Chapter Text
When they were younger, the twins used to make a game of it. Ephraim would slip into the kitchen to grab at a loaf of warm bread or soft, doughy pastries, stuffing them into the front of his shirt until someone noticed him. He would take off sprinting, the shouts of whatever unfortunate soul happened to catch him this time echoing down the corridor. The key to the trick, however, came when he rounded the corner, a half-panicked grin plastered on his face, and crouched into the corner as Eirika took off running. He would sink down into the shadows as his pursuer rounded the corner a few seconds later, though sometimes he would give in to temptation and stick out his leg to send them toppling over.
After the two of them were a ways away, Ephraim would usually take a moment to help himself to one of the treats he had stolen, paying little mind to the fact that half of them were crushed, smeared across his shirt. Eirika was faster than he was, especially when they were young, and usually managed to completely avoid whomever was chasing her. But even on the occasions when they did catch up to her, she would just flash a smile and shrug at them. After all, she hadn’t even been in the kitchen that day, how could she have stolen anything?
It wasn’t fair of them, of course, and even if puberty hadn’t made that particular trick much harder to pull off, Eirika probably would have put a stop to it. After all, she knew, a princess wasn’t supposed to play tricks on her subjects. She needed to command their respect. To gain their trust. Princesses didn’t lie.
~
When Kyle and Forde find her, she’s pulling her blade out of Tirado’s stomach. Maybe that’s why they tell her the truth immediately. She may have been in a clean white dress the last time they saw her, perched on the edge of the stairs to see them and Ephraim off, but they know the look of someone who doesn’t have time for soft words. Her face is flint, sparking off the edge of her still bloody sword, as if their faces have already given voice to the truth that their words trip over in pursuit of.
Ephraim is dead.
The first thing she thinks, as she wipes the blade against the corner of her skirt, is that she will have to be careful around the cooks, because they know the trick by now.
And then she has to backtrack, to try and makes sense of that thought, because part of her is still trying to put together the pieces. It is the part that remembers the look on King Hayden’s face when he told her that her father was dead. The part that remembers Seth’s hand on her shoulder, and those whispered condolences from everyone in the room, assuring her that they would understand and support her should she chose to end her journey there, to fall to the grief they were sure was snapping at her heels.
That part of her brain reminds her that she has lost a father and a brother in a span of less than a month.
The other part of her brain tells her that Renais has lost its king and its prince, and that is the part that straightens her back.
“Take me to him.”
~
He had passed away only a day earlier from an infected wound he had received while trying to escape. The knights, Forde explains to Eirika, were used to having heal staves or vulneraries readily around, and hadn’t know what to do for him in the middle of a forest, unable to go find help for fear of discovery. He tries to make it not sound like an excuse.
Eirika kneels next to him. Kneels next to his corpse. It’s not bloody, and that’s what’s strangest. The gash on his side is well bandaged, his clothes washed. Even the hole in his tunic is patched, if roughly. But he is still pale and cold and his face is empty. After battlefields, the quietness of it hits harder than any final gurgled scream. Cold sweat still clings to his face and hair, and Eirika brushes his bangs out his eyes as gently as possibly. Her brain is still working, still trying to catch up with itself.
She straightens without turning to face Kyle and Forde. “I need some privacy.”
Eirika listens to the rustle of trees as they leave, standing quietly until they are an appropriate distance away. When she does finally move, she does so with an efficiency that surprises even herself.
Ephraim’s armor, what he’s still wearing that is, comes off easily enough. The bulk of it, including the breastplate and pauldrons, is piled on the ground next to him. She removes his greaves first, laying them softly on the ground with the rest of the armor. The bright red of her boots would be a dead giveaway, she decides, and slips his black ones off as well. The tasset she unclips fairly easily, sliding her hand under the small of his back to lift up his hips, so she can slide it out from under him. His cape is tangled around him, having been used as a makeshift blanket, and it takes a bit of work to sort out. His gloves also give her trouble in getting off, since his hands had already started to stiffen. She spends several minutes slowly working each finger out of the glove.
That’s when the first wave of nasuea hits, and she falls backward from where she had been crouched over him, hands grabbing at fistfuls of dead, half rotten leaves in an attempt to find something solid to brace herself against. She backs into a nearby tree and digs her fingers into the bark, feelings it scrape unforgivingly at her knuckles as she peels away huge sections of it and throws it to the ground, her eyes never leaving her brother’s body. His right glove hangs limply, half off arm, and she can still see the outline of his curled fingers in the shape of it. For a moment she feels as if he is reaching for her, and her heart flips in fear and relief, a joy at the fleeting thought that he might be alive after all, and a terror that he carries the same fake life as the strange creatures that have been haunting her journey for weeks now.
And then it’s gone again, and he is just a dead body again, pale and lonely and half-undressed. Eirika takes deep breaths to steady herself, sinking back against her mutilated tree, running her fingers gently along the soft sticky underside that her frantic scramble at its has revealed. She focuses her thoughts to one sharp point, that one point that had been stuck inside of her chest since the moment she heard that Ephraim was dead. Renais needs him. Renais needs him more than it needs me.
Renais had always needed him more, wanted him more. Where she struggled every day to carry herself with the proper bearing, to hold her head high and keep her arms close to her body, to walk at the right pace and with the right steps, he charged ahead with full faith that there would be an army at his back. That respect that had taken her years to cultivate, he had commanded almost without thinking. The kingdom had already fallen to chaos with her father’s death. The thing that had held every together before was her insistence that Ephraim was still alive. It was what had allowed her to lead them to pierce Grado’s occupation of Renvall. But now? What hope is their of piecing her kingdom back together when she barely feels capable of holding the respect of a small retinue of knights? No, there is no question in her mind of what she needs to do.
She finishes her task quickly, removing his tunic and other glove. She fishes through his bags to find a spare undershirt and pair of pants, not wanting to leave him completely naked. The bracelet gives her pause. She knows that she needs to keep his safe, but she can’t think of a good place to hide her own. It takes her a moment to realize that she doesn’t have to. If she had died, she was sure Ephraim would have taken her bracelet for safekeeping. So she simply puts hers back on after she pulls on his gloves, slipping his own on over her newly gloved left arm.
The rest of the armor goes on easily, though she has to pull the breast plate uncomfortably tight against her chest. At some point, she knows, she will have to find a way to bind her breasts, but she’s not quite sure how to attempt that for now, and she’s fairly sure that the armor will flatten her out well enough for the time being.
Her hair is the last hang up. She knows that there is no way that she can easily match Ephraim’s cut, having neither the means to cut it cleanly nor the time to spend on it. Her only hope is that, since most of the troops haven’t seen Ephraim for the better part of several months, they won’t notice the difference as peculiar.
She lops it off in a few quick strokes of her sword, scattering it beneath the trees and kicking up dirt and leaves until there is no trace of the turquoise strands anywhere in the camp. Her neck feels strangely cold without it’s comforting weight. Finally satisfied, Eirika leans down to pick up the last piece of her costume. Standing, she hefts up Ephraim’s lance, noting with dismay how much heavier it is than the lithe rapier she is used to wielding. That will certainly take some getting used to.
And that’s it. She swallows back whatever tears still cling to the edges of her vision, taking deep breaths to steady herself.
Eirika of Renais is dead. Long live the prince.