Kana just wants to take a nap. Sakura has dinner with her family. Corrin receives advice.
Kana had spent the past two hours under Corrin's tutelage. He'd run laps until his legs felt like jelly and practiced his stance until his spine throbbed and done crunches until his belly burned and sparred until his arms loosened in their sockets and Corrin had said that he was improving so fast and she was so impressed, but not even her praise could shake the exhaustion that had settled into his head. He needed a nap. Really badly.
So maybe that was why he was so upset when he finally got back to the room he shared with Siegbert and Shigure, which he had used to share with Siegbert and Shiro but Soleil had kicked Shigure out of the room they had shared so Shiro had gone to stay with her instead, because everyone was in his room and Soleil and Shigure were fighting again because they were always fighting now since Soleil had found out about Shigure hanging out with their mom and she'd started hanging out with their dad and told Shigure things like, "I was always the favorite anyway."
And Kana had gotten used to their fighting even though it made him sad because it happened anytime they were in the same room, but he was annoyed with it now because all he wanted to do was take a little nap before dinner, but Soleil and Shigure were so loud that he knew he'd hear them in his dreams even if he did manage to fall asleep. So he just stripped clean of his dirty training leathers that Corrin had had made special for him and put on his comfy clothes and then sat on his bed with his arms crossed as Shigure began to shout about how Soleil was so self-absorbed that she couldn't even pretend to be sympathetic to him taking the only chance they'd ever get to see their mom and blah, blah, blah.
Kana had heard it all before.
Siegbert stood between Soleil and Shigure, but he didn't do much of anything besides provide a barrier in case they decided to start throwing elbows. Kana pressed his fists against his eyes as Soleil began to shriek. They were so loud.
The mattress sank beside him and Kana pulled his fists from his eyes and saw Shiro sitting beside him. The older boy reclined against the wall so that his body stretched across the whole width of the bed.
"How're you doin' Kana-roo?" Shiro asked and normally the nickname made Kana smile because it was really similar to the one his mama had given him, but now he just frowned and pouted harder because it was the best way to sum up how he was feeling.
Shiro sighed.
"Trust me, I get you. They've been going at it for the past hour," he said.
Kana glared at the bickering siblings and Siegbert in-between them and he would have kicked them out himself if his mama hadn't engrained in him that he needed to be a good and gracious host because it was something he was going to have to do a lot once he was older whether he liked it or not so it was best he learned it when he younger instead of older and it had always annoyed him that he had to be nice to people that were mean and said rude things about his mama behind her back but he did it to make her happy and he missed his mama now more than ever because she would be able to tell him how to get Soleil and Shigure to stop fighting because she was so smart and always knew what to say when something was going wrong and everybody always liked her and he was trying so hard to be like she wanted him to be but it was really difficult without her here.
Shiro jabbed him with his elbow and Kana whirled on him, glaring at Shiro like Jakob did at him since the day he'd been born, but Shiro brandished two links of jerky and shook them in offering.
Kana didn't ask where he'd gotten it from. He'd heard Siegbert complain about Shiro's provisions raiding enough times to know that Shiro often dipped into the mess hall pantry after hours, or sometimes even during hours, to steal snacks. He'd tried to figure out how he did it without getting caught, but he hadn't been able to.
Shiro shook the jerky again. Kana took one and bit into the gamy meat. Soon, he'd turned the meat to mush in his belly.
"Thanks," Kana said.
Shiro shrugged. He tucked the other piece of jerky away. He said, "No problem."
Shigure was yelling at Soleil again. Something about how he was always wrong no matter what he did or said. Kana wished he hadn't eaten the jerky so fast. It didn't settle well in his stomach.
"How was training?" Shiro asked.
"It was alright," Kana said. It wasn't entirely a lie. It hadn't been the worst training he'd ever endured. Once, his papa had worked him so hard that he passed out, but that was really his fault because he'd been so determined to keep up and to prove that he wasn't weak that he hadn't let it show how much the effort had gotten to him. His mama had been really upset when she'd found out and then he didn't train with his papa anymore. He had been assigned a special combat tutor, but the tutor smelled like eggs and never let him handle real steel so Kana had skipped every session he could manage and then he'd come here and he hadn't been trained by anyone for a while until Corrin decided to start.
