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Vanessa wouldn’t characterize herself as hopeful. Always, infinitely practical, maybe. Devoted and loyal, definitely. Hopeful? Not at all. A loving sister, a serious knight. Someone who’d joined the ranks of the army and found a goal for the future. A lofty goal, and not one easily accomplished.
She’d been young, and Syrene seemed so happy with her work as a page. There wasn’t anything for Vanessa at home, unless she aspired to taking her father’s position as lord. Which she didn’t. Not really. Her father was still weak, and likely would remain so for the rest of his life, the illness had not been kind even if it hadn’t taken his life. Being lord of their home, in charge of the fishing village and the rocky cliffs and shores...there was too much restlessness in her for that.
She envied Syrene too much for that.
Syrene had joined the military, and was on track to be assigned a pegasus and one day she’d fly through the whole sky. The entire sky! All of it, underneath her fingertips and underneath the wings of her partner. Vanessa had been seven when she realized she wanted to be a knight, and eleven when she knew she wanted the sky, just as Syrene wanted the sky.
And when she’d earned her saddle, fifteen and finally training with real pegasi even if she didn’t have a partner yet, she looked to her officers and wondered where she might go. Because she was always, infinitely practical. Not hopeful.
It took looking to Grado, but General Fluorspar was a woman , and somewhat young for the position. Vanessa could look to her example, hear stories of her successes, and think, “One day that could be me.” Proof that she could ascend as high as she wanted. Proof that becoming a general was a viable plan, a viable career.
Vanessa was infinitely practical, always. By dinner, two nights later, Vanessa had several paths thought through. (And she was utterly, utterly unprepared by the appearance of the prince into her firmly scheduled days. Every time he showed up, scowling to himself or talking to Princess Tana or anything meant butterflies in her stomach and sweaty palms. Gods...)
She was nineteen when word of Grado’s invasion of Renais filtered through the ranks. It was like being dumped into the cold sea below the cliffs of her father’s lands, a shock unlike what even her father’s debilitating sickness had inspired. Overnight, what had looked like a future of peace and prosperity for the entire continent had shattered irreparably.
Some knights didn’t take it well, the danger spike and the sudden prospect of actual war. A truly different beast than that of repelling pirates or chasing down bandits, and almost a different universe compared to the more peaceful projects King Hayden occupied his military with when bandits and pirates were scarce. Vanessa worried for Syrene, who frequently ran her patrols by the Grado/Frelia border, but she was not as shaken as she could have been.
She took her assignment to the Princess Renais’ ranks with dignity, determined to fulfill her duties to the best of her ability. Her firm but far away dream of rising through the ranks forgotten in the face of actual warfare. She took her transfer from Eirika’s forces to Prince Ephraim’s with slightly less poise than her mother would have been pleased with.
She couldn’t quite help it, she’d gotten rather attached to Princess Tana’s childhood friend, who was a kind and commanding woman. Vanessa found she liked her place in Eirika’s army, and she was unsure of what a position in Prince Innes’ rival’s army would be like. (It turns out, not nearly as bad as she’d been dreading. Prince Ephraim was...well. It wasn’t a wonder that Prince Innes and Prince Ephraim got along rather like a house does with fire, was all she’d say on the matter. He was brilliant though, there’s no arguing that. They made good progress through Grado.)
And then they came face to face with the Fluorspar, and all of Vanessa’s plans rushed back to her in a moment that felt like her heart breaking. She couldn’t bring herself to speak, but General Fluorspar had no such reservations, and when she’d finished, they fought. Vanessa’s bond with Titania guaranteed her a certain amount of resistance to magic, so she’d flown quite close, enough so that she’d heard Ephraim and Selena’s exchange of words, near the very end.
The path Vanessa had chosen for herself mirrors the Fluorspar’s, in her head. “I am a knight,” the Fluorspar said, and above the battle Vanessa flinched to hear the serenity and underneath that, the steel of Selena’s voice. “And I have no other.” The Fluorspar died as she lived, loyal to her emperor.
Vanessa cradled her head in her hands, that night, hiding underneath Titania’s wings. She was a knight, and the path she’d chosen to follow would lead her...Innes would be king one day, and regardless of the torch she carried for him...She shook her head to clear that thought away. Always, infinitely practical.
It wasn’t hard to see herself, someday, in Selena’s shoes, though putting Innes or Tana in Vigarde’s position rankled something fierce. It wasn’t...hard, to think of her role model, the one who proved it was possible to be a woman and a general and know . That could be her, one day. That could be Vanessa.
And for three long, heartbreaking minutes, Vanessa regretted setting herself down this path. And then, always practical, she shook herself and inched out from beneath Titania’s wings. This was a war, and while she might regret looking into the face of one way her future could go wrong, she cannot regret- cannot allow herself to regret doing it.
Vanessa wanted the sky, all of it underneath her fingers and Titania’s wings. She wanted to rise, she wanted to fly through the ranks, she wanted to stand behind her king, her prince and her princess. She was not hopeful. She was practical, she was driven.
She is a knight, and she has no other path.