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Peruere finishes arranging the rocks inside her little keepsake chest in nice, even rows. Bigger and in color, the darkest ones on the top row, the lighter ones at the bottom. She likes the rough texture of the rocks against the uncovered pad of her fingers. There’s no need for her to use her gloves.
Next to her, Clervie rests in the window ledge, back against the wall and a book open in her lap, a soft hum escaping her every once in a while. Peruere leans back and listens, fumbling with her rocks still.
“What are you reading?” She asks, voice quiet in the middle of the night. “Reading in the dark will hurt your eyes. You’ll go blind,” Peruere adds.
Clervie chuckles and without looking up from her book, leans forward and ruffles Peruere’s hair, who groans. “It’s a book about Teyvat legends. Y’know, Archons, Lesser Gods, etc. I’m on the Fontainean section,” she explains. Peruere hears the soft noise of nails scratching against paper. “The Hydro dragon is quite interesting.”
“How so?” Peruere turns her head to look at Clervie, her cheek against the marble of the wall.
“It is said that it controls the water flow of Teyvat as a whole,” Clervie reads, voice slightly somber for effect. “That every rainfall, every drizzle, comes from its inherent sadness over humanity being doomed from the beginning. If one wishes for a clear day, they must look up at the sky and say, Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon, don’t cry! and your wish shall be granted.”
Both girls remain quiet for a second.
“That’s stupid,” Peruere says, making Clervie chuckle. “Dragons haven’t existed in thousands of years, how can a dead dragon control the water in current times?”
“Ah, that’s why it’s called Book of Legends, my dear King,” Clervie says with another laugh. Peruere watches the pages flutter as she goes back a few.
“Here,” Clervie continues. “Sumeru. Oh, this is my favorite one; there’s supposedly some kind of fairy-like entities hidden in its rainforest called Aranara and only show up to children that are still very innocent, they’re protectors and also memo-keepers of some sorts and—”
Peruere goes back to her rocks as Clervie rambles, fascinated, about the Sumerian folktales. She hums and nods in the appropriate places, smiles and laughs when necessary as she rearranges and sorts her rocks by color only, forgoing size. Neither of them mention how the book in Clervie’s hand is being held together by tape, how there’s missing pages, some teared, all of them yellowed and the words barely legible in some, because they’ve been reading this book almost every night for the past ten years since Peruere and Clervie became friends. They don’t want another book. Or, rather, Peruere doesn’t want another book, because she likes how Clervie’s voice fluctuates when she reads something interesting or something stupid or if there’s dialogue she does the character voices and they’re always the same, even during puberty and her voice cracking sometimes, which makes Peruere extremely amused.
“...never be left alone with a tanuki, unless you’re looking forward to losing all your money. Dear god!!” Clervie laughs, again, as she does every single day. “Can you imagine getting lost in an Inazuman forest and then one of these things mugs you?”
Peruere gets a face full of book, drawings of tanukis standing on their back paws and snarling, munching on leaves, hanging upside down from trees. She doesn’t think she’ll like them very much. She tells Clervie so.
“Mm? Are you planning on going to Inazuma? You know we can’t enter legally anyway, right? That tyrant archon of theirs, tsk,” Clervie shakes her head. “Not like we’re doing any better ourselves!”
“Lord Focalors is quite lacking, yes,” Peruere admits. She closes the lid to her box and puts it aside very carefully before hopping onto the window ledge, sitting opposite to Clervie. “But we are not under a dictatorship, so I guess we’re better.”
“Mmm, true,” Clervie grumbles, not liking being wrong. “You think we can get Mother to smuggle us into Inazuma City?”
“Like we’re goods?”
“Or like, prisoners. Oh, I’d actually love to meet the Electro archon. Hey, if you were granted a vision of your choosing, which one would you choose and why?”
Clervie tends to do this; ranting, jumping from one topic to another. Peruere hugs her knees to her chest and answers. Pyro, because fire is pretty. Sweet Madame, because she loves chicken. Liyue, because she’s as fond of Mora as every other human in this realm.
“I don’t think I’d like Sumeru very much,” Peruere answers the next question. They’ve slowly moved, two stars being pulled by gravity, and now they sit shoulder to shoulder with their legs hanging out from the open window.
Above them, the Fontaine night sky is bright with stars, the moon shining down on them. Peruere finds comfort in her, and it brings forth another legend to her mind. She remembers when Clervie first read that one to her, how the girl cried sadly, how Peruere ripped the pages and burnt them away so Clervie would never cry again. She thinks of the moon, the corpse of a princess, the other two dead moons floating somewhere near Celestia, and finds herself holding Clervie’s bandaged hand as she hears the girl ramble about how pretty Sumeru is.
“And they’re so interesting! Their technology is super cool! Ah, if I could choose to live anywhere else I’d probably go to Sumeru. But you don’t want to come with me sooooo,” Clervie groans. She holds Peruere’s hand anyway.
“Didn’t you tell me once, you long to see the lights in Snezhnaya?” Peruere asks.
Clervie turns to look at her, her pretty, coral pink hair tied down in a braid that goes over her shoulder. Some hairs fall over her face, framing her cutely; she’s lost some of the baby fat but not all of it, and so her round cheeks remain, a small dimple in one of them when she smiles at Peruere over the mention of the lights. It takes Peruere’s breath away every single time.
“Mm,” Clervie nods, leaning slightly into Peruere’s personal space. “I’d love to. You know, all of these tales about mythical creatures in Teyvat and Celestia, and still no explanation on how those lights even happen. Aren’t you curious, Perue?”
Peruere hums, breaking eye contact to look back at the sky.