"Yeah?" Shiro asked, jabbing a finger into Kana's arm and, when Kana winced, added, "Corrin didn't run you ragged this time?"
Kana rubbed at his aching biceps, but pretended like he had a chill so that it wasn't super obvious that his arms hurt.
"Well, maybe a little," he admitted.
Siegbert had joined the argument, but Kana didn't need to listen closely to know that Siegbert was reminding them that they needed to stay focused so they could save the world and go home. Kana knew Siegbert was scared that, if Soleil and Shigure didn't make up, Soleil would use the magical orb she'd stolen from her dad that Kana didn't understand in the slightest to take them all home except Shigure and leave her brother stranded in a past that wasn't even their own and Kana knew that Siegbert was also scared that one of them would blow their cover, but Kana didn't know what would really happen if their cover got blown. He just knew it would be really hard to explain because he didn't even really get it himself and saying that they'd been tagged to save the world by the good part of Anankos and that he'd sent them to the past without any other information beyond that wouldn't exactly convince anybody.
"I'm sure it sucks now, but it'll be worth it," Shiro said. "I nearly conked out my first month in the Pit, but then I was throwing guys five times my size over my head without barely lifting a finger."
The Pit was what Shiro called the underground fighting ring where he'd made a name for himself as a spear fighter. He only mentioned it in passing and refused to give any more details when Kana pried him for information, but Kana had asked Siegbert about it once and Siegbert had said that, even though he didn't know the specifics, Shiro had led a really hard and troubled life before the good Anankos had meddled in all their lives and that Kana should stop pushing the subject if Shiro didn't want to talk about it, but Shiro really didn't talk about anything from his life and it bothered Kana because he was so curious about the life Shiro led that was so far removed from his own, but, more importantly, he didn't feel that he could be a very good friend to Shiro when he didn't know much at all about him, especially when Shiro seemed to know everything about his life.
All Kana really knew about Shiro was that he was at least a year older than Siegbert, that he was born and raised in a small city along the Hoshidian border that was plagued by revolts, violence, and corruption, which Kana had only known about because sometimes he eavesdropped on his papa's conversations, that Shiro's mother had died when he was young and that he often watched her whenever he saw her around the fortress but pretended not to, and that he hated his father because when Kana had asked about his father, Shiro had just shrugged and said, "Didn't know him. Pops split before I was born. Left my mom to raise me all by herself."
And Kana remembered exactly what Shiro had said because it'd formed a little well of sadness down in his belly because Shiro was a really nice guy and it made Kana feel really bad that he'd had to fend for himself for so long. And maybe that was why Shiro hated Siegbert so much because he'd had to fight for himself since he was young while Siegbert had never had to fight for anything, but Kana knew that was wrong. Siegbert had to fight for a lot of things, just not a roof over his head.
"I'm out of here!" Soleil shouted suddenly, stomping for the door. "C'mon Shiro!"
Shiro rolled his eyes, but he slunk off the bed, giving Kana a nod in parting, and then followed Soleil out the door. Shigure kicked at the ground as they left. After a moment, he stalked out of the room, heading the opposite direction as Soleil and Shiro. Kana watched him leave and then burrowed beneath his sheets, rolling onto his side to stare at the gray wall beside his bed.
"How was training?" Siegbert asked. His voice was heavy with exhaustion. Kana didn't answer. He didn't feel like talking to anyone anymore. Siegbert sighed.
Kana's stomach twinged, but soon sleep came to claim him. He didn't feel so confused in his dreams.
As Sakura sat amongst her family in the crowded mess hall, there was an unspoken tension. Hinoka and Ryoma glanced at the each other whenever Corrin's attention shifted from the conversation at the table, asking with their eyes whether they should bring it up or not. Sakura prayed that they wouldn't. It was the first time they'd all been together in so long.
I just want to have a nice meal, she thought.
Beside her, Takumi scarfed down the flavorless gruel they'd been served. He'd barely said two words and the bags underneath his eyes had been etched into his skin, but she was glad he was there.
