Chapter 14 – The Twelfth Suitor
Uraraka's eyes peeped open to the cool mountain light of the second sun, slowly creeping up the heavens. She rustled her hair tiredly as she stepped off of her bed, and yawned before the wide window next to her loom.
As she gazed out at the green stubble of trees in the valley and the snowy white of the second, struggling sun, she realised with a jolt that the light was that of the late morning, and that she had slept far longer than she had intended.
With a barely-muffled curse she rushed over to her wardrobe in a flurry of clog-clicks. She flashed a half-hearted smile at the newly-awoken fantasmin as she whipped off her nightdress, then tightened on her day-dress' ties with hands still a little stiff from the cold. She tugged her fingers through her hair before picking the pot-rests from the floor in one sweeping motion.
Beside the wardrobe, the fantasmin gave a disgruntled shiver. Its bones undulated strangely under the goatskin that it used for a blanket.
"Best hurry if you want to come along," The princess said, already swaying side-to-side with frantic energy "We'll miss the morning market."
She pulled on her cloak and unlatched the bolt at the door.
"Hurry on down now. You can finish the bread in the kitchen, I just have to adjust my socks a bit-I'll be right down after you."
It rolled its jam-red eyes at her and hobbled away. She heard the gentle click of its feet receding as it descended into the gloomy ribs of the castle. Meanwhile, she yanked up the thick, loose wool of her socks (they were wearing away and losing all elasticity), and strapped up the back of her clogs, a fiddly task even when her hands were not refusing to cooperate.
Then, all in a rush and a whirl, the princess clattered down the winding stairs of the northern tower. One hand against the cool stone wall, one wrapped around her night's work, she felt the edges of each stone block slip away under her touch. Her long skirts and short oaken hair bobbed up and down with the quick tap-tap-tap of each well-known step, and her neck tickled with the rising, swirling wind of that ever-winding path. A small smile danced upon her cracked lips as she picked up speed. She knew this track well.
The steps roared beneath her as she ran. The stone grew smoother, steeper, ever more treacherous; she knew that she was nearing the end. One final burst of speed – she caught a glimpse of the entrance-way as she made the final twist, and her footsteps glided over the stone, and such was her haste that she did not notice one ankle catching behind the other, and with an almighty crash she tumbled down the last of the stairs and onto the cold floor of the corridor.
And the fall, the walls that slithered away from her, had the same terrible taste. Horribly familiar, too bright, too dark, too vivid all at the same time; the fate of the weaver-boy flashed before her eyes. Her heart raced.
She slammed painfully into the carpet.
After a pause, she let out an unsubtle groan as she slowly picked herself off of the floor. Her head throbbed, her nose smarted like a kick, and the bruise on her cheek was none too happy. Her pot-rests were scattered about in a spray of fabric, and having shakily stood up she picked them up much more slowly and delicately than she had the first time.
Righted and shuddering, she hurried on, shaking the unpleasant memory away.
If she had not been in such a hurry, she might have noticed the gilded lock fall from the doors of the Hall of Stars as she passed.
XXX
The fantasmin (clever, curious bird that it was) had had no difficulty in retrieving and devouring the last of the bread on its own, and greeted Uraraka with a whistle from the entrance hall as she walked over. Together, they set off through the starry door and into the cold of the late morning.
The market was livelier than usual. The tinsmiths guild had received their order from Yaoyorozu, and were loudly parading the new, bizarre contraption whose only real purpose seemed to be allowing Kaminari to electrocute a larger radius of the unsuspecting public with his magic than normal, a fight had broken out between two sellers of saucepans, each of whom claimed that the other was a thief and a liar and a dirty, rotten scoundrel, and somewhere a box of marbles had spilled in the snow, causing the occasional peddler to tumble over onto their own goods. All of this made the city square only marginally more hectic than it typically was.
It was amongst this hubbub that the princess was eventually able to sit down and display her wares, patiently huddling with the fantasmin in the cold. Around them the smells of roasting chestnuts cloyed and bodies milled and the damp of melting snow swam. Lasandu heaved on as they sat still.
