Oh, man... finally time to post this... I've been super excited ever since joining the Rally Spectrum+ project, and I've only gotten antsier over time, haha! Seeing all the other amazing pieces created for this zine has really been amazing, and I can hardly believe I got to work with all these talented and brilliant authors and artists!
If you want to see more beautiful LGBTQ+ fanfics and art, you can check out all our pieces on the Rally Spectrum tumblr!
As for the piece itself... hoo boy, a lot of editing and rewriting went into this piece, and I'm honestly so pleased with the end result! Lilina and Hector's relationship is just... so soft... I love them so much, guys, you don't even understand. Trans WLW Lilina and supportive papa Hector is one of my favorite dynamics to write.
With all that out of the way, I hope you all enjoy! :D
Mulberry Juice and Lavender Soap
Lilina was in her bedroom, scrubbing her hands furiously in a basin of warm water she'd pilfered from the washroom, when Father knocked lightly on the door-frame. "Hey there, lass," he said, stepping inside without waiting to be acknowledged. "Almost ready?"
Lilina just shrugged noncommittally. He could clearly see that she was still in her day clothes, and her tunic was streaked with grass stains. She didn't turn to look at him.
Unbothered by her silence, Father crossed the room in a few quick strides and came to stand just behind her. "Heard that you might need this," he said, placing a chunk of bar soap on the vanity. His other hand absently brushed across her back, between her shoulder blades, the same way he rubbed her back whenever she awoke from a nightmare.
"Who snitched on me?" she grumbled, refusing to be soothed by his ministrations.
With a snort, Hector leaned against the edge of the vanity. It creaked perilously beneath the combined weight of him and his dress armor. "Sorry, kid, I don't rat out my sources."
Of course. Pouting, Lilina turned just enough to stick out her tongue. "I already tried soap," she mumbled irritably, even as she reached out to accept the offered chunk. It was rough and grainy against her skin; nothing at all like the baby-smooth bars that stocked the Marquess' washroom.
"Well, that was before you let them soak," Father responded with a shrug. "Now that they've been soaked, the dirt is all loosened up, and you can scrub it off more easily."
Lilina coughed out a laugh. "That's not how soaps work, Pops," she said, but she lathered both of her palms with the stuff nonetheless. Now that it was closer, she could smell the slightly overwhelming fragrance of lavender. She didn't remember telling Father that lavender was her favorite scent. Was it just a lucky guess?
Either way, the familiar smell relaxed her a bit, and the tension slowly drained from her shoulders. Father watched silently as she continued to scour her hands.
"Are you nervous?" Father asked after a brief silence.
Immediately, Lilina's muscles tightened back up. "Nervous about what?" she scoffed, turning away to hide her scowl. "It's just a banquet. I don't even have to say anything unless Uncle Eliwood asks about my studies or something."
The vanity squealed as Hector leaned forward to drop a hand on her shoulder. "That's Marquess Pherae for tonight," he said, though he didn't sound particularly enthused about the formality himself. Then, gently: "And you know that's not what I meant."
Lilina determinedly did not meet his eyes. "…Yeah," she said at length, still wringing her hands beneath the water. "I know."
It wasn't every day that she made her debut as Lady Lilina, after all. Especially not in front of people who already remembered her by a different name.
"It doesn't matter," she continued, glaring holes into her own reflection on the rippling surface of the washbasin. "I don't care about what any of them think except Uncle Eli—Marquess Pherae, and he already knows, so it doesn't matter."
Father squeezed her shoulder. "It's okay if you're nervous anyway."
She couldn't summon up a response.
Luckily, Father didn't wait for one. Bracing his hands on his knees, he stood back upright; Lilina's vanity groaned in relief. "What say we get you into this dress?" he suggested, graciously changing the subject. With the utmost care, he picked up the red and cream gown from where it lay across the foot of her bed.
Lilina averted her eyes. "I… don't want to stain it when I'm putting it on," she muttered.
Without looking, she could tell that Father was quirking his eyebrows at her. "How dirty could your hands possibly be?" he asked, somewhere between stern and curious.
