"You're the one that dropped those books outside Ra...Outside the office."
"Yes." The pain in her voice, Chandra could tell had been building up for quite some time. "What did you think mom and I were talking about?"
"Oooh, uhhh." Thinkthinkthink. "I thought you were talking about us taking the bike. I guess I didn't hear everything right."
"This seems like a bit of an overreaction then, but I suppose that is beside the point. If you were that mad at me for telling mom about our juvenile escapade, I could not even guess how furious you must be now."
I wish I could tell her how relieved I am, but that would involve explaining why. "I'm not angry, I guess." Am I really not or am I just riding this high of my life not being destroyed? "I'm mostly just surprised and very confused. What were you doing there with a textbook that wasn't yours?"
"Vivien had left it behind at practice. I promised her I would return it to her professor."
I guess that makes sense. "But you were hungover. When I got home, you could barely form a sentence and that was hours later."
"It was not an enjoyable outing." Suddenly, for the first time since they had sat down, Liliana averted her gaze. "That came out wrong. Given the circumstances, I have no right to complain."
"Okay, hold up. Why are you being all gloomy? I get that what happened is not the best, but I'm getting over it." You don't really believe that, do you? "There's no need to be all sad for me."
"I am glad to hear that, but it does not change the fact that it should have never happened."
"Well, yeah. No shit. Sometimes bad things happen."
"That is not what I meant. I saw what was going on and failed to act immediately. Even worse, all I did was run away... I failed you, Chandra."
God, she's been sitting on this all this time. "Liliana..." Chandra grabbed her sister by the cheeks and turned her face back towards hers as if talking to an absent minded child. Contrary to her sister's downhearted expression, she could feel how wide her own grin was though she couldn't pin down the reason. It may have been that their kiss was still a secret, or the devotion Liliana was showing, or maybe Chandra was just relieved she finally had someone to talk to about this.
"You dumb, crazy, stupid girl." Liliana seemed confused and unsure how to handle how the situation was developing. "You think you let me down?" It was too dark to see it, but Chandra could feel tears falling against her hands as she continued to smush her sister's face. "You saved me."
"I hardly did anything," she quivered. "You needed help and all I did was make some noise."
"Who cares!? Who cares what you did or how you did it? I was disassociating. If you hadn't snapped me out of it, I would have been helpless. Don't you think for one more second that you should feel bad." She finally released Liliana from her goofy face and embraced her. "I can't tell you how thankful I am." Chandra knew this was working when her sister tried to control her crying by sniffing back some snot. She wished she had a camera to catch such an undignified moment. "Is this why you left home?"
Liliana nodded into her shoulder. "Every day, being around you made me feel increasingly unworthy. I decided the only appropriate thing to do was getting myself out of your life for a while, but when you showed up at the manor, I knew even leaving home was insufficient. I refused to believe there was nothing I could do, so I told mom. I assumed it would make you resent me enough that you would be okay letting me go, while giving her the chance to take care of you." Liliana broke the hug. "I will admit that it was not a great idea."
"Not the best, but I appreciate the thought. I have to ask though."
"Of course. Anything."
"Why," Chandra raised her hand to make a soothing motion, "and I swear on my name I'm not upset, but why didn't you step in? You don't strike me as someone afraid of being direct."
"At the time, I was worried that..."
"Yes?"
"I feel disgusted at myself for saying this, but I was worried if I barged in, I may have been stepping in on something...Consensual."
"I guess that makes sense." Chandra was not at all offended by her sister's rational. "But why were you able to come to a conclusion without asking me about it?"
"When you started becoming reclusive and stopped coming to school, I tried to convince myself it was a coincidence, but then you had your flashback. Before we were even out of that closet, it became undeniable that something must have happened to you and I came to my conclusion. I never thought I could be so mortified with myself."
That's why she looked so scared. "Hey, speaking of that, I did punch you in the face." Chandra gave her sister a light tap on the arm. "So that makes us even."
"Can you take this seriously?"
"Well, I am actually. Hitting you aside, when I was stuck in my past, I knew soldiers were coming and I had a plan that could have saved you, but I froze up." Chandra was thankful she had something to confess to try to descilate the situation. "You want to talk about letting someone down? I left you to die."