After a slew of uninterested strangers had passed her by, she was finally able to sell the larger pot-rests to Sato, who promised that he would display his soft-breads on them, and then, by perfect chance, to Yaoyorozu, who almost fell over with surprise when she saw Uraraka on the ground.
She hummed with delight at the image of the Onirian trees that the princess had woven, and pulled her into a hug.
"My dear, it's marvellous. It really is." She said "It's just like home."
"Not half as marvellous as that thing you made for the tinsmiths!" replied Uraraka with a laugh "I've been watching Denki zap half the metalworkers of the city all morning – it's been unbelievably entertaining."
"Ah, I suppose I should have expected as much. Does he still… uhm…"
She mimed with both of her thumbs up and an unbecomingly stupid look on her face. It was immediately recognisable as an impression of Kaminari after having shocked himself senseless, and so accurate that it made the princess break into peals of laughter.
"How did you get it so exact?" she wheezed between unsightly snorts "I really- I really didn't think that you were into that sort of thing."
"Yes, well, the house has been a veritable hive of activity these last few days, especially as we've just taken on those friends of your last suitor. When you're surrounded by people like that all day, you end up picking up on their mannerisms."
"Oh, and how are they, as house guests?"
"Perfectly amiable. I couldn't ask for any more really." She thumbed the pot-rests under her elbows "They help about the house, and they ask very little of us. Kirishima sleeps before the fire every night, because dragons are ectotherms after all, and Ashido won't let us touch that wooden box of hers, but apart from that they keep to themselves."
Ec-to-therm. Yet another funny, scientific word that the princess did not know. She skipped over it, however, in favour of another piece of information that had caught her interest.
"A box?" she asked.
"Yes, all fine polished wood and lead hinges. It's not very big. It could hold… let me see, maybe a cat, or a large stack of plates?"
Neither option seemed particularly likely to Uraraka, but she did not have the time to voice the opinion before her friend continued.
"Actually, the more that I think about it- well, they're lovely people, but there's just something… off about them. I couldn't tell you what it is. Perhaps it's just because their friend is your suitor, or they're not used the Lasandunian way of life."
"Ah yes," said Uraraka, with a smirk "my suitor."
"What makes you say that?"
"Uhm, nothing really."
Momo sighed, and tugged at her ponytail. Uraraka took her hand, and she squeezed it back limply.
"The suitors… my gods, it's madness." she said.
"I know." Replied the princess.
Yaoyorozu squeezed her hand firmly.
"And are you alright with that? With letting it be? Because -and lean in close now- because I've heard that one of your suitors is hiding in the male temple. Fumikage told Tsuyu, who told me, and I thought you ought to know. I thought you'd want to go and see him. I want to see you happy, Ochaco, and that means I'd like to see you happily married."
"So would I" mumbled the princess "So would I…"
Yaoyorozu pulled her into a tight hug. Uraraka's head rested against her friend's soft bosom and closed her eyes. Her ebony hair smelled of waxy candle flame and pine cones. Faraway forests and nights spent alone.
XXX
The male bathing temple was made of red stone, with green-edged columns and a deep yellow entrance arch. Despite the flared, round arches of its windows and roof, it appeared rather gloomy inside, likely due to the combination of few windows and tall ceilings, and the smoky smell of incense wafted past the hanging candle holders all the way to the steps outside.
It was on these steps that the princess currently stood, with her belly full of lunch and her fantasmin by her side, waiting for Tokoyami.
Fumikage Tokoyami was a priest at the male temple, and an acquaintance of Uraraka's. Presently, he came out of the temple's dingy pronaos to cast the day's runes, as diligent and dramatic as always, and she carefully called out to him once he was done. He looked over to her, swept his long black robes over his left arm, and walked over to greet her.
She smiled at him as he gracefully strolled to join her. She liked Tokoyami. She liked his (unintentional) flair for the dramatic, and the calmness to his voice. Most of all, she liked that he was not one to care for appearances, and that he never minced his words.
Tokoyami was just like any other boy in all but two crucial factors: his large head was that of a blackbird, and he had a blackened ghost growing out of his upper back. Both features had been apparent since birth (or, as some speculated, his hatching from an egg), and were by now charmingly congruent to those who knew him.
