The months stretch out before her and though there's a conspicuous absence in her day to day there's also a fulfillment Millerna has never known. She's accepted now, Asturia's tomboy princess, who has forsaken meeting any would be suitors to act as the doctor she knows herself to be, and the world is never as clear to her as it then, up to her elbows in blood, sweat matting her hair and dotting her brow, the intermediary between life and death.
The loneliness, the lack—she fills it in other ways. She and Eries, they feel less like strangers and more like sisters now, and Millerna delights in their newfound understanding. They spend hours talking of everything and nothing and though Eries is far too dignified to giggle or even give more than the barest upturn of the lips there is a glow to her eyes that speaks of her own happiness.
"I'm proud of you," she says one night, when Millerna is on the verge of drifting off in her bed. Millerna just smiles sleepily, Eries' fingers combing through her hair not keeping her awake in the least, and murmurs, "I love you too."
It's not a perfect happiness but nothing is. Millerna finds it's close enough.
She passes him in the halls one day by chance. She's hurrying along, carrying a roll of bandages in her arms, and it's like no time has passed at all: Allen in a slant of light, golden, untouchable.
Except not—there are fingers grasping his arm, the woman latched to his side staring up at him adoringly, and though Millerna knows it's Allen's sister her heart can't help but give a little pang.
It wasn't so long ago after all that Millerna was standing in her place only—
She swallows the lump rising in her throat.
Only Allen never looked at her with a quarter of the love she sees in his face now.
It hurts but Millerna reminds herself it's an old hurt, one she has been living with for close to a year now, that acts up on rainy days or especially lonely nights. Her back straightens, remembering there are patients waiting on her. She puts one foot in front of the other, continuing along, and though her heart aches it's less than what it was before.
She returns Allen's passing nod with a smile and wonders if this is growing up.