Corrin dominated the table conversation, nudging it from questions of Ryoma's love life with Kagero and the progress of planning the harvest celebration to comments about general goings-on. She spoke with an ease that Sakura didn't know how to process.
But I don't know how to process anything about Corrin, Sakura thought, biting down on the hard piece of bread that had come with the gruel. It crunched against her teeth, but it didn't break until she'd rent it apart.
"How's your protégé?" Ryoma asked, wresting the conversational reins from the silence that had fallen as Corrin picked at her meal.
"Oh, he's great!" Corrin gushed. "He's learning so fast!"
Ryoma nodded. Hinoka smiled. Takumi continued to inhale his meal. Sakura said nothing. Silence yawned.
Sakura watched Jakob peel from the shadows, coming forward to whisper into Corrin's ear. Her sister fell silent, listening with hooded eyes and grim mouth. Her bowl was fuller than anyone else's. She'd only eaten the scraps of meat, leaving the broth to stagnate.
"Excuse me a moment," Corrin said as Jakob retreated once more. Then, she stood from the table and made her way through the crowd until she'd disappeared from sight. Sakura poked at a bobbing hunk of celery, watching it struggle in the thin muck.
"You need to ask her about Silas," Hinoka hissed to Ryoma.
"Why can't you do it?" Ryoma demanded.
Sakura tried to drown out her siblings' bickering by listening to the clanking of spoons and the low buzz of conversation around her. For a moment, Takumi's slurping was the loudest sound in the world and then Hinoka cried, "I don't want to upset her!"
Then don't bring it up! Sakura thought. Just leave her alone.
Sakura was just as worried about Corrin as they were, but she knew that pushing the subject wouldn't help anything.
Beside her, Takumi polished off his dinner and set his silverware down with clanging finality.
"Just leave it be," he said, wiping broth from his mouth. "I doubt she wants your pity."
"It's not pity, Takumi. It's concern," Hinoka said. Then, she turned the curve of her eyebrows into daggers and dropped her voice into an accusation as she said, "Maybe you should try it sometime."
Takumi's mouth sharpened to a point and his glare blazed as he spat, "I am concerned. I just don't need to shove it down everybody's throats to prove it."
"Well at least I'm trying," Hinoka asserted and Sakura's insides turned hard watching Takumi back down until his face was flat and emotionless. "At least I—"
"Hinoka," Ryoma warned. Hinoka's eye flashed, but then she fell silent. The mess hall was ferocious with sound around them. Sakura looked to Takumi, but his gaze was on the opposite wall, refusing to meet her or their siblings' eyes. His hands were fisted at his sides.
Sakura stared into the contents of her bowl. She wasn't hungry anymore, but the gross concoction within was easier to digest than the blank expression on her brother's face.
She felt the table bounce and then looked up to see Corrin squeezing back between Ryoma and Hinoka, asking, "What'd I miss?"
"Nothing of note," Ryoma said with a stiff shrug.
None of them brought up Silas and Takumi didn't speak again. The rest of their meal passed in unease and broken silences.
What had once been something like fall was rapidly turning into winter. A landscape bursting with every shade and hue was lightening, fading into colorless monotony. The trees bore little foliage, their naked limbs bared to the world. The grass had begun to wither. Wildflowers that had bloomed in summer and held strong through fall were dying in droves, graying in the morning frost and disappearing before evening fell.
Crops had been decimated in a single day when an unexpected cold snap brought freezing rain and smothered sunlight. Sickness spread through the army, ranging from the sniffles to the flu, and cut able forces by nearly a third. Outposts established were severely undermanned and unprepared and had become easy fodder in the cold. The chill had no effect on Anankos' thralls. With each drop in degree, another foothold in enemy territory fell.
Corrin was beginning to lose faith. Every decision she made seemed a greater mistake than the last. She'd begun to rely more heavily on Ryoma and Xander's expertise, but their suggestions made little difference. No matter what she did, people died. And she was alone in her guilt. If her first tryst with alcohol hadn't ended in a ravaging headache and a resounding shame, she might have turned to it again.
