Chapter Text
“I know he’s still alive. I’ll find him, Mama. Don’t worry.”
Anya tells Yor that nearly every day still. It’s been almost six years since Loid Forger was killed in a horrific car accident, his body unrecognizable. She still remembers the way Anya begged him not to go to work that day. Yor had never seen Anya like that. A ten year old girl clinging to her father’s waist sobbing for him not to leave her.
Ever since that night, Yor always wondered if a part of Anya knew. If she somehow knew she would never see her father again. It’s utterly impossible, fantastical even, but… The sad look in Loid’s eyes as he pulled Anya off him. The tears that slipped down his cheeks, as he wiped his daughter’s tears away and told her not to worry, and he’d be home for dinner. The look of absolute utter heartbreak as Anya crumpled to the floor as Loid walked out the door. Those are etched in Yor’s memory forever
Anya had been inconsolable up until the news of his death arrived. Then she had moved into a state of quiet, abject denial that she hasnt’ left even now almost six years later. And not once has Yor ever considered walking away from Anya, even though her marriage of convenience was now over. As far as she’s concerned that girl is her daughter, even if not by blood, and Anya has reassured her time and time again that Yor is every bit her mother.
It’s for her daughter that she worries. She grieved Loid, she really did. By four years there was a domestic love there that comes from spending your days with someone. Sometimes she still wonders if she had been in love with him. It’s possible. Loid could make her heart race, make her feel warm and appreciated. And once she got over her perpetual anxiety over intimacy, they had their share of trysts, though never really fully sharing a bedroom. Honestly she couldn’t have imagined a more perfect life, even if she had married out of love.
Whether or not she had been in love, no longer matters. What matters is that they shared love. They shared a life. And she had grieved for his death, she had grieved for the life they won’t get, but most of all she had grieved for the father Anya would no longer have. And though she still misses him sometimes, it’s now been longer without him, than it had been with. She’s carried on, raising their daughter. She won’t let herself get bogged down with the what-could-have-beens
And still practically every day Anya hits her with a resolute expression, eyes set and tells her, “I know he’s still alive. I’ll find him, Mama. Don’t worry.”
So she worries for Anya, who never accepted his death. She writes him letters that she keeps in a diary that she says she’ll give when she finds him. She became an Imperial Scholar a little more than a year later and included a copy of her picture in her robes. She’s still all smiles and boundless energy, especially around Yor, but she clearly withdrew into herself. She hardly makes times for friends.
Yor knows she spends much of her free time scouring the city, almost daily. On weekends she sometimes takes busrides further out. Is she hoping to catch a glimpse of green suit and blonde hair? Every summer break from Eden, for some inexplicable reason Anya begs to take a trip to Westalis. With the the ever easing tensions Yor has obliged on several occasions. And as if Anya thinks her father escaped across the border she spends her time wandering the Wastalian streets, looking around.
Sometimes on these excursions Yor will notice that she comes back with a nosebleed. And often she goes to bed early with a headache. Every now and then Yor will catch her talking to Bond, an old man dog by now. She will beg the dog to help her find Loid, and then end up crying into his fur when nothing comes of it. Yor doesnt’ dare interrupt these moments, because Anya’s never properly cried over Loid’s loss. Yor won’t even consider what will happen when Bond’s time comes.
Yor has tried to talk to her about it. They have had several difficult conversations over the years about Loid’s death. She even tried to send her to therapy, though after a couple months Anya stopped going, claiming the therapist was more of a hack than Papa. No matter what she says or does though, Anya has never lost the resolve that Loid is out there somewhere. And really, she’s wondered, from time to time, is it such a bad thing to hold on to that hope?
She talked to Yuri about it. Yuri had spent years wondering when their parents were going to come home until one day he just stopped wondering. Which is what he had to say about Anya. “One day she’ll stop. One day she’ll wake up and realize that instead of looking for Loid, she should focus on what she has.”
