Chapter Text
It was, Misa recognized, generally considered a flaw in her character that she had so little patience for the noise associated with the court in celebration. Any sort of celebration, even that of a dinner which had grown especially raucous, such as this one had done. It could not be helped, she supposed; they had gotten to the very last of the spring wine, and her father had given instructions that it all be served with supper this night. It wasn’t the sort of wine that aged well. Well, it made excellent vinegar, but if you wanted something you could actually drink, it was better to capitalize on what you had while you still could and drink of it swiftly.
Misa had drunk enough of it that her throat burned a little, drunk enough of it that no one could have accused her of rudeness or would have had cause to turn to her and ask if she was feeling ill, and then, when attention had turned well enough away from the high table and her father and her aunt’s attention had both been drawn elsewhere as well, she slipped off, in search of an alcove or a corner where there was no one already gathered. Perhaps she had drunk a little more of the wine than she had thought she had, or perhaps this year’s vintage was stronger than that of years past, for as she slowly slipped her way through the throng, the faces of those around her began to melt away into something like the carven faces of wax mannequins left out too long in the sun. Their features had begun to recede back into the wax, smooth and faded and blurred, as Misa’s mother’s face had long ago grown in her own memory. It was of no consequence.
Eventually, she found somewhere that suited her. Better not to leave the dining hall completely. The last time she had done that, her father been mustering the guards to assemble a search party by the time she had come back into his sight. Suffocating as it could be to be around so many people, suffocating as it could be to find nowhere she was completely free of the cacophony of so many conversations clashing against each other and the discordant laughter that barked and squawked as it fluttered up towards the ceiling, it would be far more suffocating still to be surrounded by her father, her aunt, guards, all wanting very badly to know where she had been and why it had been so important for her to slip off when there was still the chance that they could be attacked, and—
And these feelings were better put aside. She knew… Oh, she knew. It would all be better when the Orochi were either eradicated, or else persuaded to leave the star system behind them to seek greener pastures for raiding. It would all be better then.
Though in at least one respect, Misa thought her life would be just a little duller.
“I was just thinking about you,” she said, a smile unfurling on her lips as a familiar shadow fell across the floor at her feet. “Does the Force grant you such insight into my thoughts?”
“Not this time,” Tsubaki admitted easily as he settled into the shadowy alcove at her side. “I saw you were gone from the high table; I thought I had better find you before your father noticed and began to worry.” Something flickered in his face, though whether amusement or apprehension, Misa could not begin to guess; his face gave away so little sometimes. “Dare I ask what you were thinking about?”
She shrugged. “I was just thinking that this can’t be what you were imagining when they told you that you and your master would be coming to help us deal with raiders. You must be incredibly bored.”
Tsubaki looked towards the throng. The shadows fell heavy over his face, sinking hollows in his cheeks and painting shadows under his eyes where there had been none before. He looked for a moment years older than what Misa knew of him and she frowned in confusion, but when she blinked, his face had resumed the shape she would have expected. “We were given two mandates, as it happens. Deal with the Orochi, and ensure the safety of the royal family. Ayumu is rooting out the Orochi’s base; my task in his absence is ensuring you come to no harm.”
“But I’d guess you were hoping for something more exciting than watching people get drunk on spring wine.”
He cracked a smile. It was a hair warmer than Misa had been expecting, a hair warmer than she had up to now been used to from him. “If I had no reason to seek your company, I would have had to make an excuse to stay. I—” he paused, before seemingly thinking better of actually saying what had been on the tip of his tongue. Ducking his head, Tsubaki smiled again, more ruefully this time.
Misa laughed, but the sound was giddy in her ears and burned in her mouth, the imprint of words whose shapes she was uncertain of scoring her throat. She… she was glad. Misa resisted the urge to pick at the cuff of her sleeve, a nervous habit she thought she had broken herself of when she was twelve. She enjoyed his company very much.
And she enjoyed the fact that he seemed to appreciate silence as much as she did. In anyone else’s company, Misa thought she would have been required to make conversation in order not to be considered rude, but there was no such requirement with Tsubaki. It was easy to sink into this… this amiable, companionable silence with him, where no talking was required of either of them, and presence was enough. She didn’t really get that with anyone else. There were many things she didn’t really get with anyone else.
