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Nohr is on its way to invade Hoshido. They’re nearly there now, one trip over the canyon and they’ll formally begin.
Niles has been escorting an icy princess along. She doesn’t bite, and she doesn’t bark, but she’s got skin that’s pure poison. Never letting anyone touch, nor even anywhere near. Needless to say, Niles is in her tent tonight, inches away and letting that distance simmer between them.
“It’ll be your family, won’t it?” Niles asks, knowing the answer. They won’t be sightseeing in Hoshido, that's for certain. Especially not her. It was her home. Still is, really, picking yourself up doesn’t change where you’re from.
Azura doesn’t react—she hardly ever does. Just flicks her eyes down and swallows, lips pressed together. Niles sits with her, staying just far enough back to keep from anything toxic. And Azura sighs.
“...Would you—would you let me die?” she asks, in that conversation-ruining tone she has. Niles lifts an eyebrow.
“Depends. Are you dying?”
Again, Azura doesn’t give an answer, doesn’t even look at him. She keeps that distant poise and steady expression. Niles leans forward and narrows his eye.
“If you’re going to be coy, the least you could do is show some skin,” he says, barely teasing, then enunciates clearly. “Are you dying?”
Azura keeps her eyes low. “I’m not sure there’s a way out of this for me.” Her voice doesn’t even waver. “Hoshido—I think it’s going to give me what I deserve from it.”
“Bullshit. Hoshido wasn’t kind to you in the first place. You don’t deserve shit.”
“It was kinder than you think.” Azura shuts her eyes and sets one hand over the other. “But I took this path anyway. Something should be paid.”
“'Paid.' Just don’t go, damn,” Niles says, not exactly an advocate for her dreary finish. “I’m sure Prince Corrin will survive without you.”
Azura’s pure calmness is beginning to get irritating. “I’m telling you this for a reason. I do cherish you, but—” She presses her lips together, then shakes her head. “You must cherish what you have now. What isn’t going to leave you.”
“I don’t have anything,” Niles says through gritted teeth. “Don’t make me lose you, too.”
Niles isn’t going to let Azura be an idiot because it’s convenient for anyone else—and she isn’t one, anyway. And something like a penance is awfully beneficial for Hoshido’s sake. Niles isn’t an idiot either. He can see through this.
Azura stares for a beat. Fiddles with the bump of bone on her wrist, protruding out awkward and sharp. Niles decides he’s going to let her fill the silence this time. He waits, and the quiet lingers, and lingers.
Finally, Azura exhales. “I’ll give you one chance,” she says. And suddenly she stands, then walks straight out of the tent, flap closing softly behind her.
“What?” Niles follows. She starts leading them through camp, then right past it, towards the Nohrian-Hoshidan border and right to that nasty cliff they decided to settle by.
Azura stops at the edge of the chasm, staring down into the depths. Niles joins her, concerned and curious, then peers down himself.
“A lover’s suicide is sweet, but I’m sorry to say I’m not a romantic.”
Azura doesn’t grace him with a comment, and instead gives a firm look, eyes steady and chin raised. “One chance,” she says. “Do you trust me?’
Niles stares. Azura’s serious. He glances back into the canyon, at its darkness and the familiarly bleak future it suggests. And then he looks at Azura.
Fuck.
He jumps. He’s not even sure Azura followed, it’s just darkness and wind as he plummets down. He falls, and Niles thinks he won’t have become an idiot for this until he dies.
And then he lands.
It’s still night, sure, but it isn’t nearly as dark here as the canyon was. Niles isn’t in Nohr anymore, but there’s no way this is Hoshido. And, also, he isn’t dead. That, or death is a lot more mundane than he thought it’d be. Though his pulse is still racing, and sweat is trickling down his jaw, so he thinks he’s got a chance.
“Niles,” comes Azura’s voice, and without any warning she’s standing behind him. He whips around to her, breathing hard and disoriented.
“Okay, what—“ Niles tries. “No—where did you just—“
“This place is a secret,” Azura interrupts, lightly putting her hands out in front of her. “Listen, please. There isn't much time. This—this is my home. I owe it something great, and I must return here, in the end.”
Niles isn’t anywhere near level headed. He has no idea what’s going on, actually, though Azura seems pretty rational. Shocking. “Your home.”
“There’s more at stake than you could ever know,” Azura continues. “And so, please... Will you let me explain?”
And without even letting Niles curse in her face again, she does. About spells, and dragons, and something about heritage—and Corrin. Niles shuts up and listens for once in his life, coming down from his rush and falling into a brand new one.
As if he needed any more confirmation that Azura’s been through hell, she comes out with this. And that hell hasn’t even left her behind—even now she’s still walking, bare footed, across hot and pointed coals.
“I have a fate,” Azura says somberly. “I must come back and face it. I will. This isn’t a choice.”
Niles grinds his teeth together. Desperation looks good on her, but not like this.
“I’ll jump too, then,” Niles says. “I already did once.”
Azura frowns. “That isn’t why I brought you here. I just need you to understand before I...”
Niles presses his tongue around his mouth and tilts his head. “Then that’s your fault, princess. You said it, you brought me. You told me. And I’m not letting something as half-cocked and faulty as fate tell me what to do.”
“You can’t follow me,” Azura insists, a growing worry in her voice. That’s new. “The entrance won’t be open forever. Once the skies change above Nohr and Hoshido, it will be locked until they change again. It could be a decade, it could be more. And it’ll be soon.”
Niles clicks his tongue. “You drive a hard bargain, but I can wait a decade,” he says, then folds his arms. “Two, even.”
“Niles!” Azura takes a step towards him. “I might not even—I don’t need saving.”
“Then I won’t save you.” Niles leans closer, that ever-present space between them shortening. “I’ll just come and get you. At a... Reasonable damn distance.”
Azura’s expression sours. “I can’t subject you to this.”
“You shouldn’t be subject to it either. So I guess we’re both fucked.”
Azura looks hurt. And Niles feels kind of hurt too, if he’s being honest. He takes the base of Azura’s chin between his fingers, wishing that her poison skin might start seeping through his veins, and holds her.
She only looks at him. Niles looks back. That’s all.
And Azura really wasn’t messing around. Once they finished with Hoshido, she held true to her word and disappeared. She didn’t leave a single trace of herself, no one knows where she went. Though Niles has a hankering that she was doing whatever the hell she was planning to do at the bottom of that pit.
Niles doesn’t exactly make visits to the canyon. But he passes through with Leo on occasion, and he’ll sometimes linger long enough that his lord rolls his eyes.
A decade. Maybe more.
It’s too late to die young, anyway.