『 “All eyes on you” 』
| Aldrich Edelweiss and Victoria Shard | 🗡️ + 🪞 |
✎ᝰ. synopsis : “I love you the first time, I love you the last time— Yo soy la princesa, comprende mis white lines.”
✎ᝰ. content warnings : aldrich himself, dark romance, stalking (from both parties), allusions to murder
✎ᝰ. genre : romance of the dark variety, fluff but in a messed up way, oc x oc
( ˚₊· ͟͟͞➳❥) a/n : As the president and only member of the Aldrich Edelweiss fanclub, I miss writing for his silly demented ass 😔 so I hope Revington is able to enjoy this piece, even through the potential ooc moments, just as it had been an enjoyable (yet tortuous) process writing it 🥰
✎ᝰ. : reblogs > likes
Aldrich found entertainment in a great, many ways. A more recent one came in staring at a respectable distance— close enough to see her, far enough to not be deemed conspicuous.
Marvelous, he thought behind one of the trees of Pomefiore’s forests, having slaughtered every woodland critter who'd tried making his presence known to her. Absolutely marvelous.
Over the past week, Victoria Shard had caught the attention of Aldrich Edelweiss; prince of Edelweiss, and leader of his troop of witch hunters.
Aldrich couldn't recall when this fascination with her began, but the prince couldn't be bothered to retrace his footsteps as to when it had happened— his focus remained on her, her and her alone.
He quietly sighed, blissful and dreamy at the sight of her. Sat atop a rock, humoring the desires of the woodland critters fortunate enough to encounter her, and not him.
Her movements were poised, precise. As swift as a blade slicing through to the apex of the heart, and aiming as true as any arrow. Akin to a princess, Aldrich thought with eerie satisfaction.
“So, so beautiful... so perfect...” he complimented her in a hushed voice, his canines digging into the flesh of his bottom lip, and yet he didn't care.
Inevitably, his lips bled the longer his teeth stabbed into its flesh. And as his blood slowly slipped down from his chin and onto the grass below his feet— finally, Victoria felt the ever-distant feeling that she was being watched.
A rabbit laid asleep on her lap, its snow white fur gently caressed in between the fingers that combed through it. “How sweet…”
“Although, I have this feeling,” Victoria said, her free hand below the chin of a doe, as if expecting it to react or reply to her observation. “Am I being watched? Or have I truly come to my wit's end?”
Aldrich felt the hitch of his breath against his throat, one foot taking a step back. Should he dare approach? Profess his loyalties and all that he desired unto her?
Or would he remain a twisted, broken-minded coward — whether he acknowledged that as fact or not — and flee like a stray?
He fled. Of course he did, it was his only option left on the table. The last time an encounter in the forest happened between him and his savior, she'd threatened him; used her magic against him while he'd been vulnerable, without a knife strapped to his side.
It was the most gorgeous sight; the way the sun’s bright fixtures illuminated her at her back, looming over him as though she were a goddess reborn. A saint exempting him from the land of promise to repent for his sins.
He'd wanted to kill her, then. Strangled her throat until her face was comparable to the purple of her hair, until her eyes ceased to open again, and until he could cut out her heart and display it in his room for only him to see.
Since then, he'd dreamed again, and again. Of her. In the good dreams, he'd hunted her down like a starved cat on a search for its next meal.
In the bad dreams, he embraced her and never wanted to let go; her fingers in his hair, her lips against his, their arms wrapped eternally around each other.
In the far off distance from where Victoria stood, her words somehow echoed throughout the forest— reaching far enough for him to hear her and the melodious song her voice had elicited.
“Strange… ever strange, indeed.”
“He's looking… again.”
“Pay no mind to him,” said Victoria to Zenith, the former appetizing on a box of dark chocolate brownies as her dessert. “I can assure you, he isn't of your concern.”
But Zen was not so easily convinced. “Sure he isn't.”
“He is of little importance, Zen.”
“Yeah, well, important or not, I am not enjoying the way he's looking at you.”
Victoria sighed. “... You want me to send Mephisto after him, don't you?”
Now that got Zen to grin a little more than before. Maybe, his eyes suggested, filled with mischief and a need for entertainment.
“No.”
“What? Why not??”
“Aldrich isn't a threat.”
“Aldrich Edelweiss. Not a threat.” He looked like he could burst into laughter any minute now after a statement like that. “Very funny, Tori.”
Victoria deadpanned. “He isn't.”
But it isn't looking like he's going to relent, she thought with a tiny and barely concealed frown as she assessed Zen and his expressions.