For several minutes, they lingered in the shadows, watching supper descend into something close to a revel, though never quite as rowdy as all that. Misa occasionally felt the pinprick burn of eyes on her face, but she didn’t turn. She couldn’t turn. Her eyes were riveted upon the light of the scene which unfolded before them, and he—
There was a sob quivering in her mouth and she did not know why. When she went to scratch at it with her teeth, it was gone, but it left behind a little echo, like the cry of a forlorn bird flying over the frost-blasted wastelands of the fields where it had frolicked in the spring. She scratched at it a little more, but still, she knew not where it had come from. Misa was no stranger to the odd fit of spontaneous melancholy, but this did not have the same feeling to it. When she scratched at it, she could feel it scratching back. She could feel it clawing at the roof of her mouth.
“I…” For a moment, her lines escaped her, but she breathed, and she was breathing in spring wine, and the words came back, swift as the giddy breath that stuck in her throat. “I promised Lady Hitomi that I would listen to her daughter play the flute with the musicians tonight. I think she’s ready to start soon?”
“Ah.” Tsubaki laughed quietly. “Duty calls?”
“I’m afraid so. I just hope Asuka’s gotten better at it since the last time I heard her play.”
Misa strode back out into the light of the hall, back straight, a polite smile polished and ready to shine upon her mouth once more. She didn’t look back, much as she would have liked to. It was never a—You shouldn’t look back, came the thought, in a voice like and unlike her own. You should never look back on what is gone.
No, it wasn’t—
The thought passed away like water, and Misa was engulfed in the crowd.
She couldn’t remember where she was supposed to go. The dining hall seemed to stretch on forever, and the throng of revelers had grown to such a vast horde that surely it must have been some great feast that was called for this night, and not simply supper, but Misa… Misa couldn’t remember. All around her, she was surrounded by people, but she knew no one. Some of them stared at her with the shining, dark eyes of birds, the crests and plumes of bright feathers atop their heads quivering as they cocked their heads to look her way. Others opened cruel mouths full of wet, pearly teeth, opened their mouths so wide that she could hear the jaws pop and crackle, though within, past the twin gates of teeth, there was nothing but darkness. She couldn’t remember where she was supposed to go. None of this looked familiar.
A scream cut through the very heart of the laughter and conversations that had so buffeted her, and with another pealing scream, it all fell away at once.
Misa knew that voice. She knew that voice, she knew it, she knew it, she knew it! The revelers became as pillars of colored smoke as she ran, blinding her, but she knew where she was going now, she knew what she must seek, and—
And she was wading in blood, and there was blood on her skirt and blood on her hands as she fell to her knees before her father, the blood was sloshing all around her as a shallow sea as her hands flew to the wound on his chest, the wet mouth of flesh that had opened upon his breast. Oh, gods, he still breathed, but the rattle of death clattered in his mouth and the eyes that looked upon her so imploringly were dimming, dimming. She couldn’t, she couldn’t, she had to get help, she had to—
Misa stumbled back to her feet, her mouth open and ready to scream for help, but even as it left her mouth it turned to a scream of horror as searing blue light ignited in the darkness before her.
A shadow with wild, staring eyes loomed over her, holding a lightsaber aloft. She didn’t even have time to put up her hands in a vain attempt to shield herself before the blade cut through the dark.
She woke before the pain.
She always woke before the pain.
Not that waking was ever pleasant.
Misa woke with a start, muscles tense and ready to flee or to go for a weapon, in the moments before she woke enough to remember that she had no weapons. It was quiet. It was so quiet; it was always so quiet in the night nowadays. There was no one here. There was no one in this room but her. She let that thought play out in her mind as she wiped the sweat from her clammy brow, let that thought play again in her mind as she sucked in a harsh, shuddering breath, willing her heart to beat steady.
She rose, and crept on unsteady feet to the window. She could not open it to let in the breeze, frigid as it would have been. The windows had been bolted at some point while she was in exile, and she had not the tools to pry them up from where they had been driven into the wood. There was no fresh air to be found here. She must make do with stale.
For a long, long moment, she stared up at the pale disc of the moon, and down at the smattering of lights still on in the city far below. Then a scream raced into her mouth, beating against the gates of her gritted teeth, and she struck her fist against the windowsill and turned away.