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“Go on, then.” The princess who happened to don what seemed to be a peasant man’s apparel, pouted. It was apparent that even though she wanted an explanation, she did not want it from the particular person who happened to be seated next to her.
“What?” The local bazaar was as crowded as an Azarian one would be right after Wednesday mornings, that was when the temples allowed people in for the sunrise ceremony. The Wednesday mornings, and no time else. The gold statues collected dust at other times, over the thrones of rich men in robes rather than armors.
“What, what? You told me you’d explain, didn’t you?” Previously, she did not dignify the ex-knight with the blessing that is her gaze, she couldn’t help but to glance a little her way, probably out of curiosity. What was the she thinking? What was her expression? She had seen many great expressions on the ex-knight’s face, and yet right now her expression was of a mask. It was impossible to read. Only her eyes, which were fixated forward, only they bore some emotion that bore a slight resemblance to those of regret and sorrow. No tears. She would never cry out of sorrow, only happiness.
She clicked her tongue, “yes, but…” the words fell short out of her mouth. She seemed to be unable to muster any words; neither the ones that were necessary for the peace of the noble nor the ones that came straight from her heart. She’d always been less than direct. That infuriated the princess.
“Let me guess. You can’t.” She replied dryly, crossing her arms.
“The words don’t come to me. I swear I am… trying.” The leather of her armor squeezed, as she reached for her own forehead to rub it.
“Let me explain it for you, then. You betrayed me. You broke my heart, and betrayed me.” She stated, no visible malice in her voice. None that a stranger could detect, that is. It stung the one it was meant to sting.
Ex-knight seemed more wounded than before. “I’ve never meant to do any of those things.” She was honest. She had no idea the princess would be hurt by a thing of such triviality. It wasn’t trivial to her at all then, she guessed.
“But the thing is, you have.” She tilted her head at the former knight. “Do you even know when? Do you know when was the time that you shattered my heart?” The princess (former princess, ex-knight reminded herself) was getting more emotional. A couple passed by them -or at least Ayda assumed that they were a couple. The two were holding hands, both smiling in a way she yearned to smile once upon a time.
“I… the banquet?” She forcibly snapped her own attention away from the couple, who were now out of eyesight.
“No.” The former-princess shook her head.
“Then, I guess I don’t have a good estimate.” She was uncomfortable, as one would be. It wasn’t every day that one had the misfortune or the opportunity to discover that they’d not been the ally they thought they were. The ex-knight had seemingly betrayed her former-princess, even she herself had not noticed.
“I knew I should’ve had low expectations but… holy shit.” Princess wiped her left eye which had started watering.
The ex-knight found herself feeling rotten, but… not in the sense she thought she would feel rotten. It was her duty to protect the royals -that had been drilled into her brain for so long. Listen, her grandmother had said. They’re the will of the sun and the flame on our realm. We must make sure that they do not regret descending. It’s the least we can do. And so she had. She’d done everything for her, even the things that was not expected from a knight of the marvelous militia. She’d cared in ways that was apparently not distinguishable to the noble. All the things she’d wanted, all the things she meant to… nothing mattered. No, the former-princess only cared about the happenings and their results. Never the intent.
Then she had developed the Flame. The Gods’ power. The power that she was meant to inherit. Like her brother before her. Like their father before them. Like their ancestors before…
No, Ayda had developed it. And then she had stopped being so attached to the whole idea of royals being superior to regular humans. And then…
Inside of her felt like a dry well. She knew she had wronged her in her perspective, yet she felt no remorse. It wasn’t like she was dead. It wasn’t like the uprisings beheaded anyone that was important to the former-princess. It wasn’t like Ayda meant to inherit the Flame. It was a dumb thing, a signifier of power yet it did nothing but flash some bright lights and maybe light a cigarette. It apparently was important to the monarch in front of her. It was insignificant for the knight. She did nothing but stare at her.
“Do you know what you are to me?” She said after a while of watching the former-princess try and contain her emotions. Back in the day, seeing this would have crushed her. She had not only failed as a friend, but as her majesty’s loyal knight. Not that the princess ever considered her a friend. Not like her brother the holy prince before his death, no. HE sparred with Ayda, with Aeden -even though he was a shit duelist. The former-princess was cold, ruthless, and apathic on the outside. She constantly kept pushing people, forcing them out of her life -and then having the audacity to questioning why they’d gone, abandoned her. It was the moment that Ayda realized she was all those things, that she had distanced herself. It was futile, useless. She would never have opened up for Ayda. Anything and everything she had done and would do would remain insignificant compared to the things that the former-princess wished from her.
