#ulircursed

WHEN ANDREI HAD FIRST APPROACHED HER　𑣲　with a formal invitation to dance, she hadn't exactly known how to respond. her?! now?! but the truth was that she just didn't feel ready. she knows that she probably never would. even though, deep down, this was exactly what she'd put all that work into getting ready for. carefully straightening and fastening each part of the heavy silk ensemble piece by piece ; doing and undoing her hair until it was exactly, pristinely, not-a-strand-out-of-place perfect ; willing her pounding heart to steady when the time had finally come and she'd made her way toward the doors both anticipating the spectacle and the magic and dreading the count of everything that could possibly go wrong.

when she'd looked at herself in the mirror, it was his eyes she'd imagined seeing her and finding her dazzling, his imagined opinion she measured herself by.

and yes, when she'd imagined a dance, it was his steps she'd envisioned falling into place along hers.

(　with more than a little chagrin, given that her father was going to be there. she wanted both, of course. but there were also the downsides that came with both. . . she only hopes he wouldn't——confront him or anything like that. after all she'd told andrei about him too in the past. dragons.　)

and now, the moment had come.

and it was more nerve-wracking than any test she'd ever taken.

". . . you said this dance is customary to your country?" it's been a few minutes——quieter than she'd imagined in her daydreams ; the scenes that always played out in her head were light and joyous, full of natural conversation——but it'd taken her that long before she finally felt comfortable enough in the three-step routine of the waltz to brave the chance of saying something without accidentally stepping on the hem of her furisode and bringing one of those worst-case scenarios tearing straight from her head into reality.

"...do you think these may be alcoholic?" The class in her hand is tilted casually to the side as she asks this, as though inspecting the liquid that has gathered at the bottom of the goblet might reveal the answer to her.

She very much doubts it, but she is also rather surprised by the clear decrease of opportunity this year. She is, by no means, heavily invested in the idea, but she at least would like the opportunity.

Her own cup contains a bright red colour, like blood spilled across the snow. She is actually quite thankfully that she does not wear any lip colour to be stained by it as she takes a small bite. It is not unpleasant.

"Should we ask them how they managed these colours?" Mitama grins as she holds up the glass for Andrei to inspect. "They may have found a more efficient solution to it than we did."

"No."

She doesn't owe him any more response than that. She barely even looks him in the eye as she walks past him, bumping her shoulder against him in the process.

She does not have time for this nonsense today.

Send ♡ to see what my muse thinks of yours

○○○○○ | ATTRACTION ○○○○○ | AFFECTION ●○○○○ | INTEREST (i am emotionally invested in the well-being of your bird. if we were separated i'd be taking him in the divorce kind of energy here) ○○○○○ | LOYALTY ○○○○○ | TRUST

"You didn't participate in the mock battle the other day." It's a statement, not a question, because Andrei had deliberately sought her out, combing through the crowd for the familiar sight of his fellow Ashen Wolf.

Year after year, their 'house' scatters at the start of this battle, each with their own loyalties to those aboveground. He holds no expectations that they would've been allies, had Marni been there, but it hardly matters. He takes out the juice box that Camilla had offered him, holding it out towards her.

"I saved this for you, from that counselor who hands out beverages after the battle."

He could make excuses, claim his disinterest in such a childish choice of beverage, anything for the sake of maintaining his pride in the face of an offer as this, but he does not. He remembers Marni puffing herself up when he'd seen her for the first time after the fall of Garreg Mach, her intended nonchalance not quite sufficient to mask the undertone of abandonment in her words. He hopes this gesture alone can convey what he had no idea how to begin to say, then or now. Neither apology nor consolation, but something more like reassurance.

That she had been kept in mind, this time, even despite her physical absence.

(Andrei had never been good at reassurance, but for Marni, he thinks he is willing to make the effort.)

"Perhaps you will be there next time, then?" he asks in a light tone, "The drink is better cold, after all."

Marni is a 'student' in the same way someone might look at particularly mangy dog and call it a wolf. It's a title given to her out of a sense of guilt; no one really knows what to do with a school aged girl who balks at the concept of classes, but takes to being assigned missions like a fish to water. Rather than attending useless classes, isn't it much better to prove how useful she can be?

She doesn't really think she can be blamed for that. It's not like she'd ever had the chance to attend the academy in Elusia either.

There are many tasks that can be assigned to a freakishly strong girl. Tasks that fall within her comfort zone and those that fail to hold her interest for very long without the promise of praise on the other side to sweeten the deal. With the aboveground world in shambles, there are no shortage of heavy things that need to be lifted and it's not like anyone would notice if a girl who wasn't supposed to exist anyway slipped away for a bit on the request of a clergy member.

She hadn't even realized what day it was until after she had come crawling back to Abyss.

"AHHHHH!!!"

