Work Text:
niki used to believe the ideals of l'manberg. used to believe in peace and love and a nation that was more like a family. niki used to believe that the l'manberg was home, was good, was right. she used to believe.
she used to bake in her home and give bread to wilbur and laugh with eret and walk through the hills of the country with fundy. she used to ignore the way wilbur yelled at anyone who questioned him used to ignore the way eret never entered the walls used to ignore the way fundy would glare at his father. she used to catch tommy rummaging through her chests used to talk with tubbo about their dreams for new buildings used to put fresh flowers by fungis grave every day. she used to ignore the way tommy jumped at the sound of a creaking bow used to ignore the way tubbo jumped at the loud bang of a stove door. she used to make herself believe.
she doesn't remember the first time she questioned it. she doesn't remember the first time she was angry at the world. she doesn't remember the first time she realized she was alone. she doesn't remember realizing that l'manberg would never believe in her as she believed in it -in him-.
she does remember her first open letter to her old home, her first open letter to the place she once loved. she remembered writing the words you have betrayed me and all your citizens, have betrayed all your ideals and all of my hope for this nation i onced loved is lost. she remembers gathering her supplies, remembers getting called insane by schlatt, remembers getting told not to follow by wilbur.
insanity is something l'manberg is familiar with. madmen have been at the core of the nation since its beginnings - made to escape a madman, made by a madman, handed off to a madman, destroyed by a madman. so when they call her a mad woman she laughs and she calls them hypocrites. she calls them tyrants, she calls them liars, she calls them betrayers.
no one likes mad women, likes the heat of angry cries from a girls lips, likes a woman with an axe and a plan and a reason. they tell her to stop, insist she stops, tell her shes destroying what is just becoming. but they have already destroyed it, already destroyed her. wilbur, with his bombs, eret, with his crown, fundy, with his torch, tommy, with his disks, tubbo, with a suit that looks oh so like schlatts.
they tell her that shes irrational, not thinking straight, they stare at her who marches the grounds of her old home with no armor and only an iron axe by her side and tell her to reconsider. they stare at her from above with their armor and swords glowing in the dimming light, tell her this won't turn out well. but behind their amor they tremble in fear, they eye her weapon with worry. she does not back down.
she used to believe issues could be solved peacefully, that weapons were nothing in comparison to words and maybe there is a part of her that she still believes that, and maybe that is why she wears no armor, weilds no power other than her own. more likely, she knows her anger requires no barriers, requires no help from worldly things - worldly things got them into this mess and she will not stay in it. so she is angry, and her eyes burn with fury, fury at the men who inflicted this pain onto a nation, fury at the boys forced into war too soon, fury at people who can't take peace and be satisfied, who seek power endlessly. there is no end in sight but niki will make an end.
so she stands, in a dress made of the uniform she once wore proudly, an axe outmatched by their swords and crossbows that aim at her heart and she reminds herself what she is fighting for. she is a woman motivated by fury and anger and rage, and she is a woman with nothing to lose.
(l'manberg is reclaimed and rebuilt by a woman who never lost sight of its goals, by a woman who treats everyone with a firm kindness, l'manberg is reclaimed by a woman who is not insane but angry)