マ ト イ

all they had done was tell her that many individuals struggled with seasonal low moods such as hers and it would brighten again come spring, then send her back to the dorm with a few bottles of an herbal concoction meant to settle her nerves. and all that'd accomplished was making her room smell like chamomile, lavender, and root for several weeks.

today, she still feared falling asleep. she still struggled with a looming and inexorable dread that came with the onset of overcast frost and settled like it over her as rime and wind did across the mountaintop, as though each time she looked up and around at the world, shadows stretched out from everyone and everything, blotting out the colors and the sun and the sky——the cold wasn't just a thermal sensation on the skin, but deeper and beyond physical ; it sat in the soul and grew there, put down roots. stayed permanently.

yet, she couldn't bring herself to tell the clerics that she knew they were wrong, that yes, this would lift with the spring, but that didn't mean it was about winter. it was irregardless of season, moored forever in that feeling that she knew was coming as soon as word of this offshore isle's festival preparation had begun to spread ; that her heart——her body——knew that she was going to die. what fix was there for that?

there were only two people who she knew could understand.

one of them, a gallant red knight of lycia, wasn't here anymore. it was hard not to feel relieved for him and envious all the same.

and the other. . .

the sound of approaching footsteps pulls her from her thoughts and her eyes from the floor. she'd been waiting half an hour, nothing to lose herself in but her thoughts, and is about to remark on how the work on the replica of gradivus had been done so fast, but the blacksmith isn't who emerges from the interior of the shop, rather a face and figure too familiar, whose presence posed a knife on tender wounds unhealed. her breath stops in her chest, and it's everything she can do to pull her eyes away and back to the grooves in the weathered stone——hoping vainly, maybe, that if he hadn't realized she'd noticed him, they could both agree to play at ignorance and pass each other in silence.

The problem is identified.  

(‘What is there left to do now?’ His daughter’s misery asks, again–)

Swiftly, father distorts to soldier, to retainer, then back to father. 

Daughter flickers from daughter to child-liege, back to daughter: Quivering frame in his arms a red-haired girl who clings to him like a lifeline, both five years apart in age from him. Both his allegiance is sworn to from birth– his, theirs– for that is the true definition of love: resolute understanding, resolute obedience, and resolute devotion. When her tears fall, the blade is unsheathed and heads shall roll. 

The problem is identified and judgment awaits its decree: reason and cause are amorphous outlines in the billowing, black smoke of her sputtering flames. Daughter sobs openly into the hollow of his chest; her heart bleeds unto his. Her tears are his wrath: when grief swallows her, wrath consumes him: when she weeps openly, he seethes silently. Father, daughter, heaven’s spear.

A hand lowers. Wordlessly, he plucks the lily from her fingers as the other comforts her wallows, smoothing circles against her back stilli until the other hand returns. Then, briefly, it stops. 

“Who says you’ll never be?” He murmurs, measured. Her wallows muffle the sound of the lily’s petal tearing. Behind her back, he strips the lily of its petals and exposes the raw core. And he drops it, petal by petal, letting the wind carry away the invasive bloom’s remains until there is only the stem. Then, he drops that, too, silently behind her, and what once blossomed is no more, no longer able to be repaired. His daughter’s despair is the only remnant, he cradles her in the cage of his arms. “How could you not be enough?”

A hand finds her cheek; her misery saturates his skin. Softly, he tilts her head upwards. He looks at her. 

but it is not this way. the storm still rages ; his voice is distant, an incomplete balm. is this what it's like to grow up? then she might long for the simplicity of childhood instead, where his comfort was panacea, strong enough to soothe away any pains. was this what it's like to grow up——to recognize that the storms adulthood presents are far stronger than anyone's light, even her father's?

who says you'll never be? there is no one she can name. inevitably, when the compass needle settles, it points only back to herself. or otherwise outward to the indeterminate world, to the faceless force of fate and hopelessness, of learned and repeated failures that erode even the greatest will with time. this is nobody else's fault. from the depths of her father's shirt, she sniffles and sighs for air, only to find her tear-blotted face brought out from it by a coaxing hand.