...is the anguished scream that escapes her lips the second she sees the juice box being offered to her. Even without Andrei's explanation, Marni would know that juice box anywhere. She grips her head, mentally kicking herself for not realizing she would be missing the mock battle.

"I knew I should've turned down that stupid mission!" She groans, thrashing about. "Ugh, I can't believe I missed out on getting praise from her! Last year I was lucky to see her twice, but what if that was my only chance this year?!"

"Just go upstairs more" would be the simple solution... were she not desperately trying to avoid seeing more than a handful of people. Her fellow Ashen Wolf probably understood that sentiment better than anyone else.

The juice box that she dejectedly accepts (after a little more screaming and whining about her poor fortune) is room temperature now. The juice inside is probably unpleasantly warm now from being carried around until her return and it doesn't even come with praise from Camilla, but...

"Well..." Marni digs at the ground with her shoe after she has fully calmed down, avoiding Andrei's gaze. "No one's ever saved something for me before... So I guess I can go next year. If you're also there."

The ground sure must be interesting today, the way her gaze is focused on it.

(She is his last real tie to the Grannvale of his past. The Grannvale as he had known it, rather than what it would be. Andrei cannot imagine ever being glad she is gone.)

"Lady Deirdre." He bows his head to her, a respectful arm's length away. "My sincerest apologies that I was unable to be by your side when the monastery was attacked."

While those who'd made it to the underground bunker had had a rough month, he could only imagine those left behind had fared worse. It had taken the final miracle from the Projectionist to undo all the deaths that had doubtlessly occurred.

Andrei could not, and would not, ask this directly of Lady Deirdre, but the other question that had occupied his thoughts for half the month floats once more, unbidden, to the forefront of his mind.

"While we were away... I met a man by the name of Lord Seliph," he says tentatively, "We were able to be of some aid to one another during our efforts in gathering supplies."

It should be a meaningless statement to her, shouldn't it? Merely an odd choice in small talk. She has no memories of that time, she's told him this long ago. His breath turns shallow anyway as he falls silent, looking to her for her response.

She is hit with a wave of guilt when he approaches her with an apology. He wishes he had been there by her side but her thoughts had only been of her son. Lord Andrei, her other friends. They had been forgotten while there was potential that her Seliph was in danger.

They should have mattered too.

She drops her head as well. "We are together again now and we are both unharmed at least."

He continues, speaking of his experiences while they were parted. And what he chooses to share brings a brightness back to her eyes and a smile widens across her face. She looks up at him again, eyes meeting his, and she claps her hands happily before clasping them together.

♡ ˚· @ulircursed asked:

"You are of Grannvale." More statement than question, and something he had silently suspected for some time. Foreign accents are more difficult to parse in the Fódlanese tongue, but not impossible, and even beyond that, there are always the subtle habits of behavior that marked one's homeland. And so Andrei had been fairly certain that Ishtar, a fellow in the Abyss, in the Ashen Wolves, had been Grannvale nobility, just as he was. That she utilizes thunder magic as a noble had not been immediately unusual. Many of their enlisted had been minor nobles, as he'd learned over the course of fighting alongside them in Isaach. Yet... Look away, Ishtar had said, before unleashing a devastating strike of thunder against their enemies, but in that split second before he had averted his gaze, Andrei had seen the pattern upon her tome. It's a pattern he'd seen only once or twice before, recollection stirring uneasily within the pit of his stomach. "That tome you wield... it is the Holy Weapon of House Friege, is it not?" he asks, voice carefully level, "...Neither of Duke Reptor's daughters had inherited major Thrud blood." Of that, he is certain. News traveled quickly within Grannvale, after all, and the delicate balance of power between the duchies hinged so heavily on the presence of holy blood within each noble house. Yngvi would know. Even if Ishtar were one of the daughters in disguise, it should not be possible for her to wield her family's treasure. "Who are you?"

For how long has she feared that recognition? The question that follows it?

Ishtar's spine stiffens, her skin crawls. She looks at the man from the corner of her eye and forces herself not to flinch or shy away, to remember what is expected of her name from someone who knows it. All of her sin is hers once more.

Only she falters at the name, her grandfather's. Her single scrap of grace is that he does not know her name enough to know whereupon her family tree it falls, what blood stains her branch.

"His son," she answers, "is my father."

And it is strange, the feeling it evokes to admit that after so long. There is guilt, a selfish gratitude for the gaps in knowledge that she might can hide behind. A pride, one branded so deep into her flesh it scars bone, to lay claim to her name. A relief, as wrong as it might be, at being seen.

Silver eyes turn, peer at Andrei. Only after the day that might have marked her fate in a fairer world did she hear about all that had happened where she could not see, where news could not reach, and whispers of a man piece together a thought in her mind before she can shake it away. He had not been there, it could not have been him.