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The heavy crunch of Finé’s steps on the path told Izetta all she needed to know about today’s mood.
She smiled, not bothering to look up from trimming the rose hedge as Finé drew level and unceremoniously dropped to settle by her wheelchair, skirts still somehow managing to fold themselves perfectly elegantly despite settling on gravel instead of thickly upholstered couch.
Her princess took a deep breath and let out what almost counted as a sigh, leaning over to prop an elbow on Izetta’s currently unused armrest as she watched Izetta ply the shears.
“Cutting them back again?”
“Mm.”
With a careful snip Izetta freed another budding branch and set it in the basket on her lap.
“It’s been a good year for them. Almost too good, Heinz says. If we don’t keep track of them they’ll spread out and block the path completely.”
At the edge of her sight Izetta caught the movement of Finé’s pale brows drawing together into a frown.
“Perhaps I should have some planted outside my office.”
Yep. Definitely the usual trouble.
Setting down the shears and tugging off her work gloves Izetta stretched, then tugged the old sunhat from her head and dropped it on Finé- Who never tanned and was even paler than usual after a summer spent mostly inside shuffling documents.
Sore back and preoccupied princess now taken care of, Izetta settled in for a long talk as she examined the wall of greenery in front of them for any signs of blight or pests.
“So, who proposed this time?”
“Brosella.” Finé nearly spat the country’s name.
“Apparently Prince Leopold is most grateful to Elystadt for our role in freeing his nation, and the only possible way to show that gratitude is to offer to marry me, now that his previous fiancée has come to her senses and married someone with an actual head on his shoulders.”
Izetta did her best to hide her gin, leaning in to check a few leaves that looked suspiciously nibbled on.
“I guess at this point the only people still making you offers would be the silly ones…”
“Silly isn’t the word for it.”
Plucking a rose from Izetta’s basket Finé fished a small knife from her bag of tools and began carefully ridding the flower of its thorns.
“They were always unwelcome but at least before the war I could understand why people such as Henry might dare to try, hopeless as it was. Now though?” Finé’s lips pulled into a rare scowl as she shaved off another barb. “Now the only thing keeping these offers from being blatantly insulting is the trouble pointing out said insult could cause.”
None of the neighboring leaves seemed damaged so Izetta moved on, making a mental note to show it to Heinz later just in case.
“People have always been good at ignoring what they don’t want to see.”
She noted with a shrug.
“What’s fine here in Elystadt is pretty strange to the rest of the world, so it’s probably better if most don’t take us too seriously.”
“They should.”
A few leaf casualties went fluttering to the ground as Finé’s pruning took a more vehement tone.
“Even if they have nothing but scorn for Elystadt’s traditions, even if the idea of two women repulses them- Even then, if only for your sake, they should show some respect and acknowledge you. Without your sacrifices half the world would be under Otto’s mad rule!”
She was nearly hacking at the rose by now, head bowed and face hidden by the sunhat’s tattered brim as her words grew bitter.
“After everything you’ve done the very least they could do in return is not ignore you, push you to the side.” A sharp breath in. “To pretend as if I could ever even think of spending my life with anyone else-”
Reaching over Izetta folded a tanned hand over one of Finé’s own paler ones, stopping the Archduchess just before she could accidentally nick herself with the knife.
Her touch did what she’d hoped it would.
The faint tremors of rage that had started running through Finé, tremors she didn’t have to repress here in the garden with no one but Izetta to see the loss of control, started to fade almost at once as Finé looked up.
Holding her gaze Izetta watched the hard light in Finé’s violet eyes slowly soften.
“As long as I’m with you.” She gently reminded her. “There’s nothing I could want or need from the rest of the world.”
Fondness, exasperation, amusement- Izetta watched them all flicker across Finé’s face.
“Want it or not, you still deserve their respect.” Finé countered.
Izetta smiled.
Six years after the war, after Izetta had decided to die ridding the world of magic instead of let Germania use it to conquer the world, and the matter of respect and gratitude owed was still a common ‘argument’ of theirs.
And after six years her embarrassment and frustration with the topic had run dry. She’d long since joined Lotte’s opinion that Finé’s stubborn stance on the issue was rather sweet.
“Deserve it or not.” She felt her grin widen as Finé’s lips twitched up at the twist of words.
“I don’t think many people even understand that something happened, let alone that there might be someone to thank for it.”
Finé grimaced, clearly disgruntled that she could not deny the truth in that.
Magic, even when Izetta had been preforming her feats before cameras and letting herself be caught on film, had always had a healthy group of doubters. Now that it was gone and had taken any chance to prove its existence with it, the number of people speculating that it was either a hoax or a code word for some other weapon had grown exponentially.
It had gotten to the point that Izetta was fairly certain she would live to see her war efforts debunked by the most prestigious people in the world.
