A/N: By the end of this piece, I hope you have a completely different perspective of of the beginning. I hope, anyway, that's the key word. I'm crossing my fingers that you enjoy it!
The first sign appears at dinner, and Eliwood ignores it. There is so much red in the room, it could have been a mistake.
It wasn't. He knows this when he watches his wife sit down and sees the icy blue glimpse of her, of her hair, and the guilt manifests itself deep in his heart.
Eliwood closes his eyes and makes the image disappear. But his brain isn't listening. It refuses to concentrate on the drawled, aloof words of the lord in front of him and instead watches his wife on the dance floor. Stiff movements are made fluid, arms twirling above her and dress floating about her pale, long legs. A passing waltzer's hair is her scarf and then the ruby eyes turn to stare up at him. The woman on the marble floor wants him to dance, but he can't, he won't. He can't dance with her at this moment, with the scarlet pooling and glowing in places where it should not, where it doesn't belong on her. He can't dance, not with the past so close at hand.
"...And your wife looks lovely tonight, as always. Such a beauty, but a pity she isn't really a noble. I was at the wedding-so very grand-and speaking of marriage, did you know that Marquess Ostia..."
Eliwood nods, but he is keeping that image at bay again as he tries to listen to the story he's already heard from Hector himself.
The marchioness of Pherae seats herself beside him when the noble leaves, and he offers her a pitiful smile.
"Not feeling your best tonight?" She asks quietly, and he can't bear to unveil the guilt building up inside him at the very sight of her and the gentle press of her fingers on his arm. He wonders if the woman beside him remembers the day he drove his sword into the scaly body, if his wife remembers the day she stepped up to that gate, if those concerned eyes assessing him suspect anything in the slightest... So the red haired marquess simply sighs in agreement- because it is true, even if she doesn't know why.
And then she stands up and leaves to speak with several other ladies who are beckoning to her. The monstrous window behind them is on fire with the fading red of the sunset, and she walks through the glow into the gates that are their puffy, fancy dresses. She is leaving him, and just like before, the dragon girl doesn't look back.
But his wife returns, her cheeks red and breathing irregular.
"They think I ought to be having an heir soon," she reveals as the source, and though Eliwood chuckles he cannot imagine her carrying a baby on that slender frame. It would kill her, he decides, but his wife pushes back a strand of her hair and smiles up at him with a shyness he has not seen in a long time, and he realizes it is what the now woman before him wants. Even if she is strong in many ways, even if she has been on the fields of battle, Eliwood is frightened for the lady of the house.
"Maybe soon," he replies lightly as he observes the swirling mass of dresses and suits in front of him. "What fate decides will happen."
But Eliwood feels the pain welling inside his stomach, and he knows he wants to leave nothing to the executioner that is fate.
His wife melts into the swaying crowd on the floor, and Eliwood is surprised-she never truly feels relaxed with so much nobility around-that she doesn't stay by his side. The guilt worms its way from his stomach up to his heart and whispers what he's done in his ear, that he shouldn't see the ruby eyes and icy blue hair, the loving smile that curves his wife's lips.
Eliwood doesn't find his wife again until the servants are scurrying around the great ballroom, removing the mess. The marchioness climbs the pure white steps with him, all the way up to their rooms.
Alone with her, the image attacks him with even more vivid clarity. She doesn't know the torture as she brushes her hair, puts on her nightgown, and prepares herself for sleep. In the dim lights, he sees the scarlet red, bloody, where he should not. His eyes are heavy with exhaustion, and they flicker closed every once in a while, as the image weaves its way back and forth through reality and sleep. Even more exhausting is fighting the dream off, and finally, Eliwood decides he won't, not tonight. He will let the nightmare rule as it pleases, just for this last time, just because he is so tired. It isn't fair, but fate wasn't fair to him either.
She leans over him in bed with a tiny smile and kisses him with lips as red as her eyes, so he whispers her a goodnight. Her icy blue hair tickles his face and her sweet, cool breath is upon his tongue.
"Ninian..."
She pulls back, and it's all wrong again in the deadly truth of the moonlight. The smile from the dream is still there, and she pulls the covers up to his neck and kisses his cheek before rolling over to her own cold side of the bed.
"You knew?" He asks in agony, because he's betrayed her, he's betrayed them both, and she breathes out in a flurry of near laughter.
She replies with a wry smile and holds his hand in the dark. "Oh, Eliwood..."
"I shouldn't have done that to you. It wasn't right of me as a man, much less as your-"
She quiets him with a finger to his lips. "It was my choice, Eliwood." She half laughs and half sobs into the night, and then a moment of hesitation. "...I still love you."
He tries to feel the emotion, tries to make it tangible in the air and shove it down into his own heart. But he must face his own mistake.
The hair that spreads out over the pillows is not icy blue, and the eyes that stare at him with such pleading pain are not ruby. She is no dancer, and the calloused palm which holds his own has never twirled a silk scarf in the air. He has never killed her, he has never loved her with heartbreaking desperation, and she has never been named Ninian in anything but his fevered dreams. She is too green, too bright, too alive and real. Too human.
Eliwood realizes with numbed pressure that he is betraying her because of his vision, because of his own faulty sapphire eyes. He could not see Ninian through the dragon, and he cannot see through the image of Ninian to this lively, strong woman he is slowly and surely ripping to pieces. He is not stabbing her through, but he can see the murder in the reflection of her eyes. She is presenting her life to him.
"You are my best friend," he offers with hollow breath, because that's all he can give her in return.
"I know," she responds softly, and there is finality in her hopelessness. "I know."
Eliwood doesn't need a sword to hurt her, and there is no sword to blame.
She is coming back now, urging her face even more persistently in the place of his wife's. The ruby bleeds back into her eyes, where it doesn't belong, and Eliwood can't summon the strength to look at his bride, his friend, for moments more. So he indulges in the dream, for what he knows will never be the last time. The marquess' wife watches the recognition fade from his eyes and lets out a trembling sigh, but she places her head on his shoulder all the same, and they both fall asleep in the embrace of their loved one.
A/N: This idea's been bugging me for the longest time. I've finished the game with other Eliwood supports besides Ninian and always wondered exactly what's going through Eliwood's head at the end of the game, with who he marries and the child he has with them. I was like, what the HECK? He and Ninian quite obviously love each other throughout the main story mode. How is that supposed to be dealt with by either Eliwood or his future wife from the army? He didn't seem really in love with his other supports, just polite and friendly. Originally I started this off thinking, okay, he'll be imagining his wife as Ninian and it'll finish with him giving into daydreaming about her. Then as I started writing it, the piece was annoyingly commanding and forced me to give it an agenda. With an iron sword. My apologies, but I did try to trick you. Hopefully you believed he was guilty about killing her and Ninian was his wife up until the last paragraphs, with an odd sense floating throughout. If the result wasn't that, and instead was confusion and frustration... well... constructive criticism would be awesome. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!