Mephisto— Victoria's loyal, obedient, little corvid she'd inherited from her late grandmother — was exclusive to keeping an eye on those Victoria personally deemed a threat.
To her, Aldrich didn't qualify as one. He checked off some boxes, sure, but a threat? That's the last thing Victoria would ever call him.
But Zen was relentless. After this, she knew he'd continue to pester and convince her into spying on Aldrich through Mephisto— a nice sentiment on his end, but one she'd consider inconvenient.
Inconvenience, however, wasn't enough to stop a sigh from escaping her lips at what she was to say next.
“... I'll see what I can do about Mephisto.”
Zen smiled. Satisfied, she'd call the expression, and before she could mumble at how he wouldn't allow a no out of her, he pulled her in for a hug.
“Good to know, Tori,” Zen murmured in relief.
And that was enough to prevent her from getting any more annoyed than she already was.
This damn bird, Aldrich thought to himself the more it became clear that Mephisto just wouldn't leave him alone.
For the past four weeks, he hadn't been able to get even a fraction close enough to where he wanted to be— to keep his sights on Victoria was a form of entertainment as much as it was a twisted show of his devotion, and he couldn't even have that.
His patience thinned, as did his sanity. Clueless to who the crow that's been stalking him like a circling vulture waiting to take whatever's left, Aldrich had taken a few extra measures into making sure it stopped following him.
He'd shot arrows, dabbled in throwing his blades right at the damn creature, hoping that one of them could land a hit.
But it wouldn't let up, always somehow returning to him unscathed when he'd been so sure that he'd targeted them dead more than once.
The damn bird even stole his prized dagger right out of his grasp. And every night since, he dreamed of cutting it open with that same blade, presenting the contents to his savior as a sacrifice worthily presented.
He found solace tonight, knowing that Mephisto was seemingly nowhere as he watched Victoria. At first he found it odd, considering a forest deep into the long hours of midnight would be an almost perfect location for a crow to lurk and sneer.
Aldrich Edelweiss, however, hadn't bothered to care too much about it. Not while he admired Victoria — a closer distance than they'd usually be — singing a symphony even the coral sea sirens knew never to compete with.
The animals adored her, sitting by her, having the pleasure of having their head on her lap with their fur combed through by her fingers.
His hand twitched, a wave of longing crashing over him as it always did; the temptations of reaching out and having the attention of all those fur-faced and like-minded winged creatures taken away and directed unto him.
His compromise was a quiet sigh, a hand over his heart. A silent duet they shared, a wordless melody only they knew the lyrics of, even when one didn't notice the presence of the other.
But the sound of a familiar caw brought an end to a moment of entrancing quiet. Bringing Victoria to her feet, and Aldrich with his guard up, bow and arrow in hand and a quiver strapped to his back.
This time, he'd make the shot.
“Mephisto.”
So that was its name. Even so, all too late, Aldrich didn't even process the hand that reached out to the corvid as he fired a single shot.
Just as it was about to pierce through his tormentor, it froze like ice and dropped to the ground. Shattering like broken glass in its place.
The prince's broken, lovesick heart sank at the sight of his savior’s hand reaching out to let his tormentor perch on it like a throne, her fingertips gently caressing the underside of its beak.
“There you are…” Victoria hummed. “I should feed you more, you've been flying slower as of late. Do you think Pallas has any spares left?”
Mephisto gave out another caw straight from its hazardous beak. Victoria frowned. “I forgot to restock. I've been… busy. You know that.”
At long last, Aldrich's heart stopped in its beat. And yet as quickly as he did, Victoria and her corvid’s heads whipped to his direction— staring down at the trees he'd been using to keep cover.
Victoria scrutinized it, her sharp sapphires for eyes suddenly squinting. She scoffed, her soft fingertip tickling Mephisto's beak.
“Go.”
Then and there, Aldrich bolted the opposite direction, racing into the darkness of the forest with no way of knowing where he'd end up— his eardrums ringing in torment, his breathing shallow as he pushed his legs past their limits.
Mephisto followed suit, its crowing mocking at him like laughter. Aldrich shrieked, hands going to the sides of his head to pull at the hairs in hopes that would distract him; little success came of that.
He felt tired. So tired. His chest heaved while his throat burned the longer he ran.
You could imagine the drop of his heart when he — mid-sprint — had all of a sudden, frozen in place. Aldrich's breath finally came to a prolonged, shallow halt.
Her footsteps were so slow and she drew nearer, and nearer. As though she were taunting him, she also took her time in getting closer.