"You were a child." Liliana's arms became unusually animated. "I could never blame you for that. No one would ever blame you for that."
"I was supposed to be a soldier. I was supposed to be better than that and I just sat there crying when I could have fo-" Chandra stopped herself in realization. "Huh..."
"What?"
"You and I have been tormenting ourselves about the exact same thing for weeks."
"I suppose we have..."
"Would you like to maybe agree to stop feeling guilty?"
"Not particularly."
"Yeah, me neither, but maybe, just maybe we can agree that we might be better off supporting each other instead of running away?" That sounded way too emotionally mature to come from my mouth.
"That sounds lovely, but the idea of allowing myself to share a wall with you. It just feels wrong."
"Then we'll build a second fucking wa-." Calm down. Don't forget, just because she thinks she hurt you, doesn't mean you're not still guilty. "You know what? It doesn't matter. If the problem is that it's too painful to be around me, I just won't be around."
"You cannot be serious."
"I sure can. That's what I came to your castle to tell you anyway. I promised mother and your father that I'd bring you home and that's where you belong anyway, so if this is what I have to do, then it's what I'm going to do."
"That is an insane notion." Her flailing continued, "what would you even do?"
"Stay at Jace and Gideon's. Go to Kaladesh for a little while." Ready to leave, Chandra got up and brushed the dirt off herself. "At this point, what's the difference? I'm not doing this to emotionally blackmail you. I just want to make sure you know what's going on. Now get up and go home."
Liliana stood up and the two were nearly eye to eye when they realized the poetic moment they were in. For the second time in as many days, they were witnessing the first inklings of a new dawn and Chandra knew whatever happened now, it was appropriate symbolism. "Why are you being so kind? Even if you do refuse to acknowledge my cowardice, I still violated your trust by bringing this to mom."
"Maybe that was wrong, maybe it wasn't, but I sat still while my family was torn to pieces once. I'm not doing it again."
Liliana's eyes retreated downward. Chandra was aware, before she said it, that would hit close to home. It wasn't why she did it – it was the most honest answer she had, but she could see the seed was now planted. Chandra knew introspection when she saw it, so she maintained quietness until Liliana finally spoke. "Living with my guilt – literally, will be difficult, but keeping you away from home would be unbearable."
Wrapping their arms around each other again, Chandra could feel her sister trembling though she couldn't tell if it was crying, glee or simply her exhausted body giving out, but before she had time to conclude anything, an entirely different realization hit her out of nowhere and she began to laugh. She tried to contain it, but her own weightlessness left her powerless.
Still resting against Chandra, Liliana asked, "what are you laughing about?"
"The textbook you dropped was Vivien's, but the notebook – the one with all the poetry."
"Oh god." It was brief, but Chandra could swear she felt the vast widening of Liliana's eyes as her laughing became more unhinged and her sister pushed her away. "I would like to see you write any better."
Chandra tried to wave away the offence she was giving off until she could finally speak. "There's no way I could. I'm sorry, the ones I read were good – some of them were just a little edgier than I'd expect from you." Putting on a Terisiarian accent, she continued, "I come looking for demons. I find a plane full of angels."
"My guilt is starting to fade," Liliana said with a raised brow.
"Okay, okay, I'm done. Man, you have a lot of notebooks on your bookshelves. Are those poems?"
"Maybe."
"That's...Wow. Even if they were bad, I've never put that much work into anything." This appeared to win Liliana back over and the two began walking home. After a bit of silence, Chandra realized, "Oh, shit. I really should have let my mother know I was with you. She's probably freaking out."
"I let her know I found you while I witnessed your impressive display of diplomacy with that police officer."
"You were watching that!? Were you just going to let me get arrested?"
"Of course not. Like you said, I could have just told him my real name and he would have let you go."
"I was kidding and now my forgiveness is starting to fade."
Chandra was glad Liliana chuckled at that. "Speaking of mom. I was wondering, and feel free not to answer but why did you not tell her about what happened?"