shame has wormed its way down to her core like an insect in the camellia-red flesh of the fruit ; she hurries to wipe at her eyes to present a better image, not that of the blotchy and swollen face, in her haste thoughtless of the makeup that smears and runs. she drops her eyes, wondering how to grasp at this lifeline. you are my daughter. it's meant to be a reassurance, but she wonders if perhaps it might mean——you're stronger than this——instead, an understanding she has an easier time knowing to be true.

in——out——

already, from the long spell of her weeping, the tempest has started to abate. through her eyes its waters had for now drained and flooded, taking the structures of her dignity along with it. left behind is a placid and storm-torn beach, strewn with detritus: the aftermath of a typhoon. the skies were not yet clear ; they remain an ugly and overcast grey, but the lashing torrents have withdrawn to a rumble with a distant threat to return perhaps, but for now the site of disaster is left to recover herself, muted and numb. "i——know. i'm. . . better now, father." she sniffs and, in a reluctant beat, withdraws, turning and taking the few disembodied steps to the edge of the patio where the ledge of waist-high stone rings the perimeter, separating it from the lawn. recognizing belatedly the streak of ruined color on the back of her hand, she dries her eyes with a more befitting cloth, unplucking, methodically, one-by-one the thorns from her heart.

and as she takes a perching seat atop the stone to face him again, her gaze settles upon the ground, seeing through the history of would-haves and could-nots, all the chapters of people who had stopped by the little apple-seller's cart and walked away empty-handed. now a new one joined their ranks ; that was all. "i'll overcome this."

They find a fissure in the setting that they hide themselves in; a little pocket they pave as their own in which only father and daughter exists. He sheds his navy haori and lets the ethereal moon's biting chill devour him, too. In return, he drapes his garment over her faltering shoulders, and it blankets her— like a shield, like a promise, like the night sky that watches over them. As fingers smooth the garment to protect her, they do not touch the kamon belonging to their family, the golden embroidery ever-present that pronounces them as the spears of God and servants of perfection: such decorative embellishments fade into tertiary elements to their joint existence, too.

Here, there exists only father and daughter.

"You needn't apologize." He says as her grief finally bubbles and spills and bleeds. His hands trace down from her shoulders, past his haori that now guards her, down the willowy valley of her arms until they find the quivering of her palms once more. "I have seen you like this."

He has seen her like this, and what now? For her, the sky falls and she shatters. She exposes before him: the broken bones of her ribcage and its hollowness where her heart beats and bleeds. The seams of her perfection are completely undone and, now, what is left? Here rears forth her soul: its ugliness, its neediness, its seemingly-disappointingly sensitive disposition. She must wonder now, what is left, now that he has seen it? Tonight was supposed to be perfect and they were supposed to be celebrating, but now they aren't and here she is a mangle of emotions and abandonment and tears and she is utterly compromised and he is here.

What is there left to do now, he hears her daughter plea out him?

The answer is simple.

He takes her into his arms. He guides her forth until her head finds its home in the crook of his neck, until the bright vermilion of her hair brushes his chin, until the jagged edges of her broken heart punctures him too and he welcomes it, so that they can bleed together. He rests his cheek upon the crown of her head; his daughter returns to the center of his embrace.

"I have seen you like this," Tsubaki repeats, slowly, his voice no higher than a whisper. "And we are supposed to be celebrating—"

('What is there left to do now?' Again, daughter cries out in the ruins of perfection, in the overwhelming tangle of threads and ripped fabric as she dismantles. Father kneels down and— like the wood fragments housing her smouldering inferno that he collects as it burns him— quietly sorts through her jagged fragments and thread until he finds the needle and rises, and presses it to his daughter's palm as he finally answers—

'We mend,' and they mend, 'and try again.')

"And tonight was supposed to be perfect… But tonight is not over, is it?" His hand idly comes to rub smoothing circles against his daughter's back, "And no matter how the skylark flies, she must eventually rest. For it is a long, eventful night, isn't it?"

