#deamare

send me a ♡ and i’ll describe what i think our muses’ child would be like

have you ever seen a child more doomed for a first love that ruins their life?

...and that's precisely why she has vowed to never fall in love. fiancés? not interested. confessions? she'd rather not. everyone keeps going on and on about "what a shame it is", but she doesn't really get it. a shame for who? she's considering convent life, to be honest.

a girl who sticks her to convictions regardless of if it makes others dislike her. surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) stubborn.

minor thrud blood; she has the most natural aptitude for thunder magic but prefers to use fire magic because the first time she did was the closest she ever saw ishtar come to expressing an opinion on something.

that said, her other mother is a bit too opinionated. it's hard to deny that miranda starts most arguments, though ishtar always backs down before it can truly be considered a "fight".

her listless appearance belies a deep rage at being born into a system and legacy that both simultaneously shames her while expecting things from her.

good lord the mental illnesses this kid is inheriting

A gift, mother had called that girl. A testament to your father's victory.

She could not have been more than a year younger than Ishtar herself, and yet, behind those bars, Ulster's princess looked to be nothing more than a broken girl meant for death.

Ishtar pitied her.

Of all the gifts that father had brought them, this one seemed to make mother the happiest. She was a trophy, a thing to admire. There was never a truer smile on mother's face than when watching her suffer.

And then one day she was gone. It was as though she had never been at all, for her place on mother's shelf was filled once more and so there was no reason to speak of that worthless girl anymore.

She looks different now, away from the shadows of that cell. Her face is flushed with life, eyes hot with a life they had not known all those years ago. Ishtar's skin prickles with the way they burn into her. This anger is more than deserved, and so her heart can only ache with its acceptance.

"You are alive," there is a relief in the way she breathes the words, one she can only imagine goes unreciprocated. "I had always hoped..." To see you survive, to tell you that I am sorry, to have become your friend. Ishtar swallows. "It is good to see you well."

She had always hated Friege's heir. She hated the hair color like silvery moonlight she shared with the rest of her wretched family, so out of place in the halls of Ulster's castle. She hated the way she walked around like it was her home, flanked by her parents, as if it weren't Miranda's home they were living in and as if they hadn't executed her parents. She hated that one by one, all of Ulster's people were replaced, until Count Conomor was the only one of her family's knights that visited her.

She resented that whole hateful family.

Most of all, she hated the way Friege's heir would visit her only to disappear again for weeks. Their interactions were never comfortable, not the way they had been when Prince Leif and Princess Nanna had stayed in her home, but some days they were the closest approximation to normal she had.

It would have been better had she been completely forgotten, save for the servants bringing her meals. It would have been easier to accept that way.

It had taken weeks after being sent to Melfiye to accept that she had been abandoned again. There would be no one coming to rescue her. If she rotted away in that monastery, who would even know?

Miranda had been thirteen years old when she was sent away from her only home, Ishtar scarcely a year older. They stand before each other now, newly young adults (no, still children, just adults in the eyes of society). There is no longer a distance between them as hostage and captor.

It's good to see you well.

Miranda really hates her.

"I am alive, of course!" No thanks to you. "What, were you hoping I'd die once your family sent me away?

So she chooses what is familiar, or at least as close as she might come to it. Scarlet hair and equally bright eyes, perhaps the youngest student she has seen since their arrival to the islands. In either hand she holds a cup of what had, before the midday sun, been about one part ice and one part berry punch.

By the time she's close enough to offer it to him, the ratio has gained a considerable amount of water.

"This is a peculiar place to make friends," eyes flit to the boy's bandana, "enemies even more so. Here, to help with the heat." She takes a sip of her own drink, then pauses. "Does it strike you as odd, how we were brought here just to turn on one another?"

Having still been a bit emotional from an earlier engagement, Ewan had been looking for a comfortable spot to think things over. In his hand was a slightly crinkled paper, similar to the one he found under his pillow a week earlier.

As lost in thought as the mage was, it wasn’t until Ishtar was already very close that he noticed her, and click! The switch went on. Earlier pensiveness morphed into bright enthusiasm with a big smile to match it. “Oh, wow! Thank you Miss!” Taking the drink gratefully, he immediately took a sip of it.

“Ah… that’s much better.” Feeling relief from the cool drink, he listened to her speak. “Yeah, you’re definitely right. All these objectives we had to choose from.. They’re definitely not very nice, huh?” He winced slightly remembering them. Some were more naughty than outright mean, but some were just cruel.

“Well, I’ll try to be as nice as I can be regardless. That’s way more fun! Oh, speaking of, I should introduce myself!”

"It has been a long time since I have seen you somewhere like this," it's conversational, if a bit strained. She had to have been at least a head shorter back then, before there stopped being time for the warmth of parties like these. "You are just as radiant now as you were then."

Carefully--almost timidly-- Ishtar undoes a pearl from the string in her palm. She offers it then, feeling impossibly small despite the height that time has given her over the other. "Here. For you."

Too long she wants to agree but it does not feel right. It feels unfair to try to compare the few years she has been in Fódlan to the many it has been for Ishtar.

