A/N: Okay, so clearly there is more Allen and Eries here than I planned. I guess a long-standing issue of a relationship has to have its say. Welcome to the Land of More Things Your Sister Got First.
I just stood in the doorway, watching him spar, my eyes red-rimmed with tears that I had cried to my pillow and no one else.
When I thought of who I wanted, to see, to comfort me, it wasn't my father. My mother was ever the tender one, and my father the gruff, distant one.
And my sister Millerna was being consoled by Marlene, who in turn was being consoled by Millerna. The two of them were like peas in a pod, and even looking at them, I felt like I was intruding if I wanted some consolation too.
So I went to find Allen.
Allen, whom I had consoled when he was first here, alone, when I had first gotten him to talk. I never saw him cry, he just was really really quiet, and we sat in the gardens, wedged between the rosebushes, and he laid his head in my lap, and we were just quiet. He said it was his fault that his sister was gone – she disappeared while they were playing hide-and-seek. He was the one who told his mother she was gone, and on the heels of his father's disappearance, he felt she blamed him.
"All our servants and even villagers from nearby the estate combed the hills for days, calling her name," he said quietly, his hand curled near his mouth, just shy of obstructing his words. "And me too, because every night we came home empty handed, my mother would just look at me, this long, sad, look, and I knew she blamed me. It was my duty to look after her…" he trailed off.
"It's not your fault – I mean, little girls don't just disappear, she had to have been kidnapped or something, and that's not your fault."
"Nuh-uh," he shook his head, his hair tangling in my lap. I smoothed it out with my fingers. "Everyone knew my family was wealthy. If she'd been kidnapped, they would have asked for money. And then we would have gotten her back." Then he lifted his head, as though suddenly changing his mind, and looked at me, imploring me to be right even though he had just contradicted me. "You think, though? You think she might have been kidnapped? Then she might still be alive!"
I thinned my lips, trying not to give him false hope – it had been far too long for kidnappers to not have tendered a ransom. Over a year. But then I smiled at him, his eyes round with hopeful expectation.
"Maybe. Maybe she's still alive, and maybe Balgus was training you so you could go find her, rescue her," I tried to let my voice rise with hope.
He stared at me a moment, and then laid his head back down. "No. It's no use. I know you don't think she's still alive."
I stroked his hair a couple of times, trying to think of what to say. "I don't know Allen. I mean, you don't know for sure she's dead just as I'm not sure she's alive. But the possibility is out there, and you can't give up hope."
He didn't say anything, just curled tighter on the ground, and my hand moved to stroke his back softly, like I used to with Millerna when she was very little, before she decided Marlene was her favorite.
He took deep breaths, and I knew that if it was in him to cry, he would have. But he had just been so cut off for so long, he had forgotten how to do even that.
We sat there for another few minutes, and then I had this eerie sixth sense that we had to leave, lest I get in trouble for shirking my lessons (which I did better on my own anyway), and definitely for hiding in the rosebushes with a boy. It didn't matter that that boy was my best friend, my only friend, really, and that we weren't doing what I saw Marlene doing with a palace guard not three weeks ago.
My cheeks coloured at that memory. I had come skipping down the hall looking for her, and had heard giggling in an alcove. I started to creep very quietly down the hallway, and she was standing there, her back to the wall, I could see her golden locks above and below his arm as he had her cornered. I panicked, thinking she was in danger, and then he whispered something to her, and she giggled, and then he kissed her once, twice, and then she put her arms around him, and kissed him some more, and I crept away. I would keep her secret, even though she never asked me to, because I knew Father would be much less than happy were he to hear a palace guard was smooching my sister. Palace guards were not the caliber of man he wanted his oldest daughter to be wrapping her arms around.
I snapped out of the memory, and continued to watch him, waiting. It had been two days since my mother's death, and the whole kingdom knew of it. And yet he hadn't sought me out. I was confused, but didn't give it half a second's thought as to why when he must have known I would have needed him this time, that he didn't come to find me.
