Work Text:
Where We Used to be
It hurt Ashera that Eunie didn’t remember.
She never wanted to ask outright, she didn’t even know if Eunie was still… like she was. Pride was a hard pill to swallow for the stern-faced Kevesi girl, who’s deep seated throat scar grew larger each day.
Eunie remembered some of it, that much was easy enough to figure out without directly asking. Eunie remembered Colony 18, any time they passed the ruins together. She’d even caught Eunie’s gaze wandering off toward her old husk, trapped in that final moment of terror before oblivion.
Ashera remembered what that place looked like before it became a battlefield, wide meadows and clear rivers as far as the eye could see, wild Gromrice and ardun herds providing plentiful food and resources. Unlike her current colony, colony 18 made their way to gold through resource management and clever execution of tactics, Ashera couldn’t contribute to that bit at all, all she was good for was killing.
Ashera remembered Eunie, her Eunie. She remembered the way their friendship grew, what blossomed out from it, and the rationalizations therein. She remembered the walls between them that she tore down. She remembered their first kiss, the goodbye she never had. The claw that scraped against her neck, moments after Eunie fell. She remembered darkness, then light, a moment of lucidity before memories of Eunie were bled from her like tears. Then she forgot, only to remember again. Only once before did Ashera resist the temptation of oblivion before now. It was there, where they used to be, that she found that peace.
She remembered all of it, but Eunie only remembered those last moments. If Ashera held onto that love, through all of that fear, why didn’t Eunie?
Why wasn’t she her Eunie anymore?
And why did that make her so sad?
She successfully drew this Eunie in, she might have even courted her, but even then she knew something was missing. Now that they were coming back, the memories of their shared past life, why couldn’t Ashera face her feelings?
“Ashera, Love. Did some stupid mudder do something to get your feathers in a twist again? You have your blade out…” Eunie interrupted her once-best-friends spiraling thoughts, as she had a tendency to do. Eunie always tried to play it off as mere coincidence that she ran into Ashera at her worst of times emotionally, but Ashera knew that was a simple pretense.
“Oh, Uhm. I was just training, Eunie dear, and happened to get distracted! Y’know, the sights around here are just… wonderful!”
Ashera stood amidst the ruins of Colony 18, once again. It almost scared her how often she managed to wander here when listless in her own thoughts. Moreover- why was Eunie here? And without the rest of Ouroboros in pursuit?
“Uhm. Ashera? I know not even a snuffin’ psycho like you could look at this mess and call it… beautiful? You goin’ mad again?” Eunie toyed with her feathers while glaring at Ashera skeptically. Ashera always found that little move of hers adorable, even last time…
“No, no! I’m-” Ashera felt something choking down her words. Oh spark, was this it for her? Or is it just more phantom pain? Wait- actually. It wasn’t painful at all, not quite. It was a lump in her throat. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to lie. Spark it all, what was it about Eunie that just busted through all of Asheras walls and toyed with her heart?
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before at this point Ashera, but the fact is, ever since we had it out with the Consul beneath the palace you’ve been even weirder than usual.” Eunie approached Ashera, who suddenly withdrew her blade in confusion. “You always come here, Ashera. Is there a good reason for that?”
Asheras’ muscles were tense, and she fell to the ashen soot floor in a flood of emotion. Tears fell down her face, as Eunie sat beside her, her arm wrapped against the Kevesi defenders’ shoulder. “Eunie…” Ashera hesitated. She was unsure how this Eunie would take it, if she would even understand. From what little time Ashera had spent with her in the city, what they had- what they were- didn’t seem to be normal.
“Ashera…” Eunie freed a handkerchief from her jacket and wiped a tear from Asheras neck, gently. “I think this is the first time I've ever seen you cry…”
Ashera folded her knees up to her chest and lowered her face into the safety between. “It’s not…” She wiped tears from her face once more, before looking Eunie in the eye. “I’ve cried in front of you before, Eunie. I’ve done it here, in this rotten place, too many times to count. I’ve cried in your arms. I’ve cried with you in mine.” Eunies’ eyes widened, with confusion and realization she struggled to push down. “You don’t remember, Eunie…” Ashera was choking on her own pain, pushing the words out in between deep and shaky breaths. “That’s what hurts me the most, it's that you don't remember.”
“Ashera… you don’t mean?” The winged girl's hand was pressed tight against her mouth, eyes wide and watering. “I-I. I remember parts of it. I remember now. Spark, is this why you sought me out in the first place?”