Now, having finished her rounds in record time, she sped around the track in the arena, running from the stress and dread that constantly darkened her gaze. Sweat froze on her exposed skin, but she could barely feel its chill from the heat of exertion. In the center of the arena, the bulk of the army worked through their nightly drills under Xander's watchful eye.
Once, she had been the one to spearhead the drills, but she'd taken a sabbatical from the physical reigns of the army, handing them off to Ryoma and Xander for the foreseeable future given her ever increasing list of responsibilities. The time she spent now blazing around the track was the only free time she had. Even her meals had become work, flitting from group to group to foster goodwill with each and her dinner with her siblings had been no different. She tried her best, but she was still at the periphery of their lives, an outsider to the familial bonds that had grown strong in her absence.
As the soldiers began their rigorous activity, she knew that soon they would take to the track and she would be forced from the comfort of pure, physical momentum, and of worry that extended only to the ache in her chest and the strain of moving. And then she would rearrange her ravaged emotions into something presentable to trade pleasantries with Xander before slinking off to the isolation of her room and read and think and fear and plan until Orochi arrived and she had to pretend like she could sleep.
Not too long ago, before the soldiers had arrived and before the sun had begun its slow descent in the bitter sky, Jakob had trailed beside her, calling for her to slow and cease, but he had since taken his leave, mumbling to himself about stubborn royals and leaving her to run in peace.
Good riddance, Corrin had thought when he'd finally given up. He had been a horrible nuisance over the past week, pestering her incessantly with questions about her wellbeing and assertions of what would improve her mood. At first, she had appreciated his concern, but it had soon become an unyielding annoyance, especially once it had spread to Felicia and Kaze.
They treat me like a child.
Corrin completed another lap and then slowed in her pace. She took the track at a jog, tapping out a gentle rhythm against the ground beneath her boots. She'd gotten used to running in them, though she still forwent them during battle. They encumbered her to the point that her characteristic, fluid stance became awkward and choppy.
The sun was drawing ever nearer and, as she rounded the final bend, she felt that she could run headlong into it and immolate herself against its molten surface. But she passed beneath it unimpeded and blinking dark splotches from her eyes.
She slowed to a halt as she came upon her discarded overcoat lying like a dead animal against the spectator stands. It was stiff and reluctant to resume its form when she plucked it from the ground. Frost had wound its way into the fabric, dampening the soft wool. She brought it against her leg and then a shower of thin droplets dotted the gravel, but the overcoat was no less moist. Corrin sighed.
The troops began to chant numbers, counting out their progress towards whatever goal had been set for them. She glanced their way as she attempted to wring out her coat. She caught sight of Silas without intending to and her chest constricted.
His back was to her, but it was impossible to mistake him for anyone else. He paced back and forth before the assembled battalion, barking commands to those that slowed in their drills. The falling sun coated his hair in watery incandescence. Once, the rumor had gone around that he had only been chosen to aide in overseeing drills because he warmed her bed.
But they can't say that anymore, Corrin thought as she slung her arms through the frigid coat. It did little to alleviate the chilling weight on her flesh. She buttoned the coat with tense fingers, slipping on the smooth buttons and making the simple task more difficult than it should have been, and then she stuffed her hands into the mittens Jakob had knit for her. He'd knit her a cap to match the ensemble, but she'd lost it soon after he'd given it to her.
He still hasn't let me hear the end of it.
Corrin braced her hands against each other and then breathed hot air over the clasped wool. She barely felt it through the thick barrier, but it made her feel a little better. As she stood there, attempting to get the blood flowing in her fingers once more, she heard the arena gate open despite the unison counting beside her.
As she turned to the newcomer, she saw the blur of their moving arm and their shout of, "Head's up!"
Something small and round shrieked through the air. It rocketed for the bridge of her nose. In a moment of brutal instinct, she stopped it, but it rebounded from her mittened hand. It bounced twice on the ground before rolling to a stop against the stands.
She stared at the faded leather ball in stunted recognition of the black marked "C" on its side. Then, she turned to the man who'd thrown it at her.
"Entertain an old man," Gunter said, connecting his hands at the heel and splaying his aged fingers into a makeshift catcher's mitt. Years of tongue lashings had taught her better than to question him so she removed her mitten and then retrieved the ball. She stared down at it for a moment, giving the worn leather a squeeze and remembering all the times she'd spent launching it off the walls in the Northern Fortress. She lobbed it back at him.
