiet and broken up to try and ease her. It almost works, for a moment Vanessa sags under the weight of her losses, but then she tenses. Eirika turns her head to press her lips against Vanessa’s hair, and Vanessa closes her eyes against it.
Vanessa thinks that she loves her. She does love her, she loves her with all the remaining, ragged shards of her heart.
“You don’t have to be alone,” Eirika says quietly, a whisper against Vanessa’s hair. “Come sit with Franz, with Seth.” You belong with us , is what Vanessa knows she means. Vanessa doesn’t answer, only drops a little more weight into the point where her forehead meets Eirika’s shoulder. Franz and Seth are poor surrogates for Father Moulder, and Sir Gilliam, and Syrene, and Princess Tana, and Prince Innes. She is the last Frelian soldier, and surrounding herself with the paladins of Renais will only rub salt into the ragged edges of her grief.
So she says nothing. Vanessa pulls away, forces herself to loosen up so her movements aren’t so jerky. Eirika receives Vanessa’s wobbliest smile, and returns it with an expression soft with regard. Eirika cups Vanessa’s cheek with one hand, and leans forward to deliver a gentle kiss. “I’m sorry,” Eirika says, breaking the silence again. “I’ll be back, Vanessa.”
She gestures with their joined hands at Seth, then presses kisses to their knuckles. “You don’t need to be alone.” And then she stands up and steps away, and Vanessa’s fingers trail in the air from where their hands had parted company. She feels the loss faintly, but she feels it. Her heart freezes over with every step Eirika takes away from Vanessa’s empty table.
Vanessa thinks again that she loves her.
She can hear Ephraim laugh again, and she thinks that she hates him.
She loves Eirika, but... but .
Vanessa hides herself away in the stables, once dinner is over. She flees, casually joining the flood of soldiers out of the dining hall, and desperately ducks into Titana’s stall. Titania sees her, and lifts her wings up for Vanessa to burrow into her flank. The weight of a wing over her head and the taste of feathers in her mouth (and the sneezing, when the feathers in her mouth migrate to her nose) settles her some, and she finds that she breathes easier in here. Eirika will know where to find her, when her presence is missed, Vanessa just needs...she needs to breathe.
She needs to decide .
Titania echoes her grief. They’re bonded, knight and pegasus, and their hearts are twinned. If she chooses...if she does...Titania will understand exactly why. Titania understands why she feels that she needs to choose at all.
Eirika will mourn with her. Eirika has mourned with her. The loss of Princess Tana, weeks ago, had hit them both hard. Sir Gilliam had died before they ever met up with Prince Ephraim in the first place, before Vanessa had ever lifted Eirika up to kiss her, and Eirika had made it known then that his loss was felt beyond his fellow knights.
Her losses have been shared, with Eirika. Her losses have been shouldered alone, with Ephraim. Prince Innes, Syrene, Father Moulder, all gone in just one - and he laughed . Not at her, not about her losses, but her heart has shattered and he had enough joy left in his life to laugh . He never bothered to even touch her on the shoulder and say ‘good fight.’ She has lived when so many others have died, and he laughs at his table with his knights.
Eirika’s brother, but she hates him. She does, she hates him.
But does she hate him enough to want him dead? To want to make him dead?
All these weeks with Ephraim at Eirika’s request, sent away to aid him as he took them all through Grado, and he never bothered to speak with her in the fairer aftermath of battles. All these months!! She thought she had known him, if only a little. She thought he had known her to some extent, after all this time.
And yet.
Titania shifts her weight, and knocks Vanessa from her thoughts. She drags the heel of her hand against her jaw, and she shakes her head to dislodge the snarl growing on face. It’s his fault. It’s his fault and she wants him to bleed for it. For all of it. For everything she’s lost.
She closes her eyes and sighs, and then opens them again.
Her heart is ice, and the cold sears her throat and makes it hard to speak. Titania doesn’t need the words, but Vanessa would still like to say them. Just between the two of them, Vanessa should be able to say it. For Frelia, for her friends, for her sister, she wants to be able to say it. “I’m going to kill him.” She promises. Titania snorts, and Vanessa buries her face in Titania’s feathers. “He’ll bleed for this.”
