AN:/ content warning for Tailtiu character death. also background Lex/Ayra. these kids are making weird decisions but they have a long life ahead of them :^)
*...*
Tailtiu...died, before he ever reached her. Azel knew she was at the Tower with Father Claud, yet when he got to them, Father Claud huddled behind a blonde sniper (eerily similar!) and something, someone, laid on the ground under his cloak. Azel knew without asking, surprising himself with how quickly he wanted to cry, to yell, to do anything, but it fell in his stomach. Father Claud would not look him in the eye, familial staff clutched in one of his hands. (Who left home without a weapon? Who trekked from Edda to the Tower and did not bring anything to protect themselves with?)
*...*
Silesse was chilly; he'd always known this, from his books and idle chatter about the when and where they might go, but now Azel was in Silesse...without her. The arrangements were difficult to send Tailtiu back to her father, but they managed it before being chased into Silesse; Azel hadn't looked at or spoken to Claud since, his only company being himself or Lex and his wife. It hit Lex, too, he knew, but he kept his chin up easier than him, keeping Azel out of his own head.
*...*
Two months into their stay in Sailane, a rider arrived. Azel thought, maybe, it was a rider from Grannvale come to tell them they were in the clear — he didn't even know what he'd do in Grannvale now, if he was ready to go back, but knowing it was possible at all was a small joy.
The rider was familiar as they stopped their horse, the slope of their shoulders under their cloak. Azel watched from Lex's side, picking at the hard skin of a Silessian late-season fruit. They pushed their hood back, left hand wearing a gold band inlaid with a small gem, and their fallen hood revealed a dour face, rare on smiles, with simple brown hair to match her brown eyes and the simple drape of her dress.
"Hey," Azel said, nudging Lex with his elbow; the man looked down, and in a habit he hadn't forgotten, Azel pointed. "Isn't that-"
Ethnia of Friege wanted to speak to Lord Sigurd; she handed the reins of her horse to one of the idling guards. Quieter than her sister, somehow, she gave them a small wave as she passed. The times he went to Friege, it wasn't to see her, but she was around, a quieter daughter of Friege he sometimes stepped on the toes of. "It is," Lex said. "You think she knows?" he asked.
"Of course she knows," Azel answered. "I wonder why she's—" here, in Silesse, and not in Grannvale, a country short on forgotten children of dukes. (Azel would go, if it was him.) "I hope she's well."
"Well as she can be." Lex dropped his arm from his shoulders, grabbing his axe. Azel, damn him, looked, only to see Ayra holding her sword and making eyes at Lex. He sighed. "You eating dinner with us tonight?" For all his trying, Azel didn't know a lot about girls, but he knew looks (and Ayra scared him a little).
"Uh." He shook his head. "No. I'll figure something out."
Azel did not see Ethnia for the rest of the day; he did not seek her out, but on the way to hole-up in the library—to read dusty old tomes about the hearts of men and the ways they fail, how the darkness that lingers in even the purest of hearts renders good men useless; some of the books in Sailane were older than the ones in the palace library—he passed by the study Lord Sigurd (and occasionally the young Lord Seliph) used. The door was cracked open. Azel knew better, steering clear, but he caught sight of Ethnia sitting in a chair, nodding as Lord Sigurd spoke.
*...*
Tailtiu had — Tailtiu liked a slew of things, and disliked plenty; all her days were splattered with passionate fury. Azel's memory was sharp, yet even if it wasn't, Tailtiu was a ball of energy in the right company and stuck with him when they were in their separate duchies, or dinner tables, or dancing partners. He was shoddy at it, shoddy at most things, but he was half-decent with her. Most things about her made him half-decent.
It was a different kind of missing her.
She managed to fit in his heart alongside Princess Edain — she was there with Lex, too, toeing the line between friends and do you really think Princess Edain would ever like you? but now there was no line to toe. She was — well, not with anyone. Only the gods, the cold ground, a staff to resurrect the deceased and —
She was not there.