He lunged and placed the point of the wooden sword directly under the ribs of his opponent, who then conceded defeat. With a flourish, they tucked the wooden swords in at their belts and bowed. Allen used both hands to push back his hair – they had cut it short, and he didn't have quite enough to pull back like he used to, and it got in his face. We had had more than one practical discussion about the ridiculous nature of the haircut in relation to being a man of action.
The other boy wandered off, and he started towards me, though he hadn't yet seen me. He picked off one glove, a finger at a time, before he got close enough for me to get his attention.
"Allen," I said softly.
His head shot up. "Eries? What are you doing out here?"
I couldn't respond, my lip started to tremble, and I bit it, trying to hold in tears to get a sentence out.
His eyebrows raised in concern, his step quickened, and he came to me, wrapping me in his arms, despite his shirt being more than a little sweaty from his practicing. He stroked my hair, one glove still clutched in his hand. He didn't have to ask why I was crying, he just let me, standing there in the doorway, holding me.
When the tears abated, I sniffled, and he kissed my hair.
"There, there," he said softly.
I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, inhaling his scent. He smelled salty, like sweat, and warm, and the smell of him underneath, something I could never describe, but which always made me calm down; something like linens smell after drying in the warm summer breeze.
He leaned a little away from me, and used his ungloved hand to brush the stray hairs off my tear-stained face. He was very gentle, and concentrated on the task, relocating each strand.
And I suddenly wondered what it would be like to kiss him. I had no idea how to actually bring this event about, so I just let him play with my hair, but I felt it strongly, and surprised myself. My mother had just died, and I wanted to be kissing my best friend.
"Allen," I started to say 'thank you', but he stopped me with a smile.
"Eries, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't been here for you. I've been…" he trailed off, furrowing his brow, like he had suddenly decided not to tell me something. Then he shook it off with a nod of his head, before I could ask what he was thinking. "I'm sorry, is all. You're always there for me, and I know you're sad, and I just can't figure out what to do next." He smiles at me, and I can't help but smile back, my mother forgotten for a moment as I bask in his embrace, being perfectly content to be held in the shadow of the tourney fields.
My moment doesn't last long, because he back away from me. "It's not proper for anyone to find us like this. They could make the completely wrong conclusions." He ponders these wrong conclusions, as though to make up excuses just in case, of how we were not doing anything, which we weren't. Meanwhile, I'm wondering why I never get the chance to be involved in those sorts of circumstances. My choice of circumstance being an upstanding, duty-bound Caeli certainly doesn't lend itself to my cause.
"Allen, I don't think," I start to remind him that everyone knows we're friends, and nothing more, so why would they make such conclusions, when he interrupts me.
"Eries, you're a grown woman now. Things are different. We have to be more careful, no matter how innocent. I know, and you know, that there's nothing between us, but who's to say what some gossiping page or handmaiden could accidentally let slip? What would your father think?"
Nothing between us. Ouch.
"My father hardly listens to palace gossip," I reminded him with a frown, crossing my arms. Why did this suddenly become about wrong impressions and gossip? I thought I was being consoled by my best friend and…oh. Well. Maybe I was hoping for something that might lead to gossip, but I certainly wasn't thinking of getting caught.
"Still. I wouldn't want anything to sully your reputation, Eries."
I let out a short cough. "I doubt my reputation is a matter of concern to anyone, much less in a place to even be capable of being sullied."
"Eries. This is serious."
"Serious? What do I care? If you hadn't noticed, I wasn't in the best of spirits, so I came to my best friend, and was actually feeling better until suddenly the fact that I was crying all over your uniform," I gestured harshly to his practice outfit of a loose linen shirt, stained now with sweat and tears, "meant that we were involved in some sort of tryst and now I'm definitely not in a good mood about more than just the fact that I lost my mother two days ago!" I finished, and were I not so angry, I would have started to cry again, but my blood was pumping too fast for me to release the tears.
This sobered him, and his face fell, and he reached out a hand to take mine.
I pulled away from him, still angry, my emotions a rollercoaster that I wasn't in any control of. "No. I'm fine now. I don't need you. Go console someone else." And I turned and stormed off.
Little did I know that was exactly what he had been doing, and that was exactly what was everpresent on his mind when he became worried about my reputation.