His dorsal spirit, dubbed "Dark Shadow", had been his twin in the womb, and grew just as he did. It was pointed, bird-like, and unresponsive to human language, preferring to hide in dark places than to endure curious human eyes. Yaoyorozu had tried several times to determine precisely what sort of magic made it up, but even after her most extensive research and gentle prods for information had come up with nothing. To this day, the pulsating black thing seemed to smirk whenever she was near.
By contrast, though pessimistic in sensibility, Tokoyami was always pleasant to be around. His bright yellow beak shone in the mellow light, and his ebon eyes were large and round without bulging. He spoke rarely, but with an efficiency that never left anything wanting, and his pale slender hands were almost constantly engaged in some priest's duty or in stroking Dark Shadow.
At that moment in particular, his hands were free. Dark shadow had left his side to enquiringly snoop about the bewildered fantasmin, leaving Tokoyami liberated to talk to the princess.
"Hello, your Royal Highness."
"Hello. It's nice to see you again. Are you well?"
"As well as I might be. How may I help you?"
As usual, he cut cleanly through the small talk that she had prepared and straight to the heart of the matter.
"You told Tsuyu that you thought that there was a suitor in your temple. She told Momo, and Momo told me. I'd like to see him. Could you please bring him out?"
He looked briefly back at his temple, and then at the sacred amulets on his wrists.
"I will bring him if he is willing." He said, finally. He then turned to look at Dark Shadow, who was still scrutinising the fantasmin, and tried to rein it back in. Before he went back to the temple, he flitted an apprehensive look back at Uraraka. "Your bird," he said "is not trusted by Dark Shadow. It says that there is something unfriendly about it. A curse, perhaps. You had best be wary."
And with that, he disappeared back into the smoke and gloom.
The princess gave a half-hearted smile to the fantasmin, and looked up at the carved temple metopes as she waited. A cold wind blew through the city streets, and her clogs stood sinking in the snow. Her heartbeat had started to resound in the cavern of her chest, and her mouth felt dry. Once again, she had gone to meet a suitor. Could any good come of this?
Already, simply standing on the temple steps, she felt how much she did not belong there. Even if it had not been a bathing place for men, and there had been no passing boys to give her confused looks, she would not have been comfortable at the temple of the Sky Father. It was holy, far holier now that it was the festival period, and not to be tainted by one as sinful as her.
Perhaps if she had been pure, if Tokoyami had not know what she had done, perhaps then she could have stayed there comfortably…
But she was not, and he did, and she should never have been allowed into any temple at all ever again.
Uraraka wondered if there was any part of her that was without sin. Absent-mindedly, she licked her dry lips, and remembered their part in her sins, and her mind turned to all of the pieces of her that had been corrupted.
She started with her lips. Her soft, plump lips; warm and parted that night, obvious candidates. By extension then, perhaps her tongue, and her gullet, and even the stomach inside of her. Her small hands, with their nimble, curvy fingers, were certainly condemned to hell, so it followed that her forearms might be as well, and her shoulders, her tense collarbones. And her legs were not innocent, and her feet had taken her there, and then her hips and spine must equally have taken part. Even her shiny fingernails, her pearly teeth, her slender ankle, all of them had had their parts to play.
What would remain of her to enter the temple, untainted? An unhappy pile of eyeballs, hair, sinuses and veins. A tangle of the obscurer viscera, white ear cartilage, and the bones of her left shoulder. The unwanted cuts in a butcher's shop.
A shiver ran down her spine, and she fought the urge to tremble where she stood. She would think about it later, untangle her memories when she was finally alone. She was not ready, just yet; she would not cry in front of strangers.
"Hello, princess."
She was ripped from her thoughts by the voice of her suitor. Looking down, she found his face easily, already within reach. He had a smile on his face. He was not Katsuki Bakugou.
