Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater.
Chapter 4: Sympathy
"Do you all wear the same gowns everyday?"
"Well, we wash them, Soul. We may be princesses but we're not so pampered that we don't know how to do our own laundry."
"I realize that." Soul twisted an apple and handed it to Maka, who wiped it down with a pale, wet cloth and put it in her basket. It had been a few days since their truce and Soul was surprised at how seamlessly Maka had integrated him into her life. True to her word, she spoke with him with civility, then kindness and now Soul could safely say that they had a friendship. A strange, young one, but a friendship all the same. "But I also realize that you're all strangely well-provided for." Her clothes, their fresh water spring, and the pristine state of the courtyard hinted to more than the natural course of life. Even without the addition of witch magic, there was an aspect of their existence that was impossible if there hadn't been some other force involved.
"Well, what good is it to torture the daughters of your enemies and have them die a week after due to starvation?" He turned his head away from her morbid smirk; an uncharacteristic look on her if ever there was one. "Granted, the first few did suffer, but we're in a much better state than them. We've adapted and are able to survive for as long as we need to. We've learned how to use the resources and magic given to us."
"Able to build lives with the magic but never escape from your curse."
"It is an unfortunate life but we are resigned to it. We must be."
He ceased working to fix her with a strange look. "You're quite forward with this."
"I have to be. I'm not the princess I was when I was captured."
Soul worked on a branch in silence, waiting for her to elaborate but she did not. He would not push her for answers when it was clear she did not wish to give them. He refused to beg for something that he himself was hesitant to confess himself. "Do you all take turns with your laundry?" he asked gently. "Without servants, I imagine that many of you were unfamiliar with the chore."
"That much is true," she conceded, "but we all learned from one another. Even Chrona, when the sorceress was still alive, aided us early on before their death."
"Chrona was the sorceress' child, correct? They must have been extremely powerful."
"Very. The power bestowed upon us when they died was influential. Like we said before, it helped us build the labyrinth."
"And create the portals," he added.
"And create the portals, yes. Very detailed and very effective."
"Could you show me?"
Maka eyed him curiously. "Now?"
"If you're that against it, you don't have to."
"It's not that. You've seen us create them before, haven't you?"
"I haven't really been able to watch their creation. And you always seemed to be in such a hurry to be rid of me that I could never understand the process." He figured that the request was innocent enough and watched her sigh, move away from him, placing the basket near the ladder's feet, and striding out into the middle of the courtyard.
He followed her and sat in the grass, watching her with patient attention as the princess took a deep breath. "This looks easy, but we have to visualize where we want to be. For example, if I wanted to return to my tower, I would envision in my mind."
"What does it look like?" The memory of another night flitted through his mind but he shook it off. Perhaps it was another room she had wanted to be in that night.
"It is large in comparison to the others." She shut her eyes as if it would help her visualize it better. Maybe it did. "The curtains are ripped. I did that when I first arrived. I was very... angry about what had happened. The bed is small, pressed against the wall. The blanket is old. I was holding onto it when I was taken. It doesn't smell like home anymore. Its got this never ending stench of dust and old soil but the smell doesn't come out. It's day so there'll be sunlight; lots of it. My carpet is off to the side. It's a little pink now." She waved her hand in a large circle and the portal rippled to life like the colour of stars. It panned out to the same room he had seen before, only this time it looked cleaner, more well kept. The sheets were nearly straightened, light streaming through the hole in the window with vivacity, washing it all in a pleasant glow.
"It's beautiful," he said simply. "Looks almost comfortable."
"Almost," she agreed, closing the portal with a sharp wave of her hand.
"How long did it take you to learn to create those portals?"
"A few days. You'd be surprised how much necessity can spurn the learning process."
He nodded slowly. "As a knight accustomed to constant battle, I can."
She seemed to soften a bit here, coming to sit next to him as the sunshine soaked through their exposed skin. "Is it very difficult? To battle like you do?"
"Sometimes."
"Will you tell me of it?" She inched closer to him as she did in the courtyard, before he had unintentionally offended her. "Honestly?"
He smirked. "What makes you think that I would not tell you these things honestly?"
"Just tell me."
"You grow accustomed to it, like you in this labyrinth. If you want to survive, you get used to it faster," he admitted, the sun seeming to burn through his clothing and begin to warm his back.
"But your battles...they were difficult, no?"
"My first real fight was to help the King's hunting group search for fresh food." He grimaced at the memory. "I'd done it as a boy with my father, but King Dupre was insistent on getting harder, faster game, and by the time we took out two bucks I was exhausted and instructed to bring both bleeding animals to the castle.