She smiles at the young woman in front of her. She does not know how to explain it but she is so grateful that she is here. There are very few tethers here to the life she lived in Belhalla but each of them are so important to her. She loves Lord Sigurd and gives thanks to any god who will listen as often as she can that he has returned to her life but she still holds the life she lived without him dearly in her heart.

"Ishtar," Deirdre reaches for the offered pearl and holds it gently in her hand before attaching it to her brooch. "I will treasure it always." She is reminded of the flowers and pebbles she had always encouraged the children to collect in her Belhalla gardens.

She takes Ishtar's hand and wraps both of hers around it as she folds a small bell in her palm. Her twins are not here and she knows this young woman could never take their place but, perhaps, they could ease each other's worries together.

Despite their room arrangements, Ishtar's knowledge of the woman is still rather minimal. She offers a friendly (albeit small) smile, taking in the other's familiar appearance. What doesn't surprise her, however, is that Flora had elected to don the same foreign maid's uniform that Ishtar only ever seemed to see her in. Had she known to anticipate her attendance, she would have been happy to offer one of the few dresses she had collected since taking up residence in Abyss.

But that cannot be helped now, so instead Ishtar retrieves a pearl from her string and extends it in her open palm. An offer.

A token of friendship, she thinks to call it, but her tongue dries on the words. "If you find the time," she manages instead, "I would quite like to take a walk through the gardens before the night's end and... I would appreciate the company."

She catches Flora during a short moment of reprieve, the maid lacking a tray or dishes in hand to block her view from Ishtar. One of the Abyss' students...as it turns out, the precise one that Flora was rooming with for the month. Against the peculiar plans of assigning students with (partial) instructor, Flora feels relief seeing Ishtar's purple hair flowing through the ballroom.

"Lady Ishtar, it is a joy to see you tonight. As for myself...living in service for the students is my current destiny...for you, included."

Flora pauses when Ishtar extends a hand containing a pearl from her own brooch. This...is still part of the exchange activity for the night that the brown-haired boy mentioned, correct? If so, why does she not say anything about it...?

"Please accept an equivalent exchange, my lady," Flora's hands work fast to separate a pearl from her own string. Hers is clearer, yet smaller than Ishtar's own, a feature she can now observe when Flora picks up the offer and returns her own.

Time is short, and many students remain to serve...though Flora takes the time to hear the other's request. Ishtar fronts it as fine if time is little...but Flora could never prioritize a want from a close superior behind other tasks.

[ Garden ]

Ishtar imagines--just for a single, selfish second--that this is how they might have met. Two girls at some ball, able to ignore the weight of their names and blood. No history, no reason to avoid one another. Friends, maybe. Though she isn't really certain Miranda would have liked her in that lifetime, either.

At least it would have been easier, were the reason for her ire less deserved.

The string of pearls in her palm seems to grow heavier somehow. Most certainly, Miranda had proven that she didn't need Ishtar's help, and in fact didn't even want it, but perhaps she might consider the token a symbol of peace? It is owed, by now, as repayment for that dinner all those months ago. She swallows, drifting along rows of petals, closer and closer until they stand an arm's length away.

"For you," she manages softly, presenting a single pearl between two of her fingers, lips pulled into a small, nervous smile.

It may be a winter event, but with so many people gathered in one place, eventually the main hall begins to get quite warm. Add in the alcohol (awfully stingy for an event catering to nobles, aren't they?) and eventually one will find themselves so warm that even the biting winter air in the garden is a welcome reprieve.

Miranda is currently one such person. The freezing air stings her exposed legs and shoulders, but not enough that she feels the need to go back inside. Out here, the clouds of air that gather at her lips and the frozen flowers have no expectations of her and do not ask anything of her. When she returns back inside, she will carry the weight once more of what her title means.

...No, it doesn't matter if she goes back inside or not. So long as she exists within the eyes of others she will feel that weight. It is only her and Ishtar out here in the garden, but she does not allow her rigid posture to falter. If there is anyone she does not want to see her relaxing, it is Ishtar above all others.

"I wish you would not look as me as if you are a lamb at the slaughter." Miranda says without looking at her. "We both know you are something more fearsome than that."

Miranda frees her own pendant, a teardrop crystal, from its clasp. It's harder than she expects with cold fingers, but she presents it all the same.

"We are meant to trade these, aren't we? I have no need for your useless pitying, Princess Ishtar. We are equals now."

"I must ask your forgiveness," her voice is soft, though she does not gaze up towards him, "I could not protect you, in the end."

Her hands fall and she inhales slowly, letting her shoulders rise and fall before she speaks once more.

"But I owe you my thanks just as well," amethyst gaze turns towards him finally, "we were only able to make it so far because of your strength."

Ike shakes his head. It isn't her job to protect him. He doesn't need any sort of apology for this.

He doesn't know her outside of this but he senses the sorrow in her nonetheless. It makes him uncomfortable though not from any fault of her own. The sort of sadness that runs that deep always has him itching to try and fix it. But he won't force his help on her. Trying to throw himself against the world's problems isn't going to fix them.

Still he looks at her with compassion in his gaze. Tentatively he rests a hand on her shoulder. They've fought together now, that makes them companions of a sort.