Heliocentrism Arya, for the prompt: Something useless and beautiful. Arya, now and forever.
Disclaimer: Really, not mine. And I'm a bit iffy on this, anyway.
it's not a love song -arya/various-
useless/beautiful
A butterfly settles in Arya's hair, green-enamel wings beating once, twice—then still. Arya reaches up a hand; threads it through silky midnight-darkness, careful to avoid the jeweled insect perched like an ornament.
When Arya was young—twenty or so—her father gave her a present; a shining gem on a silver thread. He tied it around her neck and said, "This is your promise, daughter mine. This is your inheritance. You are my heir." She laughed—she wouldn't be needed for a long time, then—and held the green stone up to the light; it glimmered the same shade as her eyes.
Around Arya the forest is calm—alive with the sounds of insects and birds and trees, growing; not loud. At peace. Ellesmera's only princess stares at her hands (sees blood) and wishes she could be too.
Arya's first kiss happened on her seventeenth birth-day; Cambre, with the silver eyes, called her beautiful and kissed her under the menoa tree. She feels sick, even now, when someone names her that.
She closes her eyes, feeling the feather-light trace of eyelash on cheek. There's a storm building in the air; she can feel it in her blood, singing in her bones like magic.
Faolin kissed her, as they ran through the trees—she stopped, breathless, with twigs in her hair and dirt on her face and said, "Took you long enough," heart thumping faster than she thought was natural. He said, "I didn't--" And took her face in his hands and kissed her again. It was a promise and an oath and forever.
Arya is crying, now, quiet tears pouring down her face leaving trails that gleam silver in the faint light. The butterfly flaps its wings, once—her hair stirs and then falls back into place. She doesn't move.
There was blood on her hands and in her mouth; she was choking and she couldn't breath. He was in her head, and she was praying to gods she didn't/doesn't believe in, and then there was red, so much red, and she was screaming but the sound wouldn't come free--
She takes a deep, shaky breath and rests her head against a tree-trunk, mindful of the butterfly in her hair. She's not crying anymore.
Islanzadi broke, after—Arya couldn't stay and watch her shatter; if that was betrayal then so be it. She wasn't ready to rule, anyway. The blue egg hummed in her hands—she thought, maybe? But nothing happened and she ran away from everything, even if Faolin was the only one who knew that was what she was doing.
Wending through the trees is the sound of music; drummers and pipers and singers, marching. It's one festival or another, and Arya's lost track. She doesn't feel like being Royal, not today. The only person who ever saw her for her is gone, and all that's left is a pretty doll—even if there are little shards of her missing they're in places not easily seen.
She said his name, kneeling by the pyre she made of the home they'd built together, and the flames licked up to the night sky. The stone around her throat was suddenly very heavy. She whispered, I didn't, to the forgiving, scourging fire. Took penance.
You're beautiful, Cambre says in her mind. You're useless, Durza reminds her, and Arya believes them both. The butterfly is gone like a snap-crackle-pop, the smell of charcoal lingering in the air and in her hair. She's soaked to the skin, cold and weariness settling deep in her bones.
Eragon kisses her, and she wonders why her mouth tastes like ash.