With a huff, Lilina pulled her arms out of the lukewarm water, wiped them dry on her already filthy tunic, and presented them to her Father. Even after all that scrubbing, her palms were still dark with purple splotches, and her fingers were wrinkled after having been under the water for so long. She pulled a face. "Now I look even stupider," she muttered peevishly.
"You don't look stupid," Father said, his crooked smile barely visible behind his beard. "Just a bit prune-like, that's all." She shot him a withering look, and he raised his hands in surrender. "How did you manage to stain them that badly, anyway?"
At that, Lilina turned back towards the vanity, color rising to her cheeks. It was a completely innocuous question, and, if she tried hard enough, she could probably come up with a completely innocuous answer. But…
"Well," she said at length, clasping her hands in her lap, "there's this girl."
Father audibly snapped to attention. "Oh?" he interjected. "A girl, you say?"
This did nothing to help Lilina's face cool down. "Y-yeah." Ducking her head, she twirled a few strands of hair around one finger. It was nearly to her shoulders, now, save for some stubborn shorter locks near the front that insisted upon curling around her eyes. "Her name is Altani. She runs a little stall in the marketplace, selling produce from her family's farm." A smile crept onto her face without her permission. "Fruits and vegetables, mostly, but she talks about her chickens all the time. She named one after me, and she keeps saying she'll bring it into the market someday so I can meet—"
Realizing that she was rambling (and that Father was definitely going to notice), Lilina closed her mouth with a click. "Ahem. I saw her when I was going to pick up my dress from the tailor, and we… got a bit sidetracked." They ditched Lilina's escort and ended up getting lost in the city. "We ended up finding some mulberries—" on the ground— "and couldn't help but indulge—" they dared each other to eat the gross, squished ones— "and, well… you know how mulberry juice can stain."
Father hummed his acknowledgment, but completely ignored most of what she'd said. "Altani, huh? She's Sacaen?"
"Half. On her mother's side." Like me, she didn't say. "It gives us something to talk about, I suppose." Not that they ever seemed to run short on conversation topics, anyway. Altani was a veritable font of chatter sometimes.
With a contemplative grunt, Father ran a hand through his beard. "You said this girl works in the marketplace?"
"…Yes," Lilina said cautiously.
"Maybe I should go talk to—"
"Don't try to intimidate my friend."
Father drew himself up to his full height. "If she isn't man enough to stare me down without flinching, then she isn't man enough to court my daughter," he said haughtily. "I mean, girl enough. Woman enough. You know what I mean."
At that, she couldn't stop herself from laughing—the ugly snorting laugh that she always tried to choke down. "Nobody's courting anybody, Father," she giggled. Nevertheless, she felt a weight vanish from her chest at his easy acceptance. Really, she didn't know why she had expected any different. Maybe her nerves really were getting the better of her tonight.
Father smiled widely at the sound of her laughter. "Well?" he prompted once she was done, holding out her dress in both hands. "Are you ready to try it on, lass?"
Without giving herself a moment to think about it, Lilina pushed herself out of her chair. "Yes," she said decisively. "I'm ready."
It took all of their combined brainpower to wrangle the dress onto her. Father wrestled with the last few fastenings for a good five minutes, spitting curses that would have made Mother shove the whole bar of too-strong lavender soap down his throat.
Once she was fully dressed, though, Lilina couldn't help but grin at the sight of herself in the mirror. The gown, for all its complicated hooks and laces, fit perfectly—and, while the scion of House Ostia traditionally wore darker colors to cut a more imposing figure, she personally thought that red did the job perfectly well.
As she ran a brush through her hair one last time, Father put both hands on her shoulders, met her eyes in the mirror, and smiled. He didn't comment on her dress, of course—she knew that Father wouldn't have noticed if she wore a potato sack to the banquet—but he did lean down to drop a kiss on the back of her head.
"I love you, Lilina," he said, and she had to blink back a sudden mist of tears.
"I love you too, Father."
(No one at the banquet noticed that she had prunes for hands. Though, when she reintroduced herself to Roy, she could swear that he left their handshake with a little bit of mulberry juice on his palm.)