(It is the furthest journey that the skylark embarks; the final stretch from girlhood to adulthood.)

with every breath, her father takes the brush of her voice and rewrites her words in a steadier hand. her eyes have closed, tucked against the hollow of his chest and powerless to leave its solace.

in the wild, do fledgling birds ever return to their nests after they've grown their wings and flown? any textbook, any specialist would tell you no. but who's to say they don't carry the dreams of doing so with them on their migratory flights as she had for years? surely humans can't be the only beings to long for safety just as much as freedom.

her father's timbre is so gentle. so gentle it nearly breaks her heart a second time——for the gentler he is, the more she realizes how she's failed, for him to have to coddle her so. what sort of heir is she if she can't even weather a single ballroom night? how was she to face the trials of life ahead of her if heartbreaks were storm-force winds, herself only a sapling bough so easily stripped of her outer skin? all these weights bear down on her mind, robbing her of the will to answer him——it's just as well he doesn't seem to look for an answer, the wings that encase her more than enough by themselves.

and when finally he does speak again, this time with a real question, she's grateful her face is hidden for the way her mouth screws with emotion. she remembers it again: the discomfort on andrei's face beneath the color of a hundred crystal lights, standing dead still in the center of a weaving dance floor, full of motion, the inevitable, crushing truth.

his lips——a bitter consolation——on her face.

breaths heave: in and out, trying to steady themselves against the drumming of her heart, the adrenaline of shame and self-reproach——and, far beneath, of hopelessness, the particular taste despair makes on the back of the tongue and in the cavities of the chest.

"i. . . he. . . " where does she start? what does she say? what would be appropriate for a father's ears and what too humiliating to admit? in the end, it is not the tale she winds up regaling him with, not the rejection, not the kiss and all the storm inside her it had wrought, not the departing lily still pinched between the fingers of her hand.

only the truth beneath it all.

"i. . . i wasn't——good enough again, father. i-i'll never be. . . i'm afraid i'll n-never be——" when her faltering voice breaks on the final syllable, no longer able to limp along and finally stumbling to its knees, she forsakes the rest, the remainder of the thought too wretched to voice. i'm afraid i'll never be loved in return.

The answer is him, the camellia. For who else can understand her but the flower that is— in reality— scentless? Another blossom who understands harrowing insignificance and pursued impact, only to end up eviscerated by everyone else's impressions. Most importantly, who else could understand her grief but him— for it is their roots that are so intrinsically entwined that when child seeks her place and looks outwards, when she tries to slot herself into the centripetal force of the world, she forgets one crucial detail— She is a galaxy of her own, equipped with her own axis, and where she is lost outside of orbit to someone else, she is his centripetal force.

To him, she is not a camellia nor a skylark— she is the flame of his soul.

So, when his child cries out to the world—

Who does my grief impact? Him, for the hope stitched into her bloodstream serves inspiration to her name— precious matoi of his, flag of symbolic change that proudly declares the presence of the new generation's all-consuming and unstoppable inferno.

Can my grief draw one bubble of laughter, a single cloud of rain? Perhaps no, in this ballroom, it cannot. Her heartbreak will not turn the head of strangers. It will not draw Dawn nor the Goddess's attention. But it will not crush her in her lonesome. For it draws forth his presence— the safest place to her forever come— in an inexplicable phenomena many attribute as parental instinct but to her father, Tsubaki?

It is merely the power and presence love.

(Love, the way her dwindling flames summons his attention. Every time, without fail, he will kneel against the soft earth and cup the smouldering remains of her hopeful inferno. He will let it singe him, let it mar and sully his pristine palms as he brings her embers close to him:

'Rise,' he will whisper, subtle as the rustling leaves, before he breathes his life unto hers, again— again—- and again— for as long as it will take, as soft as it will take, until her dying flame is nurtured back into a bright wildfire.)

His presence comes through the brush of their shoulders as he joins Matoi in rumination. He stations himself by her side and says nothing at first; no remark to her cracking countenance, the unnaturally measured pace of her breath, or any trait that spotlights attentions to her perceived flaws. He lets the silence be uncomfortably comfortable as its his presence itself that does the speaking first: the warmth of him by her, the bareness of his hand brushing against the back of hers. Moonlight dances on Tsubaki's pale countenance as his gaze combs the gardens outside then, finally, he speaks:

"It's beautiful outside, isn't it? The moon is shining bright tonight and the stars are so clear."

(He leans to the left, closer to her.)