Though Yuri has also confessed to being not entirely convinced of Loid’s death, like it’s all some big conspiracy theory. He claims it s ‘Loidys’ way of getting away from the married life, faking his death and disappearing. He only brought that up once after the slap she gave him. He’s also told her that for some weird reason Anya told him that he should come to her should he find anything on her Papa at all. Like he would have some inside information.
Yor at least appreciates Yuri willing to help out with Anya. Look after her from time to time, and spend time with her. Anya always seems in bright spirits when Yuri’s around. “I’m going to pick his brain fufu.” She’s said, when Yor’s asked her about.
Now she watches Anya get ready for school, slipping her shoes on and pulling her Imperial Scholar cloak off the rack. She does note the duffel bag with her alongside her backpack.
Anya catches sight of her watchful gaze and waves, trotting over to come give her a hug. Yor returns the gesture.
“Mama,” she looks up at her with those big, shining green eyes with a look that Yor knows means she’s about to ask for a favor. “I love you.”
Yor cups her chin, “I love you too, Anya,” she says obligingly, but waits for the request.
“Do you think it would be okay if I took an overnight trip tonight?” she rocks back on her heels and tries to keep her eyes wide and innocent.
Yor blinks, “O-Overnight? Anya, I don’t know…”
“It’s the weekend, so I don’t have school tomorrow. It’s not super far away, just the Westalian side of Berlint. I’m doing a report on West Berlint, but it’s kinda a long trip just for after school. I’ve already looked into a place to stay, the Wayside Hotel. A-And Becky would be coming with me!”
Yor frowns. That last part is a lie. Anya’s never been a very good liar. She wants to go look for Loid. It’s not the first time she’s taken weekend excursions into West Berlint. It isn’t far all things considered but things at the border had been rather tense the last year or so, despite the agreements reached between the two sides. Yor’s never been one for politics, but working at City Hall, and as Thorn Princess she hears things even if she doesn’t entirely understand them.
“If it’s for a report, we could go tomorrow, the two of us.” She tells her.
Anya looks down, curling the fabric of her school skirt in her fingers. “I was really looking forward to the overnight experience. Becky says it’s really freeing and fun.” She looks back up and Yor catches the shine of tears behind her eyes, already feeling her resolve start to crumble, “I’ll be really careful. I’ll call as soon as I get checked into the hotel. I’ve saved up money so I won’t be stranded. Anya’s not a little girl anymore!”
Yor sighs. She’s tried being more of a disciplinarian in Loid’s absence, but she just doesn’t have it in her. She’d never been good at it with Yuri either. West Berlint, though once a part of Ostania, feels like a whole different country by now. It’s a little over an hour by train. A lot of people have migrated there recently, essentially defecting to Westalis. Yor isn’t sure what to think about that.
“Make sure you call as soon as you get in. And don’t go wandering around in the dark. And be careful of strangers!”
Yor can’t say no. She’s taught Anya how to defend herself. She’s improved significantly since she was a child. Anya also made a point in that she’s not a little girl anymore. She’s 15, almost 16 years old. An overnight trip shouldn’t be an issue. Even without the school or friends. Though Yor really does wish she was going with Becky or fulfilling some Imperial Scholar duties.
Besides. It’s not as if Yor is actually going to let her go alone. She’ll one hundred percent be keeping an eye on her from the shadows. Having made up her mind on that, she feels better.
“Have a good day at school, Anya. And be safe!”
“I…” Anya frowns with a look Yor recognizes but has never been able to place. “You really don’t have to worry about me.”
“I know,” Yor smiles, “But I’m going to anyway, because that’s what mothers do.”
She watches Anya leave with a smile and then sets about her morning chores before work. She’s going to have a busy night tonight keeping tabs on Anya.
-
“Want to hang out after school, I can give you a ride home?” Bekcy asks. I don’t know why I bother. She’s just going to say no.