He caught it deftly and then sent it back her way before she could remove her other mitten so she could only skitter out of the way so that it didn't bruise her ribs. It arced towards the amassed army before slamming into the edge of the track in a cloud of dust. It rolled towards the soldiers, but Corrin sprinted for it, scooping it up before it could dart beneath unsuspecting feet.
When she'd straightened, she found Xander's questioning stare on her. Her face burned and she sent her gaze to Silas, but he either hadn't noticed or was pointedly ignoring her. Squaring her shoulders, she gave Xander a sheepish smile and a curt, two-fingered wave before returning to Gunter with a frown. She didn't throw the ball back to him.
"Not in the mood for catch?" he asked.
She held up the ball, twisting it so she could observe it from all angles and questioning, "Where'd you get this?"
"You left it behind the morning you set out for Windmire."
The ball grew heavy in her hand. She had been a different person the last time she'd held it. Naïve. Innocent.
That morning feels like an entire lifetime ago, she thought, but didn't say. Instead, she tossed the ball to Gunter before it could burn the heart out of her.
It slammed into his hands with a soft thwunk and remained there as he lowered his hands. The setting sun highlighted the wrinkled fissures in his face so that they writhed in conflicting shadow and light. His grizzled hair was obscured by a simple black cap. Corrin stared at it and thought, I wonder if Jakob made that for him.
And then she realized why he'd come.
"Jakob sent you, didn't he?" she asked, crossing her arms as he made to throw the ball to her again. He stilled in his stance.
"He made me aware of the situation, yes," he said. Then, the ball was careening towards her again. She made no move to catch it or to avoid it, refusing to play his game, and it smashed into the meat of her thigh. The impact stung. She didn't flinch, thankful that it had veered into her good leg. The ball rolled away, but she didn't look for it. Gunter sighed.
"Jakob needs to stop meddling," she said.
"I agree wholeheartedly," Gunter said as he came forward and retrieved the ball.
"Then why're you here?"
He ignored her question, priming another pitch and announcing, "This hits your injured leg unless you catch it."
The ball ripped through the air. Corrin winced, bracing for the impact, but it zipped past her, missing her by nearly a foot. She laughed in mingled relief and surprise.
"I thought you'd actually do it," she said.
He scowled and admitted, "Old age has made me soft."
Footsteps broke from the set rhythm of the drill and Corrin turned as they drew closer. A soldier approached, brandishing the ball like a holy relic. She inclined her head to both of them, Corrin first, then Gunter, and announced, "Lady Corrin, Lord Xander asks that you stop interrupting his drills with your, uh, game of catch."
Embarrassment fanned across Corrin's face. She nodded as she took the ball from the soldier. The soldier made to take her leave, but Gunter bid her to stay a moment longer, commanding, "Tell Xander to stop interrupting my game of catch with his drills."
Corrin rolled her eyes. Gunter had always displayed a penchant for taking shots at Xander's ego for as long as she could remember. Once, she had feared that Gunter was unnecessarily cruel, but she had since learned that he treated everyone with suspicion and aggression.
Except for me, Corrin thought, but didn't know what to do with the notion beyond accepting the swell of affection it brought.
"I… sir?" the solider intoned as her eyes bugged form the pallor of her face. Her mouth was drawn in tight consternation and Corrin feared the woman might faint.
"He's joking," Corrin announced. The woman nodded stiffly and then she was darting back to the block without a second glance.
"I wasn't joking," Gunter said, but, when she looked at him, he didn't look nearly as gruff as he sounded.
Corrin tossed the ball into the air and then caught it. She did it again, liking the sensation of leather smacking against her numbing palm. Then, Gunter cleared his throat.
"I heard that you are no longer with Silas."
It had been three days, but this was the first time her breakup had been brought up so candidly. It didn't hurt any less. She focused on the motion of tossing the ball up and then the sound of catching it rather than the truth of his words.
"So has the rest of the army," she said and, though she'd intended for it to be lighthearted, her voice came out without mirth or even the hint of humorous inflection.