"What a shame it is," he continues, "that we are here and they are there. If it were possible, I'd like to get closer—"

(And his pinky slowly hooks against hers in silent invitation.)

her gaze turns down to the floor again, searching and watering. she is a child again, watched over by her father and comforted when her tenma bites her on the hand, bruises and tears alike soothed in mellow song. isn't tonight supposed to be the transition from that girlish neediness into adulthood? isn't she supposed to be able to stand on her own, protect others rather than needing protection? it's too easy to imagine herself in every way the failure ; when the seam of perfection sees even a single rip, the whole of its image is compromised, and it's all too easy for all of the rest of it to come unraveled, shredded apart by thoughts too bitter to hold back.

throat convulsing, with final, quivering strength are tears held back and the distant weight of her body pushed up onto her feet. the pinky in hers becomes a whole hand, becomes the sorely-battled urge to turn fully into his arm and hide herself away from the shame and the eyes.

"i-i'd l-like that, father." the sorry quake of her voice, another rip in perfection's fabric, such a delicate loom dismantling, more easily torn than gauze. flurry forges way to the side doors in hastened strides, harried before more attention could find them and question. the cold of the ethereal moon is a welcome sedative, chilling her skin with a suddenness that couldn't be ignored and so in turn pulling the moisture from her eyes and making powdered ice of the tremble in her throat, and thus steadier.

and there she stands as if rooted to the stone. no more than a little patio nestled against the monolith of the main ballroom, tall vases bearing hardy winter plants encircling the niche accompanied by a few covered chairs. beyond, the stone turns to lawn that stretches its dried and dark grasses until the reach of the moon, whose featherlight fingers dust an empty horizon void of figure, where nothing lingers.

the assignment was to never lose hope, even when all the odds seemed to stand against you. in an era of war, it was a weapon greater than any other, stitched into her bloodstream until it was inseparable from her, as integral as the thread that made up the flag. even when she died, she had not lost it ; even when she was rejected, she had not lost it. even when her own heart had failed her, she had not lost it. it had carried her this far. maybe this was her problem.

what was her problem?

"what am i doing wrong. . . "

she is asking this, of course, to no one in particular. and there is no one to answer her. the ballroom moves, a sphere with its own centripedal force of which she is only one tiny, meaningless part, her grief not at all impactful enough to change one bubble of laughter, draw a single cloud of rain. tragic, then, that it was enough to crush her?

she is not strong enough to carry herself proudly still ; she can't bring herself to look like there is nothing wrong. the best she can do is sit here at this windowsill and collect her breath——and not cry, and not ruin this night utterly. her father is out there somewhere, and he would be watching, and this night was supposed to be perfect.

she had taken a risk on perfection.

maybe this was her problem.　/　open to existing relations claimed! ( dear ol' daddy-o please don't kill him. )

Even without an enemy looming before them, it feels like he'd already broken that promise. Andrei finds himself wholly unprepared for the sense of despondency that settles over him when Caeldori lowers her head, a sensation that does not leave him even when she meets his gaze once more.

The coda had begun, and his feet start up the familiar steps with prompting, tight and mechanical and overly conscious. Just like how he would dance with any other partner, except even now, all of his focus remains on her. Trying, despite everything, to search for something to say.

He remembers the letter that he had once written, and never sent. He hadn't been fully truthful with Mitama, but she had guessed at his feelings anyway. In this moment, directly facing her...

(It is something that takes courage, something he and the rest of the world had always found himself lacking. For her, he would have to try.)

"You must understand... that you are one of the most important people in my life," he says haltingly, quiet enough that she would have to lean in to fully hear over the music, "If not for you, I would never have been able to find my place here. And— and you matter to me more than—"

More than she ever could. But it sounds cruel, mocking even, if he were to speak it aloud, so he falls silent, steps stopping as the strings give the final, powerful three notes before fading into silence.

Their linked hands break apart, and the loss jolts through him, more powerful than he would have imagined. This is where they might bow and curtsy to one another, and take their leave.