*...*
Lady Ethnia was hard to find; he only knew her because of his single summer in Friege, a few weddings, and Tailtiu's passing complaints about what her darling, annoying little sister did that week that made her hair stand up. Lex knew her for similar reasons, intertwined childhoods down to who attended what with who and Lex's long winters in Velthomer with him. Azel could not keep the lines of his own family straight, let alone another house's, but Ethnia was simple, right beneath the Prime Minister and his lovely wife Azel met exactly once.
Why would anyone not from Grannvale know her? Lex did not know where she was, and despite being in Silesse, the brown haired woman did not narrow it down. The one with ribbon in her hair hurt too much to think, let alone say, opting instead to keep an eye out for her throughout his boring, comfortable day in boring, beautiful Silesse.
Sailane was a large place, and their meeting happened on chance. Azel was returning a borrowed book to the library, burdened by his heavy, unanswered heart (if he had that power—).
Leaving the library with a basket under arm and struggling to squeeze out the grand door by the force of one arm, Lady Ethnia was found. He hurried to the door for her, but they stumbled into each other, her basket of half done yarn projects scattering on the floor, and his borrowed book clattered to the ground, landing sharply on its old spine. No one moved for a moment before both did. She looked up at him, fury in her eyes, before her mouth fell agape. "Lord Azel?" she started.
"I'm sorry! I'll-" Azel crouched, hand hovering over the book before deciding to fix the mess of things he made for Lady Ethnia. He righted her basket and gathered her dispersed belongings. "I wanted to get the door for you."
"How kind of you." Glancing up, she gathered her skirt in one hand, pulling it taunt against her knees as she likewise crouched before letting the dress fall loose. She dressed simply, out of the purple gown he sometimes saw her in when he entered the Friege household and into a plain cream colored one, collar without its usual golden patterns. "I did not know you were here in Silesse with Lord Sigurd! I knew you ran off and were not back, but I did not know you followed him here."
Yes, up to Sailane…Azel thought he'd back too, dragged home by some declaration, yet his brother let him go and go and go, the uncrossable divide between them — now there was no turning back until things back home were sorted out. (Assuming brother accepted him back, or he wanted his brother.) "I did, yes. I don't know what's for me in Grannvale."
"I don't know either." He looked at her again, her brows knitted together between her eyes, caught by her eyes settling on his. She pulled the collapsed book onto her knees. "For myself! I don't claim to know what is in Grannvale for you."
"Well," Azel started, sitting back on his toes, "what is in Sailane for you?" He shut the basket, noticing the faulty clasp.
Slow to answer, it was then Azel remembered wholly whose sister Ethnia was. He went to apologize, words ready on his tongue, but she went first. "I do not know. But my sister left for a reason, and I will see her will done." Ethnia's nose crinkled. "How serious. I'm sorry," she said.
To see it done. "I hope that doesn't include Father Claud."
She laughed. "No, no. Blonds have never been my type. I don't know when she got so starry-eyed on him!"
He didn't know either, but they hadn't kept in great touch while he was out of Grannvale. Eight letters sent, nine received, only one of which he stomached rereading. By her signature was a poor drawing of a knapweed, special to Friege, that he committed to memory. Drafting his next letter to her, he spent too much time figuring out the details of the Agustrian rosemary to scribble down for her. Battle broke out before he finished it, and then -
"I don't know either."
Ethnia offered his tome back, so he relinquished the basket. For a moment, her fingers drifted across his palm; he needed to unhem his sleeves again. "Lord Azel," she started, "may I ask something of you?" Lord. Did they have to do that here? (Yes.) "I am not familiar with many here. Until I find myself, may I have your company? Not all the time! But some of the time. Most of these faces are new to me."
"I can!" he agreed. "And if I can't, Lex is around."
"We spoke." She peeked inside her basket, counting the pieces. "Princess Ayra is…"
"She's not always like that," he promised. "But I know what you mean."
*...*
He saw her again. Wearing a dull, muted blue dress without any adornments, bringing her dress count up to three, Ethnia did not look out of place in the drab Silesse. The country's days alternated between painfully sunny and brisk or a colorless world blanketed by flurries.