Not an entirely bad thing, in her opinion. Getting to live a quiet life with the people she loved, even if for just a few years, was more important than respect or gratitude.
“Still.” Izetta had to admit. “It would be nice if there was a way to stop them from bothering you… Is there any kind of official statement you can make? Did your father ever have to deal with something like this?”
Sighing Finé shook her head, dropping the knife and turning her hand so she could twine her fingers around Izetta’s.
“He had to deal with whispers and rumors behind his back. However as a man, his being unmarried was much less of a scandal.”
Twirling the rose in her free hand Finé smiled crookedly.
“There were some mutterings when I was born out of wedlock, of course, but even most of those were over him naming his daughter as his heir.” Her eyes darkened. “If I had been a son I am sure the world would be happy to leave me to my supposed eccentric bachelorhood… And they certainly wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss you.”
Izetta frowned.
“Like I’ve said, that part doesn’t matter to me.”
She gave their hands a reassuring squeeze, a gesture Finé returned, but the bitter cloud hovering over her princess refused to break as she stared unseeingly at the rose.
Watching her made a painful knot tighten in Izetta’s chest.
She didn’t mind being overlooked or having people call her Finé’s close ‘friend’. They were friends after all, best friends since childhood who had fallen in love and somehow been given a chance to spend their lives together. And even Izetta had to admit that the thought of Finé accepting a proposal from anyone else, even one not involving marriage or a man, was so impossible that just trying to imagine it made her want to laugh.
What she did mind, though, was seeing how upset and helpless the constant dismissal made Finé.
Once she had been happy to die for the sake of a world where Finé could smile. This time there was no such clear cut solution, no colossal feat of magic she could perform in the name of the Archduchess who would always be her Princess.
Politics were not and would never be her world. She would have an easier time surviving if dropped in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on her back, and normally she was fine with that fact…
But sometimes she wished she had the power to fight in these battles too.
She didn’t, though.
“Finé?”
So she did the next best thing and leaned in as her Princess looked up, ducking under the brim of the sunhat to cup Finé’s cheek with her free hand.
A kiss, even as wonderful as theirs were, wasn’t a permanent solution.
Still the warm smile it managed to draw out was enough to chase the shadows away, at least for one afternoon.
-
“Let’s talk to Elvria about it.” Izetta suggested some time later as they lay on the grass under the shadow of the rose hedge, watching the clouds race across the blue midsummer sky. “Maybe the two of you can think of something together.”
She felt a flicker of tension run through Finé, pressed against Izetta’s side, head resting on Izetta’s shoulder.
“What is there to think of?” Finé wondered. “The only way I could more direct in my refusals is if I start slapping each new suitor with a glove and demanding to duel them over the insult to you.”
Giggling, Izetta wound a strand of Finé’s golden hair around her finger.
“It’s a little scary how easy it is to imagine you doing something like that.”
Finé smiled, a mischievous glint flashing in her eyes.
“I’ve been sorely tempted a time or two.”
Her dry tone startled a laugh from Izetta, enough to make her shift and roll to face Finé as she held her sides.
“P-please.” She finally gasped, still grinning and amused at the silliness of the idea.
“Please don’t start war over me…”
“I won’t.” Finé promised quietly.
She hesitated, hand coming up to comb Izetta’s unruly red hair away from her flushed cheeks and matching eyes, staring as if trying to memorize every detail.
“But there really is very little I would not do for you. And nothing that I wouldn’t like to do for you, if would let me.”
For a long moment their held each other’s gaze, violet and deep red, unflinching and raw.
Raw, because six years was nothing at all, not with memories that still woke the Archduchess in the middle of the night- Terrors that left her shaking and panicked even after her hands found Izetta lying beside her, scars that meant she could not even watch Izetta sleep without being gnawed at by fear born from a month of not knowing if the girl she loved would ever wake up again.
Raw, because Finé had already proven how much she was willing to do for Izetta.
Such as suggest surrendering to a tyrant if it meant keeping Izetta from having to fight again, if it meant not having to watch Izetta use a magical artifact that inflicted so much pain and drained the user’s life away as well.
Such as agreeing- after many tears- to let Izetta sacrifice herself to save the world, and promising to continue the fight even after her death.
For the very first time Izetta felt a prickle of anger towards the steady stream of Finé’s suitors.
They had both fought so hard for each other in their own ways.
They had been through so much and it was a miracle they had both made it to this point. Izetta who should have died in the rush of magic draining from the worlds’ ley lines or in the days following it when she could just as easily have never been found or been sent to Germania as a hostage. Finé who could have been killed while sneaking into enemy territory to stop the world’s leaders from signing over to Germania before Izetta took the empire’s main weapon away from them- Finé who had spent months believing that Izetta had died and that she would never even have a body to bury…
It should be enough. She knew the world wasn’t fair, her Grandmother had taught her that before anything else, but it should have been enough by now. Nothing about them being together should give Finé a reason to do anything but smile.