"Oh, and hello, birdie" added Kosei Tsuburaba, leaning down to pet the fantasmin. It snapped at him, disappointed once more that it had not met its master, and he cautiously pulled his hand away. He smiled shyly at Uraraka "I suppose you haven't come here to play around with the bird, have you?" he ventured.
"No," she replied slowly "I haven't."
She stared at him for a moment. He was quite a bit taller than her, with unkempt auburn hair and round, sad-looking eyes. He appeared to be nervous, but without any of Monoma's agitation or Shindo's coldness, and, paired with their setting in a public place, it put her slightly at ease.
"Now that I'm here, and that I've met you, I don't really know what I've come to do." She said "If you can, I'd like to talk to you, though I'm not sure yet what about."
"Sure." Responded Tsuburaba, and he gestured to some steps higher up that were free of snow "Why don't we take a seat?"
So the princess and her suitor sat on the temple steps together, and tried to think of something to say.
"Uhm…" she started at last, after a long moment in which they both looked at their hands "Well, I was wondering if you could start by telling me a bit about the magic of the pact."
"Oh, that." He chuckled "Yes, it's outrageous. You see, when you first took my name for the pact, I felt this wave of magic wash over me, and suddenly, I was madly in love with you. It just felt as though it was the most natural thing in the world to love every part of you and to want to be by your side at all costs. For the first day I did some terribly stupid things, and then as I precipitated towards the castle it struck me that I had never had a full conversation with you, and that I was probably making myself an obvious target for the spirits. It was clear to me that I must have been under the influence of some spell, so I made sure to reach holy ground, where the magic could not affect me. And ever since then, I've been at this temple, and I haven't been in love with you. I hope you're not offended."
"Oh, not at all. I wouldn't like to be responsible for your doing something dangerous. I'm actually rather glad that you've regained your senses."
He sighed.
"I'm not sure that I've got them all back, to be frank. I feel unnaturally wonderful just sitting beside you at this moment."
"Oh."
"Yeah, it's pretty weird."
There was an awkward pause.
"But it was nice at first." Started Tsuburaba "It felt brilliant to be in love with you, when it lasted. I thought your eyes were lovely and your hair was cute and smile was charming. I had never even seen you smile!"
Uraraka laughed.
"I'm sorry about all that." She said.
"Don't be. It's not your fault. Or mine, I like to think. Just the spirits doing their best to make sure you end up married at the end of this."
Oh yes, remembered the princess, that was why she was there. Beside her sat a boy who might marry her, who she might spend the rest of her life with, and all that she could do was laugh.
"And what if we do get married? What then?"
"I dunno. I'd be king and you'd be queen, I guess. I don't love you, but you don't love me either, so I don't think it'd be a problem. We could have lovers."
"I suppose."
"You could still be the one in power. I don't think I'd be much use as king."
She shuffled her clogs in the snow.
"Why did you join the Suitor's Game, then?"
Tsuburaba sighed. The breath clouded in the cold.
"I knew that it would come to this." he said "I've thought up a million shiny answers that will be more palatable than the truth, but now that you're here they're no good after all. The simple, ugly truth is this: I want to marry you for the money."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
Uraraka inhaled sharply.
"Well, it's fair enough. And you have been more honest with me than any other suitor."
He laughed.
"Really?" he said "I wouldn't have thought that would be the case. Most of us were in it for the money, you know. It's surprising that there weren't more of us. I need it for my siblings, but others need it for themselves. We're all dirt poor."
"You have siblings?"
"Yes. They've been staying with distant relatives in Adhesia. You helped send them away just before the famine, don't you remember?"
She shook her head, embarrassed.
"That's funny. You sent my five younger siblings all the way down the ridge to be taken in by cousins of cousins. How could you forget a thing like that? It meant rather a lot to us at the time. See if you can remember now – five siblings, and Yuuto missing his front teeth, and Akari with her hair in braids. The youngest had freckles. Don't you remember?"
She shook her head again, pursing her lips. Her ears burned.
"Well, perhaps you don't. There were lots of them, after all. And it was helpful! Helpful, no doubt about it."
There was a pause.
"Thank you. You were welcome to it. It was my duty, as a princess."