Azel preferred the sun.
Today, they took lunch together after a morning of easing her into meeting Ayra. Azel still wasn't certain when they happened — something to do with blades, swords, wrestling, among other things he was wholly uninterested in — but they were happy and expecting. Afterwards, she asked him about his time out of Grannvale, from leaving to rescue Edain, through Verdane, into the drama of Agustria, and now into their Sailane-locked exile. She listened with great care to his boundless, boring yet exhilarating adventure, and he returned the favor.
"Father speaks little when he is around," Ethnia said. "Mostly he comes home, if he does, and holes himself up in his quarters. If I ask, he will eat with me, but most days I do not feel like asking." Azel knew the feeling. "Bloom wrote back his condolences, but the conflict keeps him away, and he's been making eyes at some woman anyway. It is a lonely house."
Azel ate when he wanted to, which was not often. He blamed the cold, wiping the corner of his mouth off. "I'm sorry."
"It is nothing new." Ethnia set her teacup down, frowning. "I'm sorry. That was sour." He shrugged, far the worst thing he'd heard. Her frown smoothed out. If he really looked, he saw the resemblance — their noses sat in the same spot, and their lips met their cheeks in the same way. He wouldn't admit outloud; comparing the living to the...to the...was bad form. "A quiet house," she continued, "and I do not know what to do in it. Our old nurse wrote to us like she always does — she's with one of our cousins, now — and I...I had to tell her."
A horrible fall for all.
Thankfully, regrettably, Azel's first great loss was over a decade ago (how odd, he realized, to think of his life in decades); while the best place for his mother was with him, the wound healed over.
Tailtiu was Tailtiu — dear in her own way. At night when he closed his eyes, he saw her limp body crumbled on the shore, her bare legs on the cold sand, nothing new yet equally shocking. A girl full of life, and…
She drove him stupid.
"I'm sorry," he said again. Ethnia cocked her head. Sitting, they were nearly the same height, but the red ribbon stuck out in her simple brown hair. Both sisters had the ribbons as long as he had known them. "I know it isn't my fault," he quickly carried on, "and I know she wouldn't want me to think so. But I still…if I hadn't-" he looked into her eyes, hit by the realization that this was Tailtiu's sister, and he was Tailtiu's friend.
Ethnia laid her hand on the table, palm-side up beside her half-empty plate. He knew his fish, the same shape and cooked-color as the one Tailtiu took for her last birthday (Tailtiu bemoaned her family's affinity for it while she barely tolerated the taste). "I know. Whatever it is, I know."
He was not going to put his hand in hers, absolutely not. They were not that close. Azel faked an interest in his empty cup, picking it up. "And," she continued, "you needn't say sorry again. I am as sorry as you are."
"You shouldn't be," he quickly said, voice hitched. "You are not in the wrong."
She blinked. "Nor are you. If I cannot be sorry for my sister, then you cannot be." Could she see inside him? He did his best to keep a straight, amicable face, but sometimes he slipped. She took her ignored hand back, off the table and onto her lap. "I mean — you are free to do as you want, but what I mean is - neither of us should be sorry. I will not be if you are not."
They would spin in circles. "Fine," he managed. Ethnia's solemn face lit up. "Neither of us will say it."
*...*
Tailtiu's birthday passed, her first without her; it hit him like a runaway carriage, not mustering the strength to check on anyone but himself.
*...*
Azel got out plenty, even before Ethnia came to Silesse — he did more than bounce between his quarters, the library, and rotating through Sailane's many inns, though it would be a lie to say he did much more than that. Princess Lachesis, dealing with her own loss, rarely wanted anything to do with him, absolutely understandable and no reason to push her. Lady Edain was not his friend — he admired her awkwardly from a distance for years on years, and now, with her marriage, they were soldiers in the same army. He made fast friends with Tailtiu and Lex when they were children, and that had been that. Cordial with the others, but none of them stuck.