“You consider me your friend.” She shrugged uncomfortably at the idea of the two being friends again. She opted to look at her lap instead of the burly woman next to her.
“No. You were so much more than a friend to me. When did I fail to make that clear as a day?” The ex-knight would have given anything she could spare to her. Her own life, even. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t risked it for her before.
“Your people have always been like that. All word, no dice.”
That irked her. The former-princess knew that it would irk her. “You of all people should know that I am nothing like my people. I am here today, aren’t I? You told me you thought it was dumb -them worshipping you. I guess you had no objections to it as long as you were the one that got the good ending of the deal.” She whispered, frustrated. They still had to stay low, after all. “How many stayed loyal to you after I developed the Flame?”
Even though it wasn’t the reason that the former-princess was cross with her, the Flame was a touchy subject. “Why are you here then? To mock me?”
“Not everything is about you, princess.” She sighed. “I am here to mend us though, that much is true.” She admitted, wincing a little as she spoke. She was vary of her reaction, she was worried that the former-princess would get harsh with her.
“Why? Do you need my blood? Do I need to appoint an heir?” She mocked. The ex-knight wished that she’d take this more seriously.
“You know we’ve been selecting our own leaders for a while now. I wish no such thing from you.” Ayda was no leader. She was no god. She only had the Flame, which made her nothing special compared to regular people. She was very good with a longsword and the absolute best with a spear, that was the thing about her that one needed to be vary of.
“Why do you want to make peace with me, then?”
“I guess… I wanted some closure.”
“Sucks to be you, then. You have not made any progress.” The former-princess added, perhaps rather annoyed that her precious time was being stolen away by this useless exchange.
“Before coming here today, before talking to you, I had no idea you’d been feeling betrayed by me for so long.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything? Why did you lead me into believing that you still considered me… well, a friend? Or what I was to you before my ‘betrayal’?”
“You should have known what you’d done wrong.”
“I didn’t know. I had no way of knowing without you telling me.” The former knight scoffs, “this is why they say you cannot befriend nobles.” She looked at the ground, her eyes fixated on a cockroach for a few moments. Then, she straightened up and leaned back in her seat. Might as well tell her. She looked at the princess, as if to undermine the superiority the former-princess probably felt over the peasant knight. “You were the most important thing to me on this world once. I am not sure if… I feel any different now. It’s very complicated. You are hard to talk to and hard to understand -for me at least. It used to come to me with such ease, us and you. I don’t know how or when things got this complicated.” She stopped to take a deep breath.
“I can tell you when.” The former-princess added in between her ex-knight’s words.
“I swore to always stay loyal to you and protect you. And I failed that. But I do not regret it, not one bit. I am my own person and you’re your own. The fact that you were born to royalty, the fact that I have the flame… it does not matter. It hardly ever mattered. It was the front. It was the reason that we’d drifted apart to anyone else. But I know that you see it as I do.”
“Yes,” the former-princess admitted. “I would not let such a trivial thing get between us. I was disappointed when you inherited the Flame after my brother and not me, but after that I realized that was his will. There was a reason why you’d inherited it in my place.” She coughed. In my place, Ayda’s mind nitpicked at the phrase. I guess she still minds it. “It was the invalidation of my feelings that got me upset with you. You’ve not spared me a second glance. You did not see how hurt I was.”
“No, I have not.” She shook her head. “Because I was too overwhelmed by it all. The feasts, banquets, the training they wanted me to go through with…”
“Is this why you think our problems started at a ‘banquet’? Because I can tell you exactly when it’s started.”
“That would hardly help with the present problems. You’ve had your chances to tell me in the past, and yet you have skipped all of them. You’ve held grudges against me, one major and god knows how many smaller grudges, encouraged by the large one.” Ayda took a breath in. “When you started courting Almir of the Noble, I felt… heartbroken.”
“How dare you use that word,” the former-princess hissed, her head shooting up towards her. “That’s how I feel, that’s mine.” Instead of gritting her teeth, she opted to lightly teeth the insides of her cheeks.
Ayda though, slowly turned towards her. The couple that she saw earlier had went into a bakery and got some sweets. The man had sparks in his hazel eyes as he looked at his beloved. “You do not own words.” She had no sparks. She never had any sparks for her. She never would have any sparks for her. Ayda had noticed this a long time ago, yet it still stung. “If you saw outside of your own melancholy, perhaps you’d notice us others’ clouds too.”
“You were important to me, Ayda.”