Anya forces a smile, despite the bitter disappointed thoughts that filter through her head. “That’s okay, Becky. Maybe we can hang next weekend. Take a trip or something.” She means it too. It’s not like she doesn’t want to hang out with her.
“Sure Anya. See you Monday.” Would I even know what to say to her if she said yes. Ugh!
Anya puts a hand to her chest, hoping to quell the hurt. She knows she’s been distant, but if she’s going to find Twilight, it’s going to take every bit of focus and attention. He isn’t Westalis’ best spy for nothing. And she dedicated her life to that years ago.
She knows how everyone thinks of her. Quite literally. They pity her. They think she’s crazy. The poor girl who lost her dad and doesn’t know how to accept it. They all want her to realize he’s gone and move on. Sometimes, when the fruitlessness of her efforts start to weigh on her she wonders if they’re right. Should she just give up?
But Anya knows her father isn’t dead. She heard him detail the plans for his fake death as he was planning them. She also knows that he wishes he could stay. She heard him think it just as he walked out the door that day. That’s when she resolved to find him.
She’s grown a lot since Operaton Strix, which she can recognize. Her views on spies have grown less idealistic and a lot more pragmatic. She understands a little more the risks and sacrifices Twilight must have taken. Her childish mind couldn’t comprehend any of it back then, it was all just so cool and exciting.
Not that she doesn’t still think it’s exciting. Nor has she stopped seeking out excitement. Anya lives for a thrill if she can find one, and most of her stella’s have been gained through “extraordinary efforts”. She just also understands there is a lot more to it, and a lot of hardwork. If she’s honest with herself, if her papa hadn’t disappeared, she probably would have given up on the idea of becoming a spy.
Sometimes she wonders if this was his master plan to get her to excel. She always tried for Operation Strix, though maybe not her best. Back then it had been easy to believe it would go on forever. It had lasted four years. In the end she hadn’t even needed to become an Imperial Scholar. Her entanglements with Damian, her penchant for always being involved in whatever shenanigans were happening, her ability to “somehow” find herself in the center of it all, allowed Twilight the information and access he needed to Donovan Desmond and others. In reality, her ability to read minds was essential to Operation Strix’s success, unbeknownst to them.
WISE had long since given up on her academics, so she hadn’t bothered as much as she probably should have. That all changed come middle school. Because then she had a goal all her own. Operation Twilight! And to find him, she had to be smart like him.
The teachers had all been shocked. A girl who had gone from getting 30 and below on tests was suddenly breaking 80’s. She went from a bottom 3 student to a top 5 student (she never quite broke the top 3). When teachers asked her why, what changed, she simply told them she had to find her dad. That’s when the pity started. The furtive glances between educators whenever she handed in essays or gave reports on her dad. That poor girl, she still thinks he’s out there.
For years she would tell people that she didn’t think it, she knew it. Anytime anyone tried to convince her her father was dead she would vehemently tell them otherwise, and that she was going to find him. It’s only in the last year or so that she's stopped bothering to talk about it. They don’t care anymore. It’s been six years, and they have moved on. The pity is beginning to pass into annoyance, even with friends like Becky
Anya retrieves her weekend bag from her locker, and switches her school shoes for her street shoes. The train station isn’t far from Eden Academy, and she bought her ticket yesterday after class. Technically she has Imperial Scholar duties, but she asked to be excused for personal reasons. (She claimed her period, and the male instructor didn’t ask any followup questions, quickly telling her to take care of things while his face turned amusingly red like a tomato)
Once seated, she drapes her Impeial Scholar robe over her like a blanket. With ninety minutes until they reach the West Berlint Station she has time. Mostly she wants to sleep. Hard work never stopped being exhausting. Instead she pulls a book out of her bag. A fantasy novel about a heroine who needs to learn magic to save the realm. She’s been slowly picking away at it for a couple months now, in between her studies and her extracurriculars.
