Disclaimers go here. I've chosen to relate Selena's memories referring to her as "she" even though she was Dilandau at the time. This is done for the sake of my sanity, so I don't confuse anyone else or myself. (Although I might have done just that.) Also, this chapter officially launches the interesting part of the story, with a lot of bizarre plot twists, because I'm a twisted person. It'll all work out in the end. I think.
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She never knew how it began.
One day, they were bitter enemies, opposites in every way, polar as the fiery sun and mournful moons, dawn and dusk. As cats were to dogs and ice to flame they existed, she always untouchably hot and he cool in his lack of visible emotion and stoic silence. They were the ultimate balance for one another, and the most perfect distillation of hate grew up between them.
The next, something happened, breaking down inside of her to match the mark inflicted on that flawlessness face. The cut went through her skin, extending into her pride and soul, scarring irrevocably the only part of her that hadn't been bruised before.
Her face had been her only untouched feature, able to attract both women and men, able to manipulate so well, able to win any fight with the bat of a long, luxurious eyelash. That was over now. Her face was ruined, one single slender scar extending down the length of it, making visible to the entire world the fractures in her facade.
It was because of Van that her flaws were now perceptible, that her insecurities and uncertainties and inabilities lay bare before everyone. He cut her up, and because he gutted her from the inside out--first fighting back against the unseen, escaping the flames of Fanelia, convincing Allen Schezar to hide him, then progressing to the point of no return and winning against the elite of Zaibach--because of that he'd already worried away at her core by the time he gashed the cheek open to reveal his masterpiece of carnage. It was intolerable.
Van had ruined her beautiful face, and how it throbbed.
She was sick for three of days afterward, from fever real or imagined, immobile and subject to every acute increase in pain, paced exactly to the time of her heart and movements of her breath. No sun shone on the Vione, and the passage of time was therefore indeterminate even under the best of conditions, so she knew not in her half-delirious state how time passed or what transpired.
She only knew the feeling of a cool left hand dutifully changing her bandages, soothing her hysteria, providing her sustenance, a dark voice singing softly songs for children that she had not the cognizance to protest. Under no obligation to do so, he stayed with her and cared for her until her senses returned and she threw him out of the room in a screaming fit.
It had begun in that period, at a point she could not distinguish from the rest of that blurred time. Something in her was grateful for the concern, and that opened way for a warmth that blossomed only when he was near or attentive. Being cared for was the most potent aphrodisiac Dilandau was misfortunate enough to stumble upon.
And Allen dared to ask why she wore black with red beginning and cascading into the dirt where her heart would be if Selena was any other person. She did not weep, because their relationship had never been defined in terms of tears or even more positive displays. Emotion was strictly disallowed. He was cold in his affections as she was scathing. It was business only, a routine (and didn't Dilandau know about routines) procedure to be performed because they both found it soothing, if only in private, away from one another.
She stole visits to the grave when she supposed no one would see her.
Proving his enduring ability to break her into bloody, emotive parts, Van met her there one night, and asked, "Why do you come here?"
She wondered the same all too often. "Is there anything wrong with visiting the grave of a fallen comrade?"
"You and Folken weren't comrades. You hated each other."
"We did no such thing. I knew him very well, even if we got along badly. Is that the answer you're looking for?"
"Were you friends?"
She nearly smiled at the irony of the question, and spat, "No. I told you, we never got along well. We hardly ever exchanged a word."
Van's expression made it clear that she'd puzzled him. Hesitantly, he asked what she knew he'd been lusting for an explanation to all along. "What happened to you in Zaibach?"
"Too much to possibly tell. I hardly understand half of it myself."
She never fathomed what she saw in him, but there was certainly something to be desired. When a word could be coaxed from him, he often proved to be comforting and intelligent, but he remained distant even then. Close to him, she felt something undefinable but glorious all the same, and it was addictive. It was impossible to deny or to fight the romantic lure he silently ignited, try as she might. And she did try. She needed no one before, and the sudden dependence on one man's elusive tolerance alienated her beyond expression.
She knew he only put up with her. She knew he did not feel the same.
She wouldn't let herself care.
Selena surveyed Van, tasting and probing him with her hungry eyes, searching for something touchable in him tonight. He seemed loathe to reveal himself this once. "You remind me of your brother." She left him with that.