For all of it. He’ll bleed for all of it.
Eirika sits with her that night, their legs pressed together and their backs against a wall. Vanessa fidgets with the blanket thrown across both their laps, and tries not to feel guilty. Guilt and grief make her awkward, but Eirika only leans into her harder. “We’re going to leave soon. Not tomorrow, but maybe the day after.” There is so little time, things are growing frantic in the planning rooms.
Fingers laced together, Eirika’s hand is warm in hers. She feels a little like she’s floating away, anchored only by Eirika’s grip. The world is colder, and emptier than it was even at dinner, and love is a gentle flame dwarfed by the glacier making itself at home in her chest. It is a comfort, but one that is drowned to near nonexistence. Vanessa gently tips over until her head rests on Eirika’s. Her eyes burn with tears, and she blinks them back, and back, and back.
They don’t speak, and Vanessa’s ears fill with the noise of a whipping wind.
Morning is worse even than the night. The sun rises, and Vanessa with it, and her sister doesn’t . Her prince doesn’t . Her princess hasn’t in months . Vanessa tips her head up to the brightening sky and lets the rising sun paint warmth across her neck. The rest of her is still cold, the rest of her will never be warm again.
The morning is her own, and she spends it tending to her weapons, to Titania. She nods to the knights she sees but the movements feel stiff, unnatural. She just wants to hold onto her lance and turn to stone, but her heart sends ice through her veins and she finds she cannot rest.
Eirika finds her at mealtimes, and hooks her ankle around Vanessa’s leg from under the table. A point of contact while their hands are busied with food. Vanessa can’t make herself talk, and Eirika doesn’t push it. Vanessa loves her so much, with all the parts of her heart not solidified or molten. She keeps her gaze on the table once the food is put away, and pretends she isn’t avoiding Eirika’s eyes.
This is going to be a betrayal, but she can only make herself be a little sorry.
Her chest is full of holes and hate and she is afraid that there is so little left of the Vanessa that Eirika is in love with. But fear doesn’t catapult her into changing the way it might’ve, before. The force that keeps her standing aches only for blood and justice, and she turns her face away from Eirika’s gaze in the hopes that the yawning pit swallowing her up from the inside won’t be glimpsed. It’s one of those things that puts shakes in her hands, the idea and the knowledge that soon, so horribly soon, she’ll lose Eirika’s love forever.
(To melt the ice that locks her lungs, leaving her permanently short of breath, she thinks she’d do anything. Anything at all to fill that chasm in her center, that threatens her very existence. She knows it will consume her body and soul, a question of when rather than if. If she survives her revenge, her justice, then she will relearn how to be sorry. She will relearn the world, for Eirika, if she survives this.)
Vanessa considers her lance, that evening. She skips dinner to stare at her weapons. Syrene’s sword (inherited), her (Tana’s, Gilliam’s) lances, even Prince Innes’ bow (stolen from his belongings before his things had been sealed away to give to his father or recycled into the supplies wagons) seem like good options. She is no archer, but she doesn’t have to be good , doesn’t even have to be passable to kill a prince. Ephraim just needs to let down his guard for long enough . A mortal man is just as dead if all she does is run him through with a a log with a pointed tip.
They march in the morning.
Every blink of her eyelids feels sandy. Her night had been lonely and long, when sleep visited her it brought nightmares and at some point she had moved to the stables to spend her fitful naps somewhere she felt truly safe. Soon, soon. She can see Ephraim at the head of their procession, and her vision is narrow to the point that her eyes are only for the back of his head.
Soon, soon. The promise is drummed into the underside of her ribs, and she dries her clammy palms on her tunic. She feels like she’s floating away, even though her hands are anchored in Titania’s mane. The world is too bright and too empty even though the sounds of marching are too-loud in her ears. Her hands don’t shake because her fingers are tangled in something stabilizing, and her voice doesn’t tremble because she hasn’t spoken in hours.
She won’t speak for hours more.
The blood of a cyclops stains her lance, and she sways in a nonexistent wind. Ephraim stands on the steps of this ancient, dark temple, and he does not guard his back. Sir Kyle, Sir Forde, they aren’t within reach, and she steps up to him in what feels like slow motion. Every second is felt, every movement urgent and burned individually into memory, she holds her lance with two hands and she thrusts up an out. He gasps, and the ice in her chest burns cold against her tongue.