"It's nothing like war, of course," he put in quickly, the scorch more prominent by his neck. "Real war between kingdoms have the fighting, the bloodshed and the scars all rolled into one. The knights you see cut down in battle are too many to count. The wounds they return with are worse. There are images there I would give anything to forget."
Maka paused, unsure of what to say. She didn't have to speak, Soul wanted to convey, just listening was enough. But she spoke anyway, her voice reaching out to him. "You must have fought hard."
"Harder than ever and yet I feel it will never be enough." Soul figured that he owed her some honesty in exchange for her kindness.
"The blood on your hands…" Thin nails dug into her palms as she watched him, expression twisting into one of disgust. "King Dupre must still be as bloodthirsty as his forefathers."
He frowned at the assumption. "Not at all. Rather, he has a preference for his enemies burned or flayed. Catapults of flame and setting fresh oil alight to wound the enemy...these are the strategies of our kingdom." The admittance felt like a burden, a burden heavier than before at her evident disgust.
"Men are bred for war, Soul," Maka said. "They will never cease once they have started. That is why women exist; to remind you that there is more than blood and bone."
His muscles tensed at the comparison. "That seems hypocritical. You held a knife to my throat upon our first meeting. Was that not warlike?"
"I was defending myself," she protested, "and I would have never used the item. Not on a human being."
"And yet you believe all men would?" She shifted a bit, seemingly ashamed of her generalization so he soothed himself and calmly said, "Not all people are bred and born for war. Not all desire the power that the kings of old craved enough to lose their children, their minds and their dignity."
"Not even you?"
"Especially not me." Soul ran his good hand through the grasses. His knuckles brushed against Maka's and instead of shying away, her hand stayed perfectly in place. "Maka, if I may…"
"You may." She did not hesitate, no doubt expecting his next question.
"Why did the sorcerer desire for the princesses of the curse to be locked up? Why not the sons? I mean no offense, but surely, the disappearance of the princes would have forced the kings' hand."
"For the same reason I believed; that men were bred and born for war. In times like ours, a princess may be used as a bargaining chip or a treaty. We are spoils of war or we are goddesses to motivate our people. Without a maiden, princes and kings can wage war on one another freely, settling their fights with fists and fire rather than marriages. When I look back on it, I believe that the sorcerer genuinely intended for the kingdoms to destroy one another, blaming each other for the missing daughters. The persecution of witches would be put on hold for the sake of revenge. The kingdoms would take arms against one another and she would be able to watch them all burn."
They sat in silence for a while with that thought, a fresh gust of wind sweeping through the courtyard to ruffle foliage. It pushed past the pair, slipping through his hair and playing with her dress. She pushed it down with a spare hand, the other trying to still her wild bangs amidst the wind. The sun caught the golden trim along her chest, letting it sparkle and shine for a bit before being hidden by clouds, the wind seeming to follow it into hiding. Soul contemplated leaving before her voice probed out again. "Do you have someone waiting for you?"
"I don't understand."
"When you return to Elderheim," she tried again, "will there be someone there expecting you?"
"Besides the King?" he offered bluntly.
"Yes, besides him. Is there someone else waiting on your return?"
He had never given much thought to his return. Perhaps there was a part of him that had never expected him to defeat the dragon at all. Dying in battle was honourable, and if he did so, he would technically be free and far away from his allegiance to the king. "My parents have given up on my future but my brother...I'm sure that he misses me in a way. He will no doubt be expecting my report on the whole adventure."
"That's all?"
"Should there be more?"
"No, of course not," she said quickly, her face hidden from him although he swore he could see a tinge of red on her ears. He watched her brush back ashen strands gently. "If I may ask, when you bring Jacqueline back, what will you get? You mentioned it before, but I don't think I truly believed you then."
"It is my freedom that I desire and it is my freedom that I will get in exchange for the princess." He paused, contemplating on how much truth to reveal. "I never wanted to be a knight. I would have been just as happy carving lutes or selling hay. After the life I have lived, after the fighting and blood, all I want now is peace. A peaceful place to spend the rest of my existence. I'm sick of all the fighting."
"Where would you go?" She got a bit closer to him, as if he was weaving a new tale to tell the princesses at his daily story period. "No kingdom is truly at peace."
"I don't know. A smaller village. Maybe one near the ocean. I've heard of it but I've never actually seen it. It would be nice…" a wistfulness overtook his features before he remembered that she was still with him. "And you? Once free of the labyrinth, would you enjoy the frivolities of nobility a changed woman?"
"I don't believe that I will ever have that luxury." Her fingers played with blades of grass.