Lex, married to an expectant wife, did not make time for him, because he didn't have to. Early in the morning, they both woke and met to go for a ride every third day, before the sun and servants stirred. They rode to a far village and back without speaking. Azel was almost certain his horse did not like him out of battle, but it didn't buck him off anymore. A practiced rider, he was skilled in something. Lousy with a sword, passable with a tome, but a good rider.
It was easiest to not talk about her. He wanted to — Lex had his own pieces of her, but the dead needed to rest.
When they rode together, they ate together. Ayra was not much of a conversationalist in the morning, but she always extended an invitation for him to practice with them; Azel knew how both of them got when they sparred, opting to clean up. When Lex had errands, he went with them. Azel still held the winning streak in a long-string of chess games, but Ayra wiped both of them in any other game, a stinging blow to his meager pride.
If Lex and Ayra did not go to train in the morning, he went back to his room without having to do dishes. More and more often, he was shooed away. (Ayra had told him, one busy night while a storm battered the windows, that she was expecting, swearing to hunt him down if he let it slip, and, not even a day later, Lex told him the same news.)
Ethnia was outside his room that cold, snowy morning. His nose hadn't thawed through breakfast; they hadn't spoken since their odd lunch, but he picked up his steps. "Lady Ethnia," he called. "Do you need something?"
She turned around, pink in the cheeks. "Oh. I thought you were in," she answered. "Am I bothering you?"
Bothering him! How could she ever bother him? "Not at all! I went for a ride with Lex, that's all, and then breakfast." Ethnia looked at him, her brows slightly arched, disappearing up her bangs that fell across her forehead. "It's not that cold out," he said. "It's nice to get out, too. Once you get past the cold it's...a nice place for a quiet ride. You can think. Or not. It's —" he was going to ramble again, so he bit his cheek to stop himself. "Do you need something, Lady Ethnia?"
"I wanted to apologize for the other day. I managed to distract you for half a day and said nothing at all. So I went to make one of those tarts you like — the ones with berries in them? when you spent that one summer's turn with us — but my dough is choppy and there are no berries this time of year." Ethina stopped, hands folded in front of her. Looking, now, he saw her knuckles were flaked with flour. "Look at me. I'm doing it again."
"I don't mind," he promised, still uncertain as to what she was apologizing for. "Today, or the other day. I meant it. I mean it." His grand plans for the day were short. "I am not much of a cook," raised by a simple woman who only made beds and burnt water, "but we can try together. There are some fruits that keep in Silesse."
Again, she smiled. It lit her somber face up. "The two of us? I think we might manage."
So, for the second time in his life, he was in the room of one of the daughters of Friege. He was not in her bedroom — it seemed Lord Sigurd gave her a more proper suite with multiple rooms and a kitchen for cooking meals and heating drinks, simply decorated in the tastes of the Silessians who arranged these things — but it was a few steps away from where they worked with her humble ingredients. She told him that she woke up early, too, to sneak down to the market and purchase what she needed, but she slipped on a patch of ice and could not, in good conscience, return on the same day without feeling humiliated.
He both understood it and didn't.
Ethnia made the dish by going off of her memory and following a recipe she borrowed from the kitchen staff. The recipe was simple enough, but he was a nobleman, a kind of man not known for their domestic skills. Tailtiu used to complain about the contradictions of being a noblewoman, the difference between being a man's wife — knowing how to do simple things in the kitchen — and being a lady who ruled a household — telling the servants how best to do it, and how was she ever going to know the difference? What there was for a second, oft overlooked daughter like Ethnia, he did not know, but she was more competent in the kitchen than him.
She rolled her sleeves up — good, straight arms, a little pale, dotted with a few freckles, but nothing unusual for a housebound noblewoman. "I think I used too much water last time," she said. Her previous attempt was out of sight and out of mind, not that Azel could tell the difference between bad and good dough. He stood at her side, looking down over her shoulder at the recipe.
"Did you put more flour in?"
"Yes, Lord Azel."
Lord. "You could just call me Azel. I don't bite."
