Chapter 1
Summary:
Juna/Patrick. Lessons.
Chapter Text
Chapter 2
Summary:
Musse->Emma. Sacrifice.
Chapter Text
Truthfully, hearing about it, she’d actually found herself feeling a little jealous. Sure enough, she could move an army, call on the armada of the skies and the seven seas if she’d so wished– but put that up against what Emma had done, where did that leave Musse? Outranked, of course. Outplayed and outwitted and blindsided, because where she’d had cold calculation and a million in collateral damage, Emma had more than made up for it with impulse, fiery and unilateral, singular as a tower, lonely as the blade of her magic, breaking her spirit clean from life.
Never mind that Emma hadn’t actually succeeded. If she’d had her way, she would have, and between the two of them, that already made a world of difference.
But for whatever it was worth, she was glad Emma hadn’t gone through. Not that they knew one another so well; not that they were close friends, and so entitled Musse to a feeling of grave injustice if Emma had been a girl once and an empty shell the next second.
Was it jealousy? Some kind of relief, that neither of them could claim to be the martyr?
Well, that too. But truth be told it just made her feel a little less lonely, that was all.
Chapter 3
Summary:
Rean/Jusis. I forgot the prompt.
Chapter Text
Afterwards, he didn’t give himself much space to dwell. His new responsibilities as the acting duke were duly conducive: people to meet and papers to sign and invitations to pomp parties that he’d made a habit out of dodging, that made him feel like a little wind-up boy, dressed in someone else’s clothes and a hand-me-down title, sneaking out of a responsibility he never asked for. There was a humor to it, that he’d endure the arrest of his father, labor the expectant glares and pitying glances as he took the reins, and still drew the line at holding hands with other people’s daughters.
And Rufus remained distant as ever. There was an elegance to his coldness– days turned to weeks turned to months of silence, and a part of Jusis felt like he was in the wrong for searching for Rufus’ name in the mail. If there was a juvenility in seeking him in the papers, Rufus' stoic smile etched on grainy paper in monochrome ink as he spieled about border control and tax reforms. Like he was disappointing someone somehow, though he wasn’t sure who. Not his father, who never hid how little he thought of Jusis. And his brother hardly seemed concerned, the way he left Jusis well enough alone.
.
Millium came and went, laughing and thrashing like thunder through the duke’s office, her capricious jokes and nonsensical stories and inconsolable sweet tooth destroying any semblance of free space in his schedule.
“What are you thinking about, Jusis?” she’d say. “I don’t like that sad face you’re making~ Ooh, let’s open the curtains, let some sunlight in…! What a beautiful day! Let’s go pick out fruit from the clouds!”
And there would be no time to think, with all that irritating white noise filling up his head: pineapples and oranges and why should I know if an eggplant is a vegetable or a fruit, you irritating girl.
“Aww, you're just mad because now you have to look it up~ Hey, hey, let's do something else! I've got time to kill before my next assignment...”
He never locked the door or turned her away. If he never told her a part of him appreciated her co-- not being alone, it was because he didn’t want it to get to her head.
.
He didn’t understand what was so hard about starting a conversation. He hardly talked to Millium as much as she talked at him, and he had little inclination to call his responses to Regnitz’ screeching a “dialogue” of any sort.
…It wasn’t like they’d grown distant, he thought. Rather it was easy to pin the blame on everything but themselves: the civil war and the chancellor’s revival and Crow’s death and his brother’s revelation. Jusis’ piling responsibilities had carved one half of the gulf, and Rean’s accolades and reticence had made up for the other. It wasn’t as if they’d grown distant, but there was a heaviness to putting words on paper, an invisible weight stilling his hand as his thumb hovered over the button on his ARCUS.
He wondered if Rean felt the same way. If hesitance was as much a unifying thing as it was to look up at the sky and seeing the same moon and blinking stars, like a balm to soothe their parallel distance.
.