She gets about a page read before her mind gets distracted by the task before her. She hadn’t been able to fool Yor this morning, which means she’ll have a shadow in the form of an assassin on this excursion. It shouldn’t pose too much of an issue in the long run. Yor already knows what she’s up to, and Anya doesn't have any strict intentions of putting herself in dangerous situations.
Like her mother thought, it’s not the first time she’s come to West Berlint to search for Twilight. The one thing her mother doesn’t understand though, is she doesn’t come without a reason. West Berlint is technically Westalian territory, and so WISE agents can move about more freely. There is a WISE Headquarters there, though their main HQ is in Westalis proper. She comes to West Berlint when she thinks Twilight might have reason to be in the city.
Like major political happenings. Trying to wrap her mind around politics has been one of the hardest areas of her studies. She’s not even sure she understands what she reads most of the time, and lately she’s come to the conclusion that she doesn’t have to completely comprehend it. She just has to grasp enough to understand when things are happening. Summit meetings, major protests, military operations, mass migrations. All sorts of potential reasons to need a capable spy available.
Tomorrow there is supposed to be some joint press conference and celebration to reassure the people of the East and West’s continued efforts toward peace. A peace Twilight assured via Operation Strix, a peace she played a key role in back when she thought she was “saving the world”. While she still wants to fight for world peace, for a place children can grow up without fear - she understands how her thoughts and actions back then had been childish fancy.
Then again, Anya has to constantly remind herself, she had been a child. Unlike now, at the ripe age of fourteen-pretending-to-be-sixteen. And that’s when she’s not reminding herself that she isn’t actually fifteen. That one is harder, having lived two years above her actual age for almost ten years, she constantly thinks of herself the same age everyone else thinks she is. Becky once talked about emotional maturity versus mental maturity versus actual maturity. They were nine and being treated like nine year olds. Becky needed everyone to know that while she may look nine, and be nine, she was mentally and emotionally much more mature and therefore should be treated as such. At the time it had just flown over Anya’s head as smart words that Becky said. Now she understands it all too well.
The steady motion of the train eventually succeeds in lulling her eyes shut as her thoughts eventually wander from her mission, to fanciful dreams of what she can only hope is the outcome. Finding Twilight. A dream, a daydream, a scenario she constantly thinks about. It ranges from wild sentimentality, to realistic practicality. But never does it end in him not admitting to his mistake of leaving, and coming home with her. She’s played it out in her head so many times, in so many different ways she feels ready for whatever he throws at her when she finally finds him.
Anya jerks awake as the train comes to a none-too-gentle stop, an attendant coming over the speaker to announce their arrival at West Berlint. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she sighs, not having planned on falling asleep. Long rides do that to her though, almost every time. She grabs her bags and follows the crowds to the exit.
As she steps out from the station, breathing in the fresh air, she catches the hint of a shadow from the corner of her eye. A shadow connected to a familiar thought process of spiraling what-if scenarios and redoubled protection. The Thorn Princess is here to keep an eye on her. She continues down the street to the hotel, just a few blocks away.
Watching the faces of those that she passes, it’s tempting to open her mind and let it all in. But she needs to save that for tomorrow. No need to overload her brain before the conference. That had been a lesson she’s learned multiple times over the years. At first she was always reaching out, reading every mind she passed. That quickly proved to be too overwhelming. It would result in massive nosebleeds, headaches for days, or even passing out in the middle of the sidewalk.
It did spur her to learn how to utilize her abilities more. She’s better at controlling it than she used to be, though it still takes a conscious effort. She’s also learned how to expand her reach. Doing it too soon though could potentially put her out of commission for the actual event. Opening her mind and letting in everything around her is about the extent of her capabilities and she can’t keep it up long before it overwhelms her.
The hotel is a few blocks from the station, and easy to find. In fact, it seems everyone had the same idea, and she’s glad she made her reservation a few weeks ago when she’d first gotten wind of this event from Uncle Yuri’s mind. As far as she’s aware, he’s not been assigned as security here, which is good. The last thing she needs is another person to complicate things, especially when it comes to Twilight.