"I know." She knew. Azel let that rattle around his head. Of course she knew. They weren't strangers to each other, and Azel had no reputation to speak of (besides the obvious, which he wasn't suppose to think of but some days did). "Does Lady Lachesis bite?"
"Sometimes." Presumably, she left her house with a purse, like he had (not that he planned on being exiled in Silesse — he long had to struggle through arena battles — him, a gladiator! — to earn more money only to get his head rattled, or take the donations of thankful villages), and it seemed to have gone to ingredients, grounded flour in a bag among other things. "Why do you ask?"
Ethnia stepped back from her table. With no apron to speak of, flour speckled the front of her dress. "Princess Edain has invited me to tea, along with some of the other women, but I…I have not met them! I will not be with you to meet them, and I have heard some…conflicting things about Princess Lachesis."
Fair enough. Agustria had been a test of endurance for many. She stepped behind him, quietly in her hopefully warm slippers, to dig small containers out of a wet bag (she had slipped). Sugar, spices, nuts, all things Azel knew in pieces or what he took in his sweets. "She is not rude. She's no harder to get along with than Ayra, I think."
"I have not cracked Princess Ayra."
"You have not tried." Too proper a girl to glare, but the look she gave him was something.
*...*
Predictably, they could not cook.
They burnt the tarts, forgotten while they talked, and once the tarts were cool enough to touch, scraping off some of the burnt edges, it was too salty. Ethnia laughed with a flake of black pastry on her cheek. He stopped himself from apologizing, watching her swipe it with her thumb. "Well," she said, "I did not expect that."
The next time was no better, or the time after that. They did not burn the treats constantly; they forgot the salt, the sugar, or the dough did not survive. She must have told someone about their plights, done with the borrowed recipe from the kitchen. Azel knew Princess Edain's handwriting — a foolish, lingering hope — the recipe was not hers (why would it be?). They eventually managed the tarts, tasting nothing like the ones from the kitchen of Friege, but it was something they did together.
"What if we tried it again?" she asked. They took lunch together again — it was an odd day in Silesse, warm enough to be outside in sleeves but not an overcoat, so they ate outside. Several days of cooking together made her comfortable with him, sitting on the same side of the round table as him. She wore a lilac gown with white-cuffed sleeves that conflicted with her ever worn red ribbon.
"Again?" She nodded, smiling. Finding her hard to say no (how familiar, how uncomfortable), he nodded too. Her eyes were pretty up this close, pink lips and straight teeth. He looked away.
Armed with a new cookbook out of the library, they successfully baked a pie in only two mornings. Ethnia was short on ingredients after their many failures, inviting her to the market with him. He spilled her sugar, so it was only right. She bought little things as they needed them between the larger ones. They flipped through the book, better at some than the others, but they did it together, steady, constant company.
He found himself in this pattern with her: in the morning, he rode with his childhood companion, then went to knock on her door; afterwards, while he cleaned up, she rushed to her fledgling friends ("They remember me, Azel!"), and he filtered back to his room to read (never any letters for him).
They did this for almost two months. Ethnia smiled frequently, flour dusting her cheeks, loose bangs framing her face, eyes lit with the intensity of the Friege nobles he knew. Wearing different dresses, the ribbon never changed, impossible to look away from, a beacon and an anchor alike. (Tailtiu wore one too.)
They did not try their luck with more savory meals, yet ate dinner together. He walked her back to her room; if it was cold or late, she took his elbow and laid her head on his shoulder. No one muttered sorry.
*...*
They did not talk about her, the father, or anything in Grannvale besides her family. Not much to say about his own, seemingly forgotten up north, but Ethnia's brother and father still lived. He'd not met their mother (and if he understood, Ethnia barely met her). It was not gossiping, that old bad thing, but they were catching up after not being particularly close. Why not be close in a land with no one else? She chattered about her other friends, what Princess Lachesis was up to and the new, blossoming drama around her. He knew better than to chitter about things he did not know, but between the two of them, in the privacy of her bedroom, there was no harm to it.