"Gossip travels fast," he said.
Toss, smack.
"How are you taking it?" he asked.
I don't know.
But she couldn't say that. She said, "It's been a long time coming."
It wasn't entirely a lie. She had felt the end looming above her and Silas for so long that it had nearly been cathartic when it had finally come. For a single, fleeting moment, her breath had been had so full that she had thought her sternum might snap. But then dark reality had set in and she had realized that she was truly alone.
"How so?" Gunter asked.
She sent the ball up to the heavens again and then caught it with a dull smack as she mulled over an answer that wouldn't wound to give.
"I'm too busy for a relationship," she said at last and it seemed a fitting answer because it didn't stick to her mouth after she had given it voice.
"Is that all?"
No. It wasn't even that.
The chill bit into her exposed fingers, stiffening them around the curve of the ball.
It was just me.
She stammered to say anything else.
"I… no, but…"
The setting sun caught the banister behind Gunter's head as she flicked her wrist to toss the ball up into the air. The sharp light blurred her vision. She caught the ball, but nearly dropped it between loose fingers.
"It wasn't anything else," she managed to say.
Gunter crossed his arms. He jerked his head towards the spectators' stands, saying, "Come. Sit with me a moment."
She didn't question him as he climbed the steps. She let her arm dangle, the ball trapped inside tight fingers, as she followed after him. He sat in the bottom row, scooting in so that she had room to sit beside him. She sat and the metal bench jabbed ice into her blood through the thin fabric of her pants.
"Silas is a nice man," Gunter began, "but he's known no hardship. Your struggles are far greater than he can ever hope to understand or soothe."
The soldiers took to the track, sending up plumes of dust in their wake. She caught several of them glancing up at her, but they had the decency to look ashamed beneath her stare.
"That doesn't exactly make me feel better," she said.
Gunter scowled. His stare dropped to the stampede of soldiers below.
"No, I suppose it doesn't."
She looked to the ball in her hand and saw that her fingers had gone pink with cold. She set the ball against the dip formed from the press of her legs together. Then, she began the task of blanketing her freezing hand in the warmth of her mitten. As she shoved her fingers into the woolen confines, Gunter announced, "Let me share this with you then…"
Corrin crossed her arms, pressing her hands into the warmth within the cave of her armpits. She shared Gunter's line of sight, but the soldiers had long since thundered past. There was nothing beyond bits of rock. And Xander and Silas, but she didn't look at either of them.
"When I was a young man," Gunter began, "I spent much of my wealth and time pursuing a beautiful priestess—"
"A priestess?" Corrin interrupted with a smirk. She thought of Jakob and sounded his common refrain of "Gunter, you old cad!" in the ether of her mind.
"I was a much different man in my youth, be glad you did not know me as I was," he grumbled. Corrin laughed, trying to picture Gunter as a young man, but failing to move past the construction of his face without wrinkles. It seemed wrong to think of him with a face of rubbery bravado rather than sage wisdom. Gunter proceeded with his story.
"Eventually, after years of pursuit, which I assure you were all very romantic and extremely forbidden, she left the order for me."
Damn, she nearly breathed, but knew displeasure would contort Gunter's mouth at the curse, so amended to question, "And?"
"And I cared for her desperately, but it wasn't enough and I owed it to the both of us to end it."
She stared up into the inky dusk that trailed in the sun's wake. She said, "I'm sure she took it well."
"Oh, she took it miserably. Threatened to rend my head from my shoulders and leave me infirm so that I could never hurt another woman the way I'd hurt her."
Corrin chuckled in mingled surprise and humor.
"It killed me to leave her, but it had to be done," Gunter continued. Then, he looked at her in that all-knowing way he had and cleaved through the mask she'd constructed to obscure the raw conflict churning inside, adding, "And, I suspect, even though you were not the one to bring about the end, you might have maintained some inkling of the same towards Silas."
Corrin stared into her hands. She hated him for reading her so succinctly, but loved him for it all the same.
"I'm being foolish, aren't I?" she said, taking the ball into her hand and squeezing until only a thin sheath of wool separated her fingers from the dingy leather.
"You're being human," Gunter said, gruffly. "And shortsighted perhaps, but never foolish."