"But I did not know it at the time. To me you were simply a kindly stranger. Imagine my surprise when the magic hit! Suddenly I understood that the princess behind her veil had helped me before, and that I could have known you – I could have known you before. And I didn't. I didn't talk to you before because I thought it was beneath me. Imagine!"
"It's not as strange a thought as you seem to think. Everybody has their prejudices."
"Recently I've found myself wondering why. Why did I think that way? It seems to be an instinct as old as time."
Uraraka thumbed the thick weave of her wide sleeves and contemplated how her cloak must have looked to other people.
She loved the simple interlace of muted, repeating patterns, loved the thick dark material and the warmth it provided, and the memories it held. It had been her mother's cloak; it came from a time of plenty, a time without worries. But strangers could not see the value of the memories imbued in the cloth. They naturally assumed that she simply could not afford a brighter, daintier cloak, or that she did not care how she looked.
And Tsuburaba had been one of them.
"Do you think it must be?" she asked "An instinct, I mean. Don't you think that we must pick them up as we grow, that they're not as rational as we are told?"
She thought of that morning's dream, of Katsuki Bakugou's quiet confessions. He too had been prejudiced. He too had learned too late the distortions of reality that they reflected, and he had learned it first. She wondered why her mind had turned to him.
In the cold, their breath clouded silently. She folded her fingers against her palms to keep them from going numb, and turned to her sad-eyed suitor.
"What would you do, if you were king?"
Tsuburaba gave a small smile and leaned his head against his hand, elbows on his knees. His bottom-heavy eyes creased momentarily as he gazed dreamily at something far off.
"I would go and visit Yuuto, Akari, Yuzu and Akito and Aoi and bring them all back to Lasandu. I'd have them all live with us in the castle so that they never had want of anything. I'd buy Akari a mother of pearl comb and Yuzu a proper pair of crutches." He slowed down, thinking contentedly "I'd give them all beds of their own so that they could finally be able to have all of the blanket to themselves, and they wouldn't fight so much over the pillows or who had to sleep on the side. And the youngest – Akito – he has bad lungs, and I'd want him to see a physician. And our family would finally be whole again, and they would be as safe and content as our mother would have wanted."
"And what about me?"
"I'm sure they'd like you well enough. You've helped them once before. You could be a part of their family, our family. You must be at least a little curious for it; you have always been an only child. You might like being a mother, or an aunt, or a sister-in-law."
Uraraka blanched. The thought of motherhood, of bringing another life into that horrendous world, churned her stomach. And the children, the children with their weak lungs and bad legs and sweet freckles, what could she give them? The treasury lay bare and dusty, and there was nothing in the empty parlour to feed their hungry mouths. She could not give them what they needed. She was not what they needed.
He watched her, pulled from his reverie, and tentatively patted her on the back before leaning away.
"I see you don't really like that idea." He stated, calm and unjudging.
"I don't." she said "I can't."
"I know it's strange and daunting. I know." He hummed "I was certainly terrified of marrying you when I first joined the game for your hand; all those rumours… I thought that I was disgracing myself, selling myself off for the money. But now I know who you are, you see, and you know who I am. And our marriage would be built on compromise, and I think that in time we could be very great friends."
Her heart plunged in her chest. Cold sweat formed at the back of her neck. Poor boy, she thought, poor, naïve, boy, to love her despite what she had done.
"We might, yes."
She stood, a little too hastily.
"Thank you for your time. I've- I've got to go now. I've got to go to the bakery and the market for my supper. Thank you for your time."
He stood too, hands on his knees to avoid touching the snow.
"May I come along?"
"Uhm... Yes," she hesitated, ashamed to turn him away "if you'd like."
"I've spent far too long cooped up in the male temple, basting in the smell of incense and bath salts. A walk will do me well, and I am safe by your side."
"Come along, then."
They carefully made their way down the icy temple steps, followed by the hopping fantasmin, and began to wind their way back towards the centre of the city. The ice on the cobbles was melting slightly, and there was a faint tinge of moisture on the air as they climbed over the uneven snow. All along the hip roofs the icicles were dripping, each falling drop resonating like glass as it hit the ground below. Tsuburaba slipped as they rounded an alleyway corner, and was only prevented from hitting his head on a dark stone wall by Uraraka, who grabbed his wrist and hauled him back up.