*...*
Azel left one morning by himself — Lex and Ayra were married (and all the things that came with it), Lady Lachesis was not up nor did she ever want to go on a ride or anything with him, much preferring Lord Sigurd's company, and Claud—well, Azel could pray in his room; they weren't in Grannvale, after all (maybe Grannvale could have protected her — would she still have run after the father if he (and Lex, he reminded himself) were around to keep her company? How lonely a fate.) To get to the stables from his suite, he had to take the long path, crossing everyone else's quarters in the process, and as he pressed against the door to be released into the rest of the hall, a familiar door cracked open.
"May I go with you, Azel?" Ethnia asked, standing in the doorway of her suite, clutching her arm across her body. She was dressed already, scarf and gloves. Early in the morning, the calm energy she wore was replaced by that somber face. Azel could not find the words to tell her no. She followed him down to the stables, silently watching as he bickered with the horse to get it out of the stall. After he mounted, she followed behind him, hand on his hip as she settled; he felt her touch through cloak, tunic, and gloves, swallowing.
Ethnia settled in. Azel urged the horse forward by hanging lantern light. With or without Lex, he knew where to go, but preferred company. Ethereal Silesse, when dark, sent him somewhere else.
The morning was colder than usual; he pulled his gloves on as his horse crunched over the snow. He did not know what to say to her besides the obvious, maybe the way her hand rested on his back, but no one needed to speak all the time. All he'd do was make a fool of himself again.
South of Sailane, the land gave to a frigid, sandy beach. The sea was dark, choppy, churning at the shore to reclaim it. It would take him nowhere, not that he could swim, but the salt stuck to his cheeks, the brisk air kept his eyes open.
Ethnia's hand was not on him long. Gracefully, she slid off the horse's back, stumbling on her feet. Ladylike, a daughter of Friege, she touched her lower back, popping it in the early, silent morning, another buzz on the backdrop of the waves crashing on the shore. "I do not know how you do it. I nearly lost my mind riding from Friege," she said softly.
Azel kept his spot, but twisted his body to better face her. Polite, and all that. "You…" why had he not taken a drink before leaving? He cleared his throat. "You get used to it." Forever taller than her, atop the horse he saw her telltale red hair ribbon, a splash of color in the dreary morning.
She smiled, something small. It touched her eyes, between I must smile to be polite and Azel, you've stepped on my shoes! He wanted to see her smile more often, he realized, but who was he? "Getting used to it," she echoed. "Is such a thing possible?"
It. Rarely his mother caught him, yet it happened. "I—I hope."
"Lord Azel?" She raised her hand, as if reaching out to touch him, before finding an interest in the horse's neck. The knuckles of her glove were worn.
"Lady Ethnia."
"Will you bring me with you again?" He did not trust his words, opting to nod.
*…*
"I think I have a crush," Azel managed, somewhere between Lex strong-arming the legs of a bassinet together and Ayra's loud silence as she wrapped the hilt of her sword at the dinner table. He held the important duty of analysing Lex's handwritten notes (unfortunate) on cobbling a crib together. He'd never admit it outloud, but Ayra looked pregnant.
"You've had one."
"Not that one. She's married." Lex looked pointedly at him. "I gave it up! Took a few weeks, but I'm over her," Azel promised. Edain was old, beautiful news, happily married to her green-haired knight. He didn't begrudge her happiness — if he was a gorgeous, dutiful princess with the power of -
"She knows." Of course Edain knew. She was married, with nothing left to crush on. Admire, yes. There was more to Edain than her looks. "Ethnia's not stupid."
Ethnia? Ethnia! He didn't - "Is it that obvious?"
Horrifyingly enough, Ayra answered. "Yes." If she noticed it, and not just his lifelong friend, it had to be painfully obvious.
Compounding his terror, "I bumped into her yesterday, bud. You've got her confused."
Confusing Ethnia — Azel's time with girls was scant, but he knew what his own confusion felt like. Did she feel it too? He'd be lucky to catch her eye. Who was he? "Why are you talking about me behind my back!"