Corrin released a breath she hadn't intentionally held and released her death grip on the ball. Something like levity flickered in her chest.
For a while, the crisp air was devoid of conversation. They sat in silence, both staring out at the activity beneath them. Corrin's eyes drifted to the gray clouds on the horizon that rushed towards the setting sun.
I hope it won't snow, she thought. The last thing we need is snow.
She continued to watch the encroaching cloud until Gunter announced, "I met my wife soon after I left the priestess."
She looked to his face, searching for what to say within the guarded expression, but finding nothing and saying, "You don't talk about her much."
It was an understatement. Gunter never talked about his wife. The plain gold ring he wore was the only evidence that he had ever been married.
"No, I don't."
And maybe because he'd shared so much already or maybe because he knew everything about her and she knew nothing about him, Corrin felt emboldened enough to press, "What was she like?"
Gunter hesitated in answering, but he didn't retreat like he had in the past when she'd inquired about his life before the Northern Fortress.
"She was clever," he began, "cleverer than anyone I've ever known and had a silver tongue to rival young Lord Leo's. She talked circles around me and I never understood a damned thing she said, but I would have died just to hear her speak. I…"
He paused and looked at her so that she could see her own face, pinched and shiny, reflected in the steel of his eyes.
"I suspect you two would have gotten along much too well for my liking."
Warmth colored Corrin's face. She smiled, but sobered quickly enough to ask, "What happened to her?"
Immediately, she knew she'd spoken out of turn. The lines in Gunter's face deepened and the shadows around his eyes solidified.
"That's a tale for another time," he said quietly, turning away from her. Then, he stood, announcing, "I'll let you return to your training."
Flustered, Corrin extended the ball to him, uneasy from the sudden cessation of their conversation. He paused in his retreat. Gently, he touched his fingers to her own, curling them so that hers held the ball more firmly.
"Keep it," he said. "I made it for you."
She didn't thank him. She didn't know how.
He gave her no other goodbye as he trundled down the steps, departing swiftly from the arena as soon as his feet hit the ground. She watched his straight-backed form dwindle in the receding daylight until he disappeared beneath the overhang of the stands. Then, she breathed deeply until the winter air chilled her lungs.
She looked out over the arena, watching the soldiers chug along the track until her eyes grew dry. Blinking, she stood and resolved to begin working through the amassed paperwork that had surely collected on her desk throughout the course of the day. She sent one last glance towards Silas, but found that she had no desire to linger.
Gunter gave me a lot to think about.
Her skin prickled from unacknowledged attention so she turned and found Xander's gaze on her. Given the distance between them, she couldn't make out the minutia of his face, but a tickle of fledgling appeal coursed down her spine, freed from the crushing weight of self-loathing, at least momentarily. She smiled and, for the first time in a long time, there was no tension coiled underneath.
A/N: Hi all, I decided to post this a day early as this upcoming week is poised to kick my ass and it's one less thing for me to worry about.
This chapter is rather ambitious in that it tackles several different narrative goals all at once. Honestly, one of the greatest rewards of writing this is pulling all the threads so that they'll all knot together in the end.
One thing I've noticed all too often is that moody (aka depressed) teenagers are often written off as lazy or inconsiderate by those around them. I hated making Hinoka the mouthpiece for this, but she seemed the most likely candidate to be incapable or unwilling to understand that Takumi's flakiness and angst stems from someplace darker. That being said, I really enjoy playing with the Hoshidian family dynamics simply because their conflicts are more internal than they are external.
Gunter is really one of the most interesting characters in Fates imo. Beyond the botched ending of Revelations (like could they have telegraphed his possession any harder lol?), I always thought his relationship to Corrin was interesting, especially the lengths he went to to protect them given the events that placed them in his care. I always found it odd though that the games seem to imply that the Nohrian royals had a lot more to do with raising Corrin than Gunter did, but maybe that's because I've always thought of them as all being around the same age (with Xander being only a few years older at the most) and increasingly unavailable to even spend time with her. I dunno, I suppose it's never made explicit in the games one way or another but I feel its pretty fair to say the family dynamics are all sorts of fucked up in Fates.