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phila doesn't know what emmeryn's fascination with her hair it is. it's too long (she hates it long and would rather shave it all off and be done with it) and it's too straight, and gone are the days she wore it in two short, messy braids. but oh, emmeryn loves to untie the little bow keeping her braid in place and pull the pin from the bun, unwind the braid round the knot and comb her fingers through phila's hair until it's all out, down her back in a silvery-blue waterfall. it's one of the few things phila has that says feminine and the only reason she's kept it at all is because it's traditional for pegasus knights to wear their hair long. but emmeryn loves it, loves to comb it and braid it again, tangle her fingers in it and rest her head on phila's head and breathe. phila thinks that playing with one another's hair is one of the things young girls do, and emmeryn never got to be a young girl. so phila lets her.
they have tea. emmeryn is more of a coffee person, phila knows (she's taken it black every morning since she was fourteen years old, always knocking the mug back like bitter medicine or like a pint of ale in a tavern) but there is tea and it's lemon, and phila is quite fond of it. but the teacups are always forgotten when they're on the two-seater couch and emmeryn has her face buried in phila's hair, fingers idly running themselves through the ends. phila shuffles through her reports when they do this. and truthfully, she doesn't mind-- it's quiet and tender and she knows emmeryn needs a break from running the country sometimes.
but they always have to end, and emmeryn puts her hair back. she uses a different ribbon each time-- last time's was white satin, light and soft as a sunbeam itself. today's is a soft printed silk with tiny fleur-de-lis, in a shade of dark blue the color of the space between the stars. phila always keeps the ribbons.
blue silk is in her hair the day the young man in the mask meets with emmeryn, the day after the attempt at her life. emmeryn's pale hands are clutching one another and her posture is tense, but otherwise, she is unperturbed. phila knows that when they are alone she will let out the breath she is holding and ask, again, if phila is alright. and phila will smile (because phila is good at smiling and means it every time) and say don't worry about me, your grace. emmeryn will say i told you to call me emmeryn and phila will say and i will, but not today. (she is still working up the courage to say her name. names are powerful and emmeryn's especially so; phila does not want to crudely shatter what cross-class friendship they have by misusing her name. perhaps she is paranoid but emmeryn's is a wonderful, beautiful trust to have. emmeryn trusts nobody but phila and frederick for good reason, and phila feels that to be trusted by emmeryn is to be given a precious pearl that she must guard with her life.)
they do not meet for tea that week but during that week, when emmeryn gets time between meetings or discussions, they go into her office or into a secluded corner and phila opens her arms and holds her, and emmeryn rests her head on phila's breastplate and lets herself sink into phila's warmth. phila has always been large and warm, as if she's a warm blanket on a cool night given form and stitched together with sunlight, and the magic of it still spills off of her. there are people who will liken them to the sun and the moon with emmeryn as the sun and phila as the moon, but it is not true-- emmeryn may be the sun but phila is not the moon, phila has always been the sky; open and high and vast, the canvas that allows the sun to shine and beam warmth into those beneath. and when the night comes emmeryn is the moon and phila is the stars hanging in the darkness; they are caught in a perpetual dance of the heavens wherein they are celestial concepts, never apart for a second. if they were the sun and the moon emmeryn thinks that that would mean they can never be together, and in a sense that is true, but emmeryn thinks that as long as she lives in a world where there is time she can melt into phila's arms then being together outside of them doesn't matter.
she keeps the blue silk in her hair when they're taken prisoner, when she breaks out with the help of the khan's soldiers, when she flies at speeds her poor pegasus can barely manage towards the northern palace in the plegian desert with the effigy of grima's skull-- a massive dragon the size of half a city that's used more as a museum instead of an actual palace nowadays, at least that's what phila's heard. there is blue silk in her hair, keeping her braid in place with a little bow in back, and she keeps it because emmeryn tied it and phila cannot stop feeling emmeryn's fingers in her hair, on her scalp, and it makes her heart ache to think that last time was the last ribbon she'd ever get because she has failed at her one duty of holding emmeryn's trust without breaking it.
gangrel makes a speech that phila does not listen to because all she sees is emmeryn, emmeryn up on the precipiece and phila think she must be so scared, because even if emmeryn is the bravest person phila knows she has always been afraid of heights and it is a long, long way down to the desert ground below.
i'm coming for you, phila thinks. it gives her conviction enough to shoot forwards but she cannot ignore the strangled screams of her lieutenants when the archers rise from the ground, and the scream of her pegasus when arrows pierce her wings. an arrow shoots underneath phila's pauldron and nearly tears her shoulder from her body, and even when blood spurts from the wound and splatters on phila's face she doesn't feel pain. she hits the ground without pain, rolls, comes up standing and sprints for the precipiece. more arrows-- one grazes her cheek, one hits her ear, one stabs itself into her midsection and the next two into her thigh. she falls and cannot stand but she crawls, the desert hot beneath her body, reaching with every shaking, bleeding breath. she coughs and blood spatters on the stone.
phila, she hears someone scream, and it's emmeryn, and phila feels her heart break. phila's eyesight is not good enough to see it but there are tears on emmeryn's cheeks and she wants to say i'll give you the fire emblem, i'll give you all the riches you want, i'll give my life if you just let phila live. but emmeryn knows this is beyond diplomacy. she has felt the violent hopelessness of wanting the world to stop before but she has never before felt the pull of it so strongly. the wind atop the precipiece rustles her skirt and her hair. she knows what must happen.
emm, phila chokes out. someone grabs her arm and it's the girl marth from the assassination attempt, the girl in blue that's lean and strong but doesn't look like she eats enough, and she looks young but there are bags beneath her eyes that mark her much older.
you'll die, marth says.
so be it, phila says. and she says emmeryn again, again, until a final arrow pierces her heart and all goes dark.
marth shuts phila's eyes. it would not be fair to make her watch.
there is blue silk in her hair, and it's torn at one end because an arrow went through it, but it's patterned with a faint fleur-de-lis and it was tied with emmeryn's nimble fingers. it is tied in a little bow in back.