“Do not say my name.” The ex-knight felt her nose sting. It was the excess tears that she’d been so masterful at holding back. Ayda never wept when she felt sorrow, she only wept tears of anger and joy. She was unsure which was it this time.
“You do not own -” she tried to douse Ayda with her own words, a hint of mischief in her eyes.
She wished that she had not noticed that mischief. It was already hard enough as is. “Please.” She gasped, as it became impossible to breathe out of her nose. It felt pathetic.
“Okay. You were important to me. I could always confide in you. Before Lord Almir, that is.”
“Let me guess, you discovered that any friendly person who could keep their mouths shut was good enough to confide in.”
The former-princess chuckled. “Yes, actually. But I don’t think I’ve ever treated you poorly… or rejected you in any way? Why do you make me feel like I have done such thing?”
Oh. Ayda had no idea that she’d been doing that. It wasn’t wrong, of course, but it was something she hadn’t meant to do. She crossed her arms again. “You didn’t need to say anything, of course not. It was very convenient for you, a friend that would have to be there for you no matter what. You acted as if I was not my own person, as if I was just an extension of you. Hell, even I believed that to be the case for far too long.” She bit her lower lip. “I… loved you.” I love you. No, bad.
“Oh… I had no idea.” She stiffened. Yeah, Ayda had figured that much would happen.
“Yeah. Neither did I. Because guess what? I was content, even happy, just being near you. Just talking to you.” What a dumbass she used to be. She refused to waste any more time on a thing as useless as this, but it was… inevitable. Sometimes it felt like she’d never kick her feelings for her. Sometimes she felt that the soulmates her mother told her about were real, albeit extremely rare (the late prince had one, after all) and that she was kicking away her one chance at love. Even though she’d never be loved back the same way, not ever, if she chose to believe that. She led armies to battles, she made dire choices and sacrifices, she carved an entire lamb for a feast last month -why was she so stiff, so dull, so afraid of the outcomes of today? Of the former-princess’ answers and feelings.
“I am afraid that I’ve never considered us… that close.” The former-princess admitted.
“Yeah. I know.” She held her own left arm, repressing a weary sigh. “It still stings to hear it, though. After all this time.” She thought she’d overcame her. She thought that the princess could no longer affect her emotions and invade her thoughts. She averted her eyes to the seemingly napping cockroach again. “So… that’s why I came.”
“I’ve got to say… very convenient of you to pull this out of your pocket right now.” The former-princess commented.
“What do you mean?” Her eyes were fixated on the cockroach. She very well knew what it meant, she wanted her to explain it. To put it into words.
“I am mad at you and your betrayal, you need help with politics -yes, I do follow the happenings in my kingdom- so that’s why you have to have me on your side. You’re trying to gain my sympathy.” She off-handedly commented, compliments to the strategy training she’d had since she was seven.
“It’s neither yours nor a kingdom. Why would it be convenient? I expected nothing from you. I asked you of nothing.” It’s true, even in this state, living as a regular citizen of another country, she still could collect manpower with ease. Not enough to make it to war on her own, but enough to join one side. She’d be a formidable ally, that was also true. She’d received thousands of hours of education specifically for wars, and she was the smartest person Ayda’d known. Every night as she went to sleep, she feared to wake up and find out that the former-princess had joined forces with the enemy.
“You’re not going to ask for my help in the Kylian Wars?” She asked, baffled. She’d apparently thought that her old friend had come crawling back to her for her help.
“It would be unwise to deny any extra men, but I am not here to ask for your help. Unless you are willing to offer it.” She was not going to ask for her help. It was unwise not to. She would give it to her if Ayda asked her for it. She could even give her companionship and friendship, in smaller doses that they used to have. Her mind helplessly wandered over to the past, clung to it. The times when she was naïve. And happy.
“I will not give you my aid in war unless you ask me to.” Her nose almost pointed up to the sky.
“Funny. I remember sticking my neck out for you in every opportunity I got.” Her mind that so liked to wander over to the past also liked to keep the negative things out.
“Ask for my help, and you will have it.” Her words were final this time, spoken with a certainty of a true raised-to-be-ruler.
Ayda, a former and a formidable knight of the marvelous militia of fallen kingdom Azar, got up and fixed her leather armor top. “No. Aren’t you supposed to know that I need it?” Then she walked away without giving her so much as a second look -ah though how illogical, she wanted to look back. She squeezed the handle of her longsword, not caring if it scared some of the civilians. She walked away in a faster pace, not even noticing the man with the eyes that sparkled with love buying red roses from an old lady vendor nearby.