By now, Chandra had admitted to herself that she was not exempt from the cliche that talking about your problems makes you feel better but this was still a sore subject to get in to. "At first, I told myself it was because I didn't want to mess up one of my mother's most important relationships. Eventually I realized..." She shrunk to a meek inflection. "I was afraid. If I told my mother what happened and she didn't believe me...I don't think I could have survived that."
"I can let you know that your initial fear was justified. You have ended that relationship as well as the mug mom was holding when I told her, and our supply of banda-"
"I get it. Mother is on my side, but you're the one that told her. I have a history of being not so dependable with her."
"Chandra, as someone that grew up with a mom that did not believe in the concept of unconditional love, I can assure you that our mom would support you with every bit of herself."
They neared their door and spoke in whispers. "I wonder if mom is asleep."
"Yeah, maybe." Chandra knew there was no chance her mother had gone to bed while her daughter's were out there, suffering. Not surprising at all, Pia was not only awake, but standing in wait. When they were past the threshold, the clearly exhausted mother reached her hand out and her daughter recognized the gesture.
It was something Pia had learned to help Chandra through flashbacks. It was her way of offering a hug without scaring the girl and this time, the girl happily accepted and crept over to her mother's chest.
They held each other in silence for so long that Chandra almost fell asleep on her mother's shoulder, but before she was out completely, Pia said, "Dear, I don't need to know why you didn't tell me. Details don't matter. Just know that I'm here for you."
Chandra was expecting herself to cry, out of joy, sadness or both, but she wasn't feeling either of those emotions. For the first time in weeks, she felt relaxed; her brain was taking advantage of her calm state and decided to flatline. Breaking the hug with the slightest bit of a smile, Chandra said, "I know mother."
Now able to see over Pia's shoulder, Chandra noticed a fascinating sight on their kitchen table – a long, black metal case that she'd recognize anywhere. "My first instinct was to go confront her, but I decided it should be up to you. If you don't want me to to, we can just put this behind us."
She could see the bandages covering her mother's hand; she could feel the warmth from Liliana as she hovered over the tender moment and in all this, Chandra could feel all the pain this situation caused her and her family and in her relaxed state, she was able to tap into her vindictive side. "Whatever you have planned, go for it."
"Very well." Pia turned, grabbed the case that had caught Chandra's eye and headed for the door. "You two get some sleep."
"Are you going out now?" Liliana seemed surprise that even the eldest Nalaar had such an impulsive side.
"Of course."
"Uh, mother? I get what you're going for, but is that really necessary" she asked, gesturing towards the unmarked item.
Pia slipped on some shoes and before leaving, turned to her kids and said, "I'm not going to use it – well, probably not, but I need to remind that woman of some very important things. Why she was captured and I wasn't, why I'm the hero of Kaladesh while she's a footnote. I'm going to make sure she never forgets that I could take her life, tell our people she was a traitor and I'd be celebrated for it. Now please, off to bed."
The door closed behind her and Liliana slowly muttered, "Wow." Even Chandra was in complete awe despite the number of times she had seen that kind of passion from her mother. "Chandra, what was in that box?"
"I guess you could call it a spoil of war. When we won, we tried to return all the technology the Consulate had confiscated, but some people refused to take their stuff, so mother took that as a going away present." The idea of the creation being used as a symbol of justice excited Chandra. "It's a weapon, it's called the Sword of Fire and Ice and it is really fucking dangerous."
"I never imagined dad would have what it takes to marry someone so strong." It seemed like Liliana had tried to mumble that slightly quieter as she was taken aback when she saw Chandra beaming. "Oh, speaking of which. You woke dad when you left earlier. Mom told him she would explain in the morning. What would you like us to tell him?"
With a cavalier wave, Chandra headed toward her room. "He's family. Just tell him the truth."
It was approaching Noon when Chandra was woken by her phone – an email sent out to her class by the head of the physics department informing them that Rashmi had a situation back home that required her attention and that their originally planned instructor, Dr. Jaya Ballard, would be replacing her.
The last bit of weight on her chest was lifted and she fell back in to tranquil sleep until the next sunrise.