Slowly, treacherous, and calculatingly, she finally reached him; her chest to his back, a shadow towering over his own.
Her arms weaved seamlessly on to his shoulders, a tight hold on them under the impression that if she didn't, he'd run off.
Is this it? Aldrich brought that thought to the forefront. If it were, he supposed it wasn't the worst way to die.
To die by the hands of his savior was better than to die dishonorably by a heretic. But she'd once been that for him, too.
“Kill me,” Aldrich demanded in a soft, tight voice. He clenched his fists at his sides and closed his eyes shut. “Kill me, if you must.”
“I don't plan on killing you, anytime soon.”
Her grip loosened. And with it, her melodious voice went lower in its octave, barely counting as a whisper with each word she spoke.
“I know you've been watching me, Edelweiss.”
The dagger Mephisto had stolen away from him returned to him, at long last. Slowly, Victoria gave a sideways glance to Aldrich while he remained in her grasp with his dagger back in its sheath.
Aldrich shuddered under her grasp— not from her admission, nor from the familiarity of his dagger back in his possession, but the feeling of her breath against the shell of his ear. “I—”
“You don't need to explain yourself for me,” said Victoria. “I'd be a hypocrite if I judged you for it.”
Her hand gently caressed his jaw, adjusting it until his eyes met hers right above. She towered over him, a titaness overcasting him— an undeserving mortal.
She smiled wryly, as though the dazed look in the prince's eyes were humorous. She turned him on his heel and pinned him to a tree, one hand right over his head.
A sight so beautiful it made him want to reach out in ways he'd never even think of doing leading up to this.
In a flash, her eyes broke their gaze with his and looked above at Mephisto circling them from above. “If you must know…”
“... I've been having a certain bird, a confidant if you want to call it that, keep tabs on you for the past… what was it, four weeks?”
At the sudden question, Aldrich nodded rapidly. He couldn't get a word out; that, on its own, was worth his own shock.
“... Why?” His voice was soft, too soft. From one moment to the next, his gaze shifted between meeting her cold gaze and the soft lips mere inches away from his face.
“Why?...” It disappointed Aldrich to see her pull back from the question. He'd expected many things to happen next, not a single one of them equating to an unnatural chorus of laughter.
Her cackles echoed about the forest. Maybe it scared the animals that treated her like a princess, or maybe it didn't. He didn't know.
And he didn't want to care.
“Let's just say a friend saw you as a threat, and I humored them by keeping Mephisto's eyes on you.” Thinking over it, Victoria shook her head. “In retrospect, I can understand the uncomfortable undertones of stalking someone, even if they were watching you back.”
“Admittedly, however… you've instead brought on an interest for me to take apart until every meticulous detail is truly understood.”
“... I do not quite follow.” He did. He absolutely did, and it thrilled him more than it should have, and he wanted nothing more but to hear it from her lips.
Victoria could read that bluff from a mile away. Why she didn't address that, Aldrich didn't understand. He much rather focused on what she said next.
“What I mean… is that I find you interesting, your highness.” Your highness, a silent scoff left her. Unfit for a man so cruel, and twisted. And yet…
“You're a twisted, broken mess. One doomed of disrepair with no one befitting enough of your standards to give you peace.”
The words pierced at his heart. But then… “Unfortunately, I suppose I am equally irredeemable.”
One hand, the one that wasn't resting above his head, intertwined with the limp hand hanging by his side. She smiled at him, and for once, he knew it was sincere.
His eyes flickered from different directions, all trying to pull at his puppet strings and direct his attention onto them.
The moonless sky, the stars that danced over it.
The shadow it cast over Victoria's form; her eyes, sapphires deeper than the abyss of the first water, shining brighter than starlight.
He only had one thought, then. Beautiful as the moon.
A moon that wasn't there to guard either of them. And never will.
“Because a part of me is as cruel, and broken, and imperfect as you are. And if you'll have me… we can both be broken together.”
【 Taglist / Credits 】
↳ In order of OC appearances/mentions
Aldrich Edelweiss – @revivemyreverie · @revolllutionary
Victoria Shard – Me 😈
Zenith Devi – Also Me 😈
Mephisto – Also (2) Me 😈
@starry-night-rose | @jasdiary | @authoruio | @fumikomiyasaki | @nem0-nee | @sakuramidnight15 | @hallowed-delights · @terrovaniadorm | @twsted-princess | @geminiiviolets | @lueerhythm | @valse-a-mille-temps