Rean’s face was grainy, a mass of pixels on his ARCUS screen. His voice was stilted as he said hello, and there was an awkward slant to his smile, an upturned quirk of mouth between talking about Leeves, his bright-eyed students, the daunting pile of essays and quizzes that needed grading.
“I better get back to those,” Rean said. “Thanks for calling. I know you’re busy.”
“No, it’s–” Jusis hesitated. Millium would say it aloud, but he wasn’t her, and a part of him wondered how he’d fare without her, without someone to pluck fruit out of clouds, to disrupt the white noise of his thoughts with her loud exclamations and ill-advised ideas, taking up every rege of space until there was simply no room at all for his doubts to echo, reflecting back into himself. “We should talk again,” he said, sounding nothing like her, but Rean still paused on the other side of the screen, that same self-deprecating smile frozen in place.
You just keep on reminding me how… unlike a noble you really are.
“I’d like that,” Rean said. He still looked faraway to Jusis, but his voice sounded brighter than it did before. Just a little.
It embarrassed her to remember that when Ash had said, smartass he was, how the amount of things they’d have to talk about was about as much as the amount of cells she had kicking around in that head of hers– notwithstanding the concussions, anyway, his exact goddamn words– she had believed him, actually. A little.
Sure, she’d scowled, and said something in return that didn’t bear repeating– but there was a part of her, less deep down than she’d like to admit, that sat back and thought, He’s right, you know.
“Screw you,” she told it. That oughtta shut it up. Why did she even remember that, anyway? Then she remembered who she was having lunch with, and flushed.
“I’m sorry?” Patrick Hyarms said.
“That’s entirely my line,” Juna said. “Sorry. Was talking to myself. My friends tell me it’s a problem; I’m working on it, totally. Um.” Her gaze flicked back and forth: towards him, away from him, at the plate, at the steak that no way she could afford out of her pocket money. “How’s the meat?”
“That’s not exactly reassuring, you know, considering what you just said…” he murmured. But he cleared his throat and humored her. “It’s great, of course. My favorite restaurants are in my native Sutherland– I have to acknowledge nostalgia might be the culprit– but far be it from me to call the capital’s food lacking in any way!” He chuckled to himself.
Thinking about it, that was probably the sort of line he exchanged with his friends. She imagined them chuckling along with him. She tried to picture how they looked like.
Oh, goddess. So many cravats and pastel suits. So many titles she doubted anyone actually remembered in full. And where on earth would Juna Crawford fit into that picture?
“Uh huh,” she said.
“I have to ask, though…” Patrick’s expression dimmed. “Are you not having a good time? Not that I claim to be an expert on the matter– my older brother, bless him, got that gift instead– um, what I mean to say is, Miss Crawford, when a woman starts cussing to herself not even twenty minutes into a meal… I don’t think that’s a good sign. My inexpert opinion, of course,” he punctuated weakly.
“Better I look like an idiot talking to myself than to do it talking to you,” she muttered. “All your Erebonians are too smart for your own good– ugh, I really shouldn’t be saying that. But can you blame me for feeling that way?”
“That’s preposterous,” Patrick said starkly. “Do I still come across like someone who would think someone foolish for being unfamiliar with Erebonian matters? And here I thought I’d strayed far away from those dark days of my youth…” Before she could ask what the hell any of that meant, he added, “...If it makes you feel any better, you do know I’m only the third son of House Hyarms. I barely get invited by the council to represent anything.”
Despite herself, she cracked a smile. “You know that’s basically gibberish to me, right. That’s how clueless I am.”
Patrick was grinning; she could see a flash of it from behind the cup he tried to hide it with. For a second she thought, almost irrationally, to feel offended, but then he said, “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear someone say that,” and she could feel some of that ballooning tension dissipate, like a knot being slowly pulled apart.
Lesson learned, she thought. The nobility wants to talk like normal human beings too.
(A part of her chimed in with, The first lesson of many, I hope, and this time, she didn’t tell it to shut up.)