"You have little hope in knights; Kim told me that once."
"True. There is no lie in that. I lost my faith in them many years ago."
"You must have lost hope in other faithful things like fire and fresh water springs." She slapped his arm with renewed energy and her brooding frown dissipated at his teasing words. He smirked. "Am I wrong?"
"Of course! I have faith in flame and water. They are nature's elements to command."
The smile on his lips persisted. "And you do not think knights abide by some similar element?"
"Not truly. Knights like you are controlled by your king and your impulses. Nothing more."
"What a horrendous bunch you must think us," he laughed a while before asking her, "And yet you hope for your fellow princesses?"
"I must hope for them," she said, her shoulders squared. "I must hope and think and breath for those girls because some may never see the outside. Some of the younger ones have yet to realize this, but as our bodies remain young, our minds grow rich with dust from disuse. I should think it common for us to blindly put our faith in rusted metal and corrupted knights; princesses have for centuries. But here, in the labyrinth…" Maka took a shallow breath, "for those of us under this curse, the likelihood of rescue is low. The sorceress who sealed us was very detailed in her rules. There are no loop holes that we haven't already looked for, no weak points which we may exploit. I am resigned to my fate. I have been for some time."
"Sometimes," he began, "it sounds as if the sorceress, instead of saving you from such kingdoms, was punishing you instead. It was punishment for the kings, truly, but there's more to it."
"For some, she was like a saviour; taking away maidens from confined lifestyles was a dream we always had. Some enjoy the life of a princess; the duties the gifts, the honour. Kim is an example of a maiden who loved that life. I was another. But things are different now. I have experienced this life and I know what independence feels like, what freedom tastes like on one's tongue. It is a glorious feeling; one you understandably desire."
"Of course. But I don't believe a curse like this would help me realize that."
"How mature of you," she scoffed, green eyes turning bitter with memory. "Yes, I realized that as well. After Chrona died, I became far more aware of my mortality, of the fate I had been given, and I grew to hate it and loathe what I had become. Much time has passed since then. I am more...content now and have since accepted it."
"The sorcerer's child," started Soul carefully, unsure how he felt about her returning to the topic of the curse that sealed her here. "How long has it been since they passed away?"
"One hundred and twenty years," she replied thickly, clutching at the grass and making as if to pull the whole clump out.
"If I may, how long have you been here?"
Maka stared into his eyes. "Do you really want that answer?"
"Will it matter if I do?" His heart caught in his throat. It was a fair question to ask. He had been asking it of himself on and off for so long. Did he want an answer? He had been begging for it, hoping that she would open up and allow him to share with her memories that others could not. He expected no answer from the beauty, but if by the grace of God he got one...
"I suppose there's naught you could do to change it." She sighed. He waited with baited breath for the answer, trying not to look so eager but being unable to hold in his emotion when she stated, "I have been here for one hundred and twenty-five years, Soul. Like I said, I understand that I am never leaving."
"Gods, Maka." He instinctively grabbed for her hand, heart constricting in his chest. He had imagined that she had been held captive by her curse for years, maybe half a century at most, but more than two? He could only imagine the pain she must of felt, the fury she had no doubt endured as one of the first princesses to be drawn in to the curse's power. Lady Kim had told him of the one hundred year gap between himself and the last knight. She must have felt so wretched to know that another princess had been saved instead of herself. How it must have raised her hopes that another might soon come. How much hatred she must have felt, year after year without a knight to rescue her, and coming to the conclusion that she would never leave; that she was bound to the tower and the other maidens without any hope of escape. "What a life you must have lived." Or perhaps, none at all, he thought as she stared at his calloused hand.
"I'm used to it." She pulled away, looking anything but used to it. "I don't need your sympathy."
"You have it regardless," he vowed, turning his head back to the tree with a weight on his chest. One hundred and twenty-five years; over a century with this distrust brewing in her soul. How long had she waited for a knight to save her? How long had it been since she had ceased hoping for her rescue? Her words, empty and lifeless came over him so completely that he had to choke down the feeling. Soul stood and, with a deep breath, asked her how many apples she would need to make dessert, a question she had not anticipated.
"Fourteen." She stared at him as he went back up the ladder, and her eyes never left him, even when he delivered her to the other chefs and left for his check up with Kim, it was as if a part of her was always with him. This bit of information, this heaviness that came with her omission, remained. He wasn't sure if that was the moment he vowed to take her with him. After saving Jacqueline, after gaining his freedom, he vowed to return for her. He would do what it took. He would restore her faith.
Or die trying.
And this is the next chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed and I look forward to sharing the next part of the story with you all.
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