Andrei leans in instead, at a slight angle, and leaves a kiss on Caeldori's cheek, light and hesitant as though seeking a permission that he knows can never come to pass. When he draws back, a lily is pressed into her palm, his fingers brushing against hers again in a final vestige of connection before it, too, would have to break.

how those words, each of those tugs, continued to bruise: in his expiative kindness, one wound after another is inflicted. he implores ; she listens ; she is one of the most important people in his life, but not the most important. she matters so much to him, but not enough——and it is the plaintiveness with which he insists upon the softening of this mortal blow that makes it worst of all, for there is nothing she can do but accept them, knowing that they are meant to comfort and console.

grounded, she can do nothing but lie there, helpless to the sore hands intended to help her, offering not a chirp as they turn a sprained wing into a fracture, a fracture into a break.

and worst of all comes the sacrilege of lips——lips upon her cheek that aren't hers, that do and will belong to another woman ; have belonged. chaste only, those lips, an insult in their i'm sorry: to her, to the woman who doubtlessly loves him, to the heart which must go about the solemn business of repairing itself along old and well-tended lines of injury.

what can she say? she cannot rail. who would she rail at? there is only her poor luck, his kindness, herself for doing this again. "it's all right. there's nothing to forgive," she hears spoken in her voice ; and her inside screams wrong wrong wrong! but does not know what it screams at.

she doesn't remember squeezing his hand.

she doesn't remember the song ending. and she doesn't remember stepping away.

she only remembers that she is once again important, but not enough, and that the lily in her hand is a second-place trophy, and that if she doesn't find a place to sit down the instant that thought fills her mind, she will embarrass herself in the middle of the ballroom.

and that, much later, she had forgotten at all to return his gesture. 　

While Caeldori blusters and stumbles, Mitama simply stays quiet, watching with an amused smile on her face. Really...as though they do not know Caeldori at all.

And though the temptation is there, there are certain lines that even Mitama knows not to cross when it comes to teasing. Caeldori's heart beats so, so easily, and thus that makes the damage to it all the more harmful. Mitama wants to be there as the friend who helps to mend those wounds as many times as it takes, not the one inflicting them.

So, when Caeldori pulls her in for one more time, she just laughs and moves in as close to her friend as she can while curling an arm around her in return. One more time, she will allow it.

Aside from a vague intrigue at the sudden seriousness in Caeldori's tone when she next speaks, he doesn't expect anything too out of the ordinary—

He freezes, mid-step, pulling her into a standstill. The music flows on without his awareness as he could do nothing but stare, wide-eyed, at her.

"I—"

It's a loaded question, if there ever was one.

For a moment, he remembers a different hand in his, a passionless twirl on a pair of inexpert feet, starry eyes and honeyed words that had amounted to nothing but lies. It should be nothing, she should mean nothing to him, in this distant land with his old life far behind him, and yet...

'It was a disgraceful affair,' Father had said, looking at him with a frown, 'The second son was born around the same time as you, and with Minor Blood at that, but the occasion was hardly what you'd call honorable or auspicious.'

(Surprising, that the shadow of a corpse's lingering disapproval could encompass more than just his own murder.)

Andrei's fingers twitch against Caeldori's hand, though he doesn't let go, not yet.

"You mean to say that you..." Mitama's words echo in his mind. She would've known, and part of him thinks perhaps she might have warned him more explicitly. Perhaps he should have understood her comment for more than the baseless tease he'd assumed it to be.

(Perhaps he should have realized beforehand, even in himself—)

in this brief, perhaps tragic story, people would come one by one to her cart and stop, listen to her talk and try to sell her apples, and one by one they would walk away. by the end of the book, not a single person had bought any of her apples, and as a child, even caeldori understood something that she felt the girl did not: the problem was that she had committed herself to selling something that nobody needed. apples weren't hard to come by ; why buy them from a cart by the roadside?

yet even as she critiqued this girl in her own puerile thoughts, she read that book over and over again, from cover to cover, until the edges wore down and the binding began to fray. her guardian's family would tease her for liking such a strange story so much, but they never stopped her from carrying the book around, flipping through it in the room next over.

now, caeldori understands her behavior then for what it was: they say that continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different ending is the definition of insanity. was she insane? for still trying? for seeing herself in the words and actions of each heroine of her novels battling unrequited love, except that she dreamed her story might one day turn out different?

she'd come prepared for the worst, but every time, there is a voice that hopes it'd turn out different.

