Eve sent Felix back to his room not long after he had poured his heart out to her. She had never expected him to be so honest about his feelings, and she had wished she hadn't been quite so exhausted for it.
She hadn't been able to come up with any fancy words to quell his anxieties or settle his heart. In fact, Eve hadn't even been able to answer her own anxieties stirring in her chest.
She loved Felix—of this she was sure by this point. But come the end of this moon, she would be Dimitri's bride. There was no question in Eve's heart that if Felix had been his brother, she would not go through with the wedding.
Regardless of the consequences, Eve would've defied everyone for Glenn.
But the fact that she wouldn't do that for Felix didn't mean she didn't love him. It just wasn't the same love.
Glenn had felt like an extension of Eve, a natural part of her. Neither one necessarily needed the other, but that was precisely why they got on so well. There were no requirements, no stipulations upon which their relationship depended.
But where Eve has simply loved Glenn, she craved Felix. She relished the way he looked at her which was exactly the same way he looked at everyone. Felix needed Eve because she made him feel superior to the boar; Eve needed Felix because he didn't blame her for Glenn's death.
Eve had loved Glenn because they didn't need anything from each other.
And she loved Felix because they were exactly what they needed for each other.
As Eve pondered this, thinking on the decision she'd have to make before this moon was over, her exhausted mind and body could do nothing but descend into sleep. And once again, she found herself dreaming of days past with Glenn.
"You can't keep pulling the same move and expect it to work." Eve laughed as she disarmed Glenn for what felt like the dozenth time that night. "If it didn't work the first time, why would it work the next billion attempts?"
"Persistence is key." Glenn grinned, stepping forward to circle his arms around her waist. "That's how I pinned you down, isn't it?"
He stooped down to press a kiss to Eve's lips, laughter rumbling in his chest that vibrated against Eve's.
"You are persistent, I'll give you that." Eve smiled as Glenn pulled back. "One might even call you stubborn."
"Well, 'one' better be careful who they call stubborn if they want to stay out of trouble." Glenn's features took on a mischievous look as he spoke.
Before she could respond, Eve found herself being picked up and slung over Glenn's shoulder like a sack of wheat. Her training sword clattered to the floor as she lost her grip on it in astonishment.
"Let me down, you oaf!" She laughed, kicking her legs though being careful not to actually strike him.
"Oaf?" Glenn said in mock offence. "You call me stubborn and then you call me an oaf? You wound me!"
"Well, perhaps if you weren't so stubborn and oafish, you'd let me down!" Eve laughed again.
"As you wish." Glenn shrugged as he let go of Eve suddenly and allowed for her to fall to the ground heavily.
"Ouch!" Eve cried out, more in surprise than actual pain, as she landed in the dirt of the training hall.
"Are you okay?" Glenn's playful tone was immediately replaced with concern as he knelt down to examine Eve.
"No." She grunted, wincing. "I think I hit my head."
As Glenn leaned in to look at where Eve motioned, worry knitting his brow together, she pounced forward and knocked him onto his back. Straddling his hips, she bent down to kiss him with a mischievous smile of her own.
"You little…" Glenn tried to think of something clever to say but was too busy laughing at Eve's triumphant face.
"Payback." She laughed in between peppering his face with kisses.
"Do you have to go tomorrow?" Glenn asked, sobering up though making no attempt to stand.
"You know I do." Eve smiled sympathetically, reaching down to brush a stray piece of hair from Glenn's face. "We're just spending the weekend with the Margrave to sort out what should hopefully be some very short discussions."
"Hopefully?" Glenn asked. "I thought my father was just responding to a call for aid."
"Yes and no." Eve sighed, glancing upward at the skylight from which the stars shone. "The Margrave did request for more Fraldarius men to be sent to the northern border. But the reports we're getting back describe unfair conditions where Fraldarius troops are being treated as less than compared to Gautier forces. There's a lack of respect among Gautier men for the military leaders House Fraldarius have provided. Your father is going to tell Margrave Gautier that unless this changes we won't be sending any more Fraldarius troops. And that if it gets worse, he will be recalling all of his men."
"Hm, I like hearing you talk about politics." Glenn hummed with a smile of adoration. "You're rather clever, aren't you?"
"I used to be nobility too, you know." Eve smiled back and leaned forward to place a kiss on the tip of his nose.
"Tell me more about yourself." Glenn demanded as he sat up, placing his hands firmly on Eve's hips to keep her upright as he moved.
"Like what?" Eve's brow furrowed as she shifted in her new position sitting atop Glenn's thighs.
"I don't know." Glenn shrugged. "Something about you that I'd never guess; something astonishing."
"Astonishing as the fact that I'm a thousand years old?" Eve raised an eyebrow with a smirk.
"You've already told me all that magical stuff." Glenn waved his hand dismissively. "I want to know more about your life. What's something that would surprise me about your life regardless of your power?"
"I was married." Eve said pensively after a moment of thought.
"Really?" Glenn feigned casual surprise, but Eve caught the flash of jealousy in his eyes.
"When I was still in line to inherit the throne of my home country," Eve nodded, "I took a husband."
"Did you love him?" Glenn still put on an air of indifference though the grip of his fingers on her hips tightened ever so slightly.
"Of course." Eve answered honestly, rather cruelly enjoying Glenn's jealousy. "I wouldn't have chosen to marry someone I didn't love."
"You chose to marry him?" Glenn was genuinely curious now. "It wasn't arranged?"
"No." Eve shook her head. "The only stipulation to my marriage was that I had to choose a commoner."
"Why a commoner?" Glenn cocked his head to the side, frowning slightly in a way that Eve found most adorable.
"There was a saying in my homeland," Eve said while letting her eyes scan over Glenn's features, "a grass is a grass no matter what hill it grows upon. That is to say, we are all people regardless of our station. Every heir to the throne would have to spend a year of their adolescence with a peasant family to learn to empathise with the people."
"That doesn't explain why you had to marry a commoner."
"We put emphasis on relations between the nobility and the common people." Eve elaborated. "One way that we did this was the tradition of the heir to the throne marrying a commoner."
"What if you had fallen in love with a noble?" Glenn frowned.
"There was one way you could circumvent the rule." Eve tapped a finger to her chin in thought. "If the heir fell in love with a noble, that