Above them, Celestia hangs, looming over them in a way that makes Peruere uneasy. Clervie continues talking about the lights, about what Mother tells her of Snezhnaya when she sits at Mother’s feet and allows her hair to be brushed. Peruere thinks that the night sky in Snezhnaya might be too beautiful, too pure, with the snow and the lights and the stars and the moon. She tells Clervie so.
“Mm, you might be right,” Clervie says. Peruere turns to look at her, finds those green eyes still locked onto her, and the permanent fire that courses through her begins to light up once more. “Hey, Perue.”
“Yes?”
“What will you do once you’re King? Will you lock your kids up, too, or allow them to roam the world freely?”
Clervie asks this with bitterness in her voice, knowing how she herself is unable to leave under Mother’s iron hand. They like to play this game, lately. Peruere doesn’t know where it came from—suddenly a few months back Clervie started asking her, correcting her if her responses were not fit for a King like herself. Once, Peruere dared to ask if Clervie would serve as Queen next to her, a King.
It made Clervie get so mad she didn’t talk to Peruere for a week. She never asked again. Peruere doesn’t know why it upsets her so badly, but she treads carefully whenever their little game is set.
“I wouldn’t like my children to be ought of my sight,” Peruere admits. “I don’t think I’d let them, if they still wanted to be part of my House.”
Clervie smiles and brushes Peruere’s bangs back. They’re getting long. “A good King. You should always have loyal subjects! Never allow them to fantasize about running away together, hm?”
“No,” Peruere agrees. “I would not allow them to grow in the same conditions as us. Clervie,” she feels bold enough to say, “you know I won’t become King without you by my side, right?”
At this, Clervie bites her lip. Peruere can’t help the way her eyes track the movement. Clervie lets go of her and begins playing with the ends of her braid, remaining quiet. A small nod shows that she’s listened to Peruere.
“I know.” Her voice is small when she responds. “I’d love to stand next to you. But, Perue…”
“No,” Peruere stops her. “It’ll be the two of us. You’ll see.” She’s growing bolder by the minute. When the time comes to murder in cold blood all of her siblings to stand victorious, she will not touch Clervie. Not at all. This is a promise she engrains deep within her heart. “And we’ll be King and Queen, and we’ll go to Snezhnaya together, and we’ll watch the lights from our room.
“Then we’ll go to Sumeru,” Peruere continues. Clervie makes a small noise at this, stares at her with sad, big eyes. Peruere dislikes Sumeru terribly. “We’ll try to find those forest fairies you like, get one or two to take home just for you. We’ll learn about technology so grand we’ll make our House a better place, we’ll rule the country with our machinery, we’ll be sought after for our inventions. We will have our loyal subjects. We— we shall conquer the world together. And once we’re at the top of the world we—”
She’s cut off by something warm covering her mouth, and it takes Peruere an embarrassingly long five seconds before grabbing Clervie’s face between her two ungloved hands and kissing her back, with the same desperation and lack of expertise that her best friend reciprocates. Peruere was uninterested in anything romantic, before. Always before. She catalogs before as the time previous her consciousness developed, for Clervie has been the one constant in her life that kept Peruere afloat, the one that cleaned Peruere’s wounds and taught her how to clean her own after discussions with Mother, the one that snuggled into her bed after a nightmare and clung to Peruere until she was able to fall asleep once more. Clervie would sneak her food for herself and her tiny insects, animals, whatever whenever Peruere was grounded by Mother with no food for the entire day, Clervie would detangle her hair after she was pushed into the mud or the water by her siblings to tame her curse and put out the fire inside her.
Of course she kisses Clervie back. How could she not? She’s all but the antidote, after all. The other girl makes a small noise against Peruere’s lips once the hands known to bring death forth touch her skin so seamlessly, hands that are pitch black but now are milky white down to the fingertips, curse contained and put away as Clervie throws her arms around Peruere and breaks the kiss to hug her tightly.
Out of breath, Peruere hugs her back, dazed eyes looking up at the night sky once more. “We’ll— we have to get better at that,” she breathes out.
Clervie bursts into laughter, hugging Peruere tighter until her back cricks, and she allows herself to laugh too as she hugs Clervie tight, too. Her heart is beating way too fast for comfort, an organ that is usually so quiet Peruere might as well be a walking corpse.
“Perue,” Clervie says when she pushes away, her bandaged hand coming up to cradle her cheek. “You’ll be such a great King. I’m so happy.”
Peruere doesn’t understand why Clervie’s happiness comes in the form of a trembling smile and tears in her eyes. She makes a small, almost wounded noise and pushes Clervie down again, holding her close as they kiss once more, and then again, and again, giving each other pointers on how to kiss better, never wandering away from each other’s mouths until Peruere’s lips feel as hot as what is usually inside her.
She doesn’t say I love you. She doesn’t know what it means. She thinks it might mean that she’d love to tiptoe back to her room with Clervie in hand, sneaking silent kisses in every dark corner of the building, shushing Clervie’s giggles with her lips each time they have to hide from one of their siblings roaming the hallways in patrol. It might mean that she wants to undo Clervie’s braid and receive kisses for her efforts as they lie side to side in bed, talking very quietly about what the future holds, never once letting their hands go. Maybe that’s what love is. Peruere isn’t so sure.
It isn’t until the next morning, Clervie pushing herself off Peruere’s sword—she had thrown herself at it, knowing that Peruere would rather slit her own throat than hurt a hair on Clervie’s head, she had heard Clervie’s gasp of pain as the sword pierced through her stomach and out the back and blood bubbled up out of the mouth she spent hours exploring with hers, she had, she had— and falling to the floor with open, unseeing green eyes, a small smile on her bloodied face and a gaping wound in her abdomen, that Peruere understood, finally, why they were never meant to exist as King and Queen together.