". . . r-right." she has the modesty to bow her head, humiliation creeping up her ears and the back of her throat. too low, she hopes, for anyone to hear: "you'd think i'd learn."

she clears her throat to get rid of that caustic heat and raises her head again with clearer eyes because her father had taught her to be proud and above all to take loss with dignity. "thank you for being honest with me. i didn't mean to put you in a difficult position. . . please, forget what i said. this isn't the first time something like this has happened."

Right now though, she did seem to be spiraling a little. That was not good.

Mitama sits silently next to her as she watches Caeldori fuss and scan over the latest attempt at crafting the perfect image. One leg sits crossed over the other, and her foot bounces in the air as she studies her silently. There are quite a number of things that could be the cause of this, of course. Caeldori's own brand of perfectionism, for one. The fact that her father is here in Fodlan this year, for another.

Or a third thing that Mitama has only recently become aware of herself.

A moment is spent in silent debate with herself, wondering perhaps if to bring up the subject would be too cruel. She is rather convinced, however, that a jolt is exactly what is necessary for Caeldori to break herself out of this endless perfectionist's spiral, and she is not convinced that invoking Tsubaki will be sufficient enough to manage it.

Thus, the big spells must be reached for.

"are you attempting to get a picture to give to andrei?"

she nearly drops the photo from her hand, heart stopping at the unexpected accusation. "what?! who? no. who's andrei??" her face has gone red, eyes wide, but she's put herself in this corner now. "haha! i don't know andrei. nope! never seen one in my life. no clue who you're talking about. where'd you hear about that?"

fingers hurry to press the buttons again, pulling in mitama for the next pose. "here, just one more time! promise."

It is more difficult to mechanically reproduce the steps of the waltz as he always had when his gaze is singularly focused on the person standing before him, the music that he had heard countless times becoming a muted backdrop as he is far more cognizant of the sensation of their interlocked hands.

(He'd hesitated before, he recalls the moment their hands had touched. Even now, a vestige of that sentiment lingers, and he finds himself holding on slightly tighter than the occasion entails.)

The soft, subtly sweet scent of flowers lingers in the space between them, and a smile tugs at the edge of his lips when she speaks, as though no action could be more natural, even while it had been absent with anyone else prior to this.

"Less impressive than how quickly you have taken to it," he says. Her dress is unlike any ballgown he had ever seen before, each twirl a cascade of flowers gliding through the air. It's different, like so many things in Fódlan, but beautiful nonetheless.

Beautiful. His heart catches on that thought for a moment, and he clears his throat quietly, pressing on.

"oh, yes, there are. but i could dance with them anytime i wanted." mitama, shigure, and the others. it's not that they're not important, but it's not the same as this, of course. cognizant of how that might've sounded though, she hurries to explain: "they're my friends, most of them. so they won't mind. we've been through a lot together that's pretty out of the ordinary. . . "

now she's talking just to talk ; a pink tinge encroaches on the edge of her cheeks. the same could be said of andrei, though——they'd been through quite a bit of ' out of the ordinary ' too. was this just her luck? destined only to meet people through things like kingdoms at the bottom of a gorge and coming back from death?

this isn't the time or place to be thinking such dark thoughts. now it's her turn to clear her throat and try to change the subject.

"actually, there's something i wanted to ask you. if you don't mind. . . "

was this the right time? should she wait until they weren't focusing on a dance? no, she couldn't afford to lose her chance ; the instant they were off the floor, he might be pulled away. the question she'd been working up to for weeks, the prepared disappointment——the sooner she ripped off the bandage, the quicker she could mourn and return to her usual. it was always better to know.

(But, in the same vein: all the other participants he'd seen were resting after a mock battle well fought. Caeldori is the only one here, swinging her naginata against the phantoms of her memory and her failures, doubtless picking apart everything she could have done better. Of course he'd understand.)

"i'm sure you will, siegbert. have you been keeping up with your own training since we last saw each other?"

' since the war ' didn't sound quite right, and nobody wanted to think of that, anyway.

"when we rode into battle together in valla, it was always heartening to fight alongside you. it gave me so much strength."