"Thanks." He said, sheepishly.
She told him that he was welcome. She had noticed an increasing nervousness in him as they walked together, a kind of fear that was evident in the way that he looked this way and that and tried not to stray too far from her side. He reminded her of a skittering young goat, and the idea made her heart swell with pity.
"Would you like to hold my hand?" She asked, and then immediately wished that she had not.
"I would lo- I would like that very much." Responded Tsuburaba with an anxious laugh.
They stopped. He looked down at her and gingerly wrapped his long, cold fingers in hers. The contact made her knuckles tingle, and she giggled aloud. Surprised, he blinked at her.
"What is it?" He inquired.
"Oh, it's nothing really. I was just thinking- I was just thinking how silly this all is. How absurdly tender it's become to do something as simple as hold hands."
"Tender?"
A strawberry blush dusted his cheeks, and his heavy eyes widened. The princess felt a faint pride
that she had caused such a reaction, which caused her only to laugh even harder. Tsuburaba's blush deepened.
"Please don't mind me." She said, after regaining her composure and starting to walk again, tugging him along "I don't want to abuse your emotions."
"Not at all," he mumbled "not at all, not at all. I feel as though I am walking on air at the moment, and my heart is impossibly warm. You must feel my pulse racing in my palms."
She did, but she kept it to herself.
"Do you still think that we could be very great friends, then?"
"I am sure of it."
"Even though you are walking on air at the moment?"
"Even though I am walking on air. Maybe even because of it. There exists a place between love and friendship, and many realms even beyond that, and I am sure there is one in which we might belong."
They might. It was the uncertainty that Uraraka hated the most. The thought of not being in control, of being at the mercy of the future, sent her spiralling back to the famine, and the cold, and the terror of the plague.
But her hand was still in his, and there was still a way to walk to the bakery, and she knew she must turn her mind elsewhere. Glancing surreptitiously at the boy beside her, she tried her best to imagine that they were friends. She started by asking him what his favourite colour was.
"Green" he replied.
"Is there any reason why?"
"The trees are green, and they remain so all year around. I think they're rather stoic in that way."
The conversation trickled on, meaningless and soft. Their hands grew warm together, and their fingers twisted until they fit perfectly, and above them the two white suns were so close that they almost touched.
Finally, after they had learned each other's preferences, exhausted all mentions of the weather, and Uraraka had bought her bread and the ingredients for a stew, it was time for them to part ways. They stood in the central square, looking up at the spindly towers of the ancient castle that loomed from the summit of the mountain.
"I suppose this is goodbye." Said the princess.
"Goodbye until the wedding, at least."
"If there is one."
"If there is one, yes."
He extricated his fingers from hers, and turned to face her. His smile wavered as he spoke.
"Do you not-" he trembled "Will you not keep me by your side? Only keep me by your side, that is all I ask! All that Akari and Yuuto, Aoi, Akito, Yuzu need! Oh, you do not love me, but will you really see me die?"
She watched him shiver, watched the tears quiver at the edges of his eyes. It was not a face that she could imagine embracing, but the face of a stranger at her mercy.
"I cannot marry you out of pity." She said "More than that; I do not want to. I don't want to marry anyone because I have to."
His sad, bottom-heavy eyes grew rounder still, and a few tears began to slip over his pink cheeks.
"Goodbye, princess" he murmured, and it was barely a whisper.
"Goodbye."
She reached out to squeeze his hand for a final time. He began to sob.
"I do-" he gasped between tears "I do believe that we could have been very great friends, you know."
"And I;" lied the princess "and I."
He about-turned and made his wobbling way back down the steep city slopes. She watched him go, then looked down at the fantasmin. It swivelled in its funny, jerking, bird-like way to look back up at her. They silently agreed that it was high time to go home.
A/N: Reminder that you have very little time left to guess what Ochaco's major past event was! I really really want to hear what you think! I've left everything quite open for exactly that reason.