Except that the world didn’t want to accept that they were together, that they would always be together, that they were devoted and in love and might as well be married for all the interest they had in anyone else-
Izetta blinked and replayed that last thought in her head, red eyes going wide.
“What is it?” Finé had noticed the look of dawning realization.
“That’s the same look you had the day Heinz explained that you could help out with the gardens without having to sneak out of the palace.”
Izetta stared at her, still a bit in shock and trying to sort through the sticking points of her sudden idea.
“Finé.” She asked as casually as she could. “Why are marriages not part of Elystadt tradition?”
Finé’s brow furrowed in confusion but she didn’t hesitate to answer.
“From what I understand, it has to do with the connection between marriage and procreation.”
Her frown deepened as she tried to summon up dusty recollections of her childhood lessons- Religion had not been a main interest of hers as she grew older, but Elystadt culture was rooted in its faith and she was proud to be a part of both even if belief was not her strong suit.
So it was with some shame that she realized she only had bits and pieces of the answer to Izetta’s simple question, a few retained fragments she hurried to stitch together.
“The Perfects say that our souls are trapped in the physical prison of our body’s flesh, waiting to be freed from the cycle of rebirth. Because of that…” This really should not be so hard to remember. “… to bring more children into the world is discouraged, though obviously people do so anyway.”
Izetta nodded, mostly to herself.
“Then, what would your priests- your Perfects- say about marriage between two people who can’t procreate?”
“Not very much, I suppose.” Finé lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“We don’t have a service to mark marriage with so it would really just be two people choosing to use a specific word for their relationship, which most do anyway.”
“But they wouldn’t disapprove?”
“I don’t see why they would.” Eying Izetta curiously Finé asked again. “What is this about…”
The question trailed away as she watched a deep blush creep over Izetta’s cheeks, warming the palm of her hand.
Izetta saw the exact moment it all clicked into place.
“Oh.”
Finé stared into nothing for a moment looking slightly dumbfounded.
Then she beamed, grinning as she pushed herself up and leaned over Izetta for a quick, delighted kiss.
“Incredible.” She whispered without pulling away, lips tickling Izetta’s as she pressed another kiss to the former witch’s bright red cheek. “This whole time there was such a simple answer and I couldn’t see it…”
“I-is it simple?” Izetta stuttered as her heart thudded in her chest.
“It would mean going against your traditions, and everyone in Elystadt might not understand or be happy about it- Actually most people will probably be against it-”
“But it will be almost impossible for the rest of the world to deny.” Finé’s eyes shone with excitement. “No matter how much they hate it they won’t be able to ignore it, and as for traditions?”
With a laugh Finé gave Izetta one more kiss before sitting up and pulling the wheelchair closer for her.
“I will be honored to break them all for you.”
A small smile tugged at the corners of Izetta’s mouth as she settled back in the chair, watching Finé gather up the basket of rose cuttings, sunhat, and tools, presenting them to her with a flourish and a wink.
“So, shall we go ask Elvira about arranging some sort of wedding ceremony?”
Izetta shook her head.
“Not just yet.” Despite her lingering blush she felt a slightly wicked edge creep into her smile.
“Did you really forget the all import first part of this, even though it’s what brought us to this idea?”
Finé’s head tilted in confusion.
It only took a moment’s thought though before her eyes lit up.
Despite being so much paler than Izetta, Finé almost never blushed and even when she did it was just a barest dusting of color.
But there was definitely more than a little color on her cheeks as she took Izetta’s hand went down on one knee.
“I don’t know the right way to ask this.” She apologized past her grin. “But I hope this is close enough.”
Izetta hadn’t noticed the rose Finé was holding until she offered it to her- it was the same one Finé had been trimming earlier, now with a small thorn free patch of stem that fit Izetta’s fingers perfectly as she accepted it.
“Izetta…” The former witch felt her heart skip a beat. “Would you like to marry me?”
A lump rose in Izetta’s throat.
She nodded as she fought to find her voice again, feeling the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes.
“I think we’ve been married for a while now.” Izetta pointed out. “But would be nice to tell the whole world in a way they will understand.”
“Is that a yes?”
Finé teased, looking happy enough to start floating right off the ground magic or no magic.
Izetta’s laugh was just a little bit choked as she pulled her princess into hug.
“Yes.” She whispered into the crook of Finé’s neck.
“It will always be a ‘yes’.”
Right about then was when Finé’s own tears spilled over.
It took them a while to leave the garden. It took considerably less time to track down Bianca and Lotte- who would have given them hell if they hadn’t been the first to be informed- and it was a good half hour after that before they could find Elvira and ask her advice.
Her reaction was surprisingly subdued, or perhaps, just surprisingly honest for once.
Congratulations, you two. She had said with a smile.
I would wish for you both to find happiness together, but I think anyone can see that you already have.