Casually, "'cause you're cute."
This again. The man's wife was in the room! Nor was he cute anymore. He'd grown since leaving Belhalla (not much, but some). "Stop it! Put your darn crib together."
"Damn."
"Damn crib!" Avoiding the turn of conversation, he rediscovered the instructions, slightly crinkled where he grasped it. The darn crib — Lex was married with a kid on the way, and Azel was hung on his dead, best friend's- "She's Tailtiu's sister!" he realized. He leaned back against the couch, setting down the instructions entirely. Cribs weren't hard to put together. Lex wasn't dumb, and all Azel wanted tonight was some form of company.
No one commented on that bit. Ayra had never met Tailtiu, not before it was too late, but she listened pensively when they spoke of her. He could not have a crush on his best friend's sister — she wasn't around to tease him, to give her approval or to tell him off. If he had siblings to spare and Tailtiu or Lex set eyes on them, he'd do the same. They'd shake Tailtiu off Lex's brother if it came down to it. Together, all of them, pinky-in-pinky.
Azel cleared his head of that. Lex's hands were too callous to hold. "Why is it obvious?"
"You two spend all morning in her room."
No! "We are baking! If you spoke to Ethnia you should know that!" Azel protested, voice cracked. Unless Ethnia had…confided in Lex, much like she did with him, but unlike him, Lex was married, safe, a place to ask questions without being misconstrued. With that in mind, he did not ask Has Ethnia mentioned kissing?
Azel fell the rest of the way onto the couch, giving up any claim of being useful, throat scratchy from talking loudly. His feet hung over the back of it, staring into the flickering embers of the hearth. "She's Tailtiu's sister," he quietly said again. Tailtiu's little sister, who he danced with at one wedding, and now spent morning after morning with her doing nothing and everything.
Tailtiu, who was…who he…
He covered his face with his hands. "I'm a moron."
"You're not- '' something clattered on the floor, hearing Ayra sigh. The perils of a crib. The perils of children. The perils of nearly everyone being with someone or another, while he went in a girl's suite every morning, doing nothing but attempting to bake. "Getting with Ethnia's not the end of the world."
Getting with Ethnia never crossed his mind. Girls stuck in his mind, rarely going further than that until they couldn't go further. Rushing to be Edain's valiant knight did not work, nor anything he tried with Princess Lachesis, now off-limits by a barrier of her own grief and blondes. "It may as well be."
He listened to the two of them grumbling before Lex was exiled to the couch with him. He did not need to sit that close to him, yet he did, laying his arm on the back of the couch deliberately where his legs rested. Azel peeked at him. "She's Tailtiu's sister," as if Lex had not heard him the first time. "She's grieving."
"So are you. There's no harm in trying."
Lex wasn't flexible enough to get in his face like he used to, not laid out like this, but the man had the indecency to wink at him. "Don't," Azel pleaded, not in the mood to be teased. Lex stopped there.
*...*
"Will you show me how to ride?" Ethnia asked.
With her being around, Azel was wide awake in the stables during another bitterly cold morning. She leaned against the doorway, slim shoulders covered by her cloak, a white sweater, and her brown dress, arms across her body to clutch it shut, watching as he stepped over to his horse to saddle it. Maybe he'd buy her a new pair of gloves. That was something nice to do. "I - I can?" he agreed. She said she rode here herself; he saw her arrive.
She smiled, small as the morning sun. What would her touch feel like?
No one got that far. As he led the horse out, she stepped through the snow to come with him, but he watched her boot catch on a small pile that lined the walkway. Azel rushed for her, but he did not make it in time; he caught her under by the arms, almost dragged down by her, her knees knocking off the ground. It was not a very far fall, but when she looked up, her eyes budded with tears. Confused, "Are you okay?"