“No, I didn’t remember… you, until after we killed the Consul together. After you and I made that promise, and you told me you’d die beside me, it opened my eyes to what we were, here, Eunie.
Ashera shifted away from Eunie, unsure of her reaction or response.
“Snuff it all, Ashera. You mean we… you were there when Colony 18 got attacked by Moebius?!” Eunie faced Ashera once more, her hand pressed gently on Asheras thigh. “We lived here together, Eunie. Despite what the consul told us, even as our colony rose through the ranks, we stayed at each other's side.” Ashera paused. “The thing that confuses me the most, though, is that the life with you, here, was the only time I didn’t… become this.” She then gestured to herself with disgust, avoiding eye-contact.
“Ashera…” Eunie was stunned. That she knew Ashera in the past was not surprising, rather, it was what Ashera alluded to beyond that caught her off guard. “When you say ‘what we were’ or ‘life with me’ you don’t mean-” Eunie pulled back, putting distance between herself and the maniac soldier, no, the open wound sat beside her.
“It hurts me, Eunie. More than this scar, more than the new scars all over my body. I’m sorry, but I knew a version of you that is gone and-” Asheras voice wavered with an uncharacteristic vulnerability. “I loved you Eunie. I love you now. I don’t know where to hide it.” Ashera took a quivering breath in, and released it with a sob. “I’m full to the brim with sentimentality and it's bubbling up and spilling and I’m falling apart- and I’m afraid. I’m afraid that this is my last chance. I know you don’t feel the same way and I’m ready to bury it all but just please! Please don’t hate me-”
Eunie listened to Ashera spill without saying a word, face impossible to read, deep in thought. She stood up, offering her hand to the quaking girl below her before pulling her in close- closer than anyone had been to her before. Ashera was stunned. She had not yet been hugged in this lifetime, but the way Eunie pressed against her, warm and soft, felt like coming home for the first time in an eternity.
“Ashera.” Eunie put distance between herself and her… her friend. Her face was stern and serious, and Ashera felt like a child for how badly she wanted to pull her close again and sob into her some more. “Ashera I-”
Ashera was scared. Only two things in this world have ever been able to scare her, the consuls, with their eldritch power over time and life, and Eunie, with her uncanny ability to make Ashera feel okay. “It’s okay Eunie. I’m just happy to be acquaintances with you.” That was a lie. She wanted Eunie to herself. She wanted to belong to Eunie. She would do anything to make that embrace last forever.
Ashera did not want to die, and that scared her the most.
“For the love of the Queen, shut up already!” Eunie snorted, holding back laughter for a moment, before turning to once again face Ashera, now quiet and unsure what to think. On Eunies face was a softness Ashera had seen a hundred times before eons ago. Then, in a surreal moment…
Eunie brought her close, held both of her hands in her own, and kissed her. Not lightly, not gentle, but a hot, deep, passionate kiss. Ashera could feel it in that moment, that Eunie wanted her, that Eunie loved her, that she was still her Eunie.
That across time and space. Across death and rebirth, in Agnes, Keves, or anywhere else, she would always be her Eunie. That wherever they were from before the consuls, before Mobeus, they were made for each other. That they would find each other every time they could, and kisses like these were as inevitable as sunrise and sunset.
For the first time in eons Ashera felt okay, without the uncertainty of a love under the pressure of the Flame Clock like their last time, without the fear that the consuls would snuff out her love before it had the chance to blossom. Eunie pulled away from her, eyes closed with a comfortable satisfaction.
“I love you, Ashera. I love you, this you. I would love any version of you I could.” Eunie said, smiling. Ashera loved that smile, and through tears, caressed the face of her girlfriend, her other hand brushing her wings gently.
“Oh- Oh Queens Arse! That feels… so good.” Eunie realized what she had said, and blushed deeply. “Gah! Stop it you weirdo. That’s embarrassing… What if someone sees you doing that!”
“Who’s going to see us? This field full of corpses? Honestly, I think they’d love a little excitement in our old stomping grounds? Don’t you?” Ashera wiped her tears away, full of a new kind of confidence, not in her worth as a warrior, but in her worth as a woman. “The old you loved having her feathers pet~”
“Uhg! Shut up you psychopath!” Eunie said, not yet pulling away from this new comfort.
“Y’know Eunie, I remember a few other things you liked from way back when, if you’d ever want to try them...”
“I’ve said it a million times, Ashera, I really, seriously hate you.”
Ashera hoped to hear it a million more.