The lance makes a horrible noise as it is pulled back out the way it entered, Ephraim’s verbal agony a gentle heat that keeps the cold from stealing away the satisfaction she feels. A force at the back of her knees sends her crashing forwards, jarring up through her hips. Fingers drop her lance as her arms are wrenched backwards and up, she headbutts Forde in the face knowing that Kyle is likely the one restraining her.
Her nose is bloody, and she grins like a threat. She is content to watch him gasp out his last breaths, she is content to watch him bleed out on these steps. They all know the look of mortal blows, let them call for healers, Vanessa’s dead will be avenged soon no matter what they try. Blood drips off her chin, she can taste the metal of it, and she spits at Forde. So long as no one blocks her sight of Ephraim gasping, disbelieving and dying, she is content.
She does not apologize.
Someone says, “What is the meaning of this!?”
Someone says, “Oh my god,” a sentence cut off by an inhale of horror or shock or surprise.
Someone says, “Get Princess Eirika!” and Vanessa begins to struggle. She wants this over and done before Eirika gets here. Using her height, her strong legs, she tries to lift Kyle up and off his feet. Make him uncomfortable, make holding her so awkward he needs to reposition his grip, make him let go .
Someone says, “Fuck, shit, hold her-”
She throws Kyle over her shoulder, and she steps on the wound she inflicted and presses down. Ephraim makes sounds that feed the gaping chasm inside, and she smiles viciously, blood painting her teeth. Before she can stomp down again, someone tears her away. Her knees hit the stone of the steps harshly, and she hisses at the impact. She’s forced to lean forward, and her view of Ephraim is blurred by her own bangs. She shakes her head to try and clear her vision, but all it does is tickle.
Someone says, “Princess L’Arachel, Sister Natasha, didn’t anyone send for them?” It’s desperate, it might be Forde. “Where are the healers!” The sound of wind whips through her mind, muting the panic of those around her.
Eirika’s cry cuts through that painfully, and it’s like someone has introduced a knife between her ribs. Her betrayal, Eirika’s pain. Vanessa doesn’t want to hear it, not over the sounds of Ephraim dying . It’s his fault, his fault , and she’s earned this! She’s earned it, she’s earned it, it’s his fault and she’s owed this .
Her fingers are alarmingly framed by the blood painting his shirt, getting painted every second Eirika spends pressing down on the wound like that will send it away. Banish the would, put life back into her brother and stop what life he does have from staining the stones beneath him. Vanessa’s gaze drifts unbidden from Ephraim’s pained expression to Eirika’s devastated one.
She says nothing, and no one asks anything of her. It is not a grace, it is not a boon. Eirika’s pleading eyes tarnish the edges of her righteous fury and vicious satisfaction, and Vanessa’ wishes she would look anywhere else. Why did they have to call Eirika so soon, why couldn’t they have given her more time .
“His fault,” Vanessa spits, the words unasked for and unwanted, spilling unwillingly from reluctant lips. She doesn’t want to explain herself, but Eirika is the only person who deserves the explanation. “His fault, his fault ,” her voice grows louder, but she’s not struggling anymore, “they’re gone and it’s his fault!
“They’re gone and he laughed ,” Vanessa says, and twists her head to smear the blood away from her mouth. “I lost everyone , and he could laugh about it.” It’s not an apology. It’s not an excuse. Eirika deserves to know why, and that’s why she speaks. “He deserves this. I lost everyone , and he was never sorry , and he never cared! And now he’ll die , and I will never be sorry !”
Eirika is crying, and that hurts somewhere, she’s sure. It hurts somewhere deep, the sharpness of it cutting across the numbing cold that’s swallowed her whole. It will hurt more, she knows, when the hate and despair that has driven her to this point melts away. Vanessa isn’t sure who will be left, when all that’s left of her are her losses and the repercussions of her actions, but she’s sure Eirika won’t like that girl. She’s sure that Eirika cannot love the girl who killed her brother.
That she can be sorry for.