Ethnia huffed, pushing herself out of his arms. "I will - I am -" she wiped at her face. "I am in Silesse. My sister is dead, my heart is -"
Making sure she was steady, Azel led the horse back inside, freeing it of its burden. By the time he came out, he was given the sight of her back as she hobbled back to her rooms. Making sure to not make the same blunder, he caught up to her, not commenting. Her cheeks were red by tears, embarrassment, and the chill, leaving her be.
Yes. Her dead sister. Dead and dear and darling sister. He could never forget her, no, but she did not plague him day in and out like she had. Ethnia…Ethnia fit that spot in his heart. How did she feel? He was not to say it, but the grief of a sibling versus that of a friend could not compare.
She stewed back to her room, a slight hobble to her step. He did not ask to enter, simply behind her as she stepped in. She did not kick him out, so he did not question her. Her hands shook as she tried to undo her cloak. Calming his heart, he stepped closer to her, undoing her clasp. She sucked a breath in, eyes on him as he hung it up and shed his own.
Azel smiled. "Are you alright?" he asked again.
"All I do in this country is slip and mourn."
"You do more." She stopped crying, at least, tugging her gloves off. Freed of her outerwear, Ethnia poured herself half a glass of wine out of a sitting carafe. Drinking wasn't for him. He left her to it, going to stoke the fire. The logs crackled, warmth licking his slacks.
Turning back, she sat on the couch, her dress pulled up over her knees, legs folded up on the couch. Nothing uncouth besides the sight of her calves, thin yet shapely. Did she not care? He knew her, yes, from their many mornings together, her lingering hand on his back when she squeezed behind him. In Grannvale, during summers or particularly unbearable springs, she wore skirts like any other girl, yet he'd not seen her legs in ages. Tailtiu dressed differently than her sister, so while her legs and shoulders were nothing to gawk at, Ethnia dressed warmly in Silesse.
Already abandoned, her wine glass sat on the floor. Ethnia patted the spot beside her on the couch; he avoided knocking anything over or making a fool of himself, heart hammering. She likes you too. Perhaps Lex told her. Perhaps Lex worked in mysterious ways.
This close, he saw the blossoming of a bruise on her right knee where she met the ground. Healing was nigh impossible for him, never managing to make a staff glow. "See?" she said, laying her hand palm-side up on her surviving knee. "Something to cry over."
Plenty to cry over in Silesse, for a chunk of the army. On bad nights, he swore he heard Lord Sigurd's son crying, echoing in the halls. "Ethnia-"
"I know." Ethnia knew herself, her boundaries, so he slid his hand into hers. It did not fix her dour face wholly — not that he expected it to! — but she gave him a sliver of a smile. "I miss her," she dropped. "She had always been there, and now she is not. Every time I tell myself I have adjusted, I haven't! I crumble at the drop of a hat. I want to run straight to her and tell her how well I am." Azel looked at her fingers wound in his, easier than meeting her eyes. Continuing on, "May I confide in you, Azel?"
"Always."
Ethnia sat closer; her uncovered, bruised knee bumped against his. "I will see her will through, but I don't — I still don't understand why she left. Hopefully the fighting is at an end, as I'm not very good at that…but that must have been what she came here to do, and do it I will. There is nothing worse than dying unfulfilled."
No, few things compared — but why had Tailtiu — he'd not spoken to her before she met her fate, uncertain as to why she went all the way with the father. She was in love with him, but she'd been in love before and never died. "It's not your duty alone." Of course she knew. She wasn't dull. "I know you know that, and that she is your sister, but you are not alone. You have me, Lex, your friends-"
"I am here with you." Here with him. He inherited this dry mouth from his mother. "I am glad to be here with you, and all we have done. You are not all I have, but - but I am glad to have you. I wish I could have both of you." She gave his hand a squeeze.
Unable to meet her eyes, he looked back to the fireplace. "Friends," he agreed.
"I spend more time with you than I do my friends, Azel." Her bruised and damaged knee dug in against his. The morning chill hung around her, close as she was to him and his warmth. "I think of you differently than I do them."
Talking to girls was not his specialty, coupled with whatever he felt for her. Only one girl to be normal with. "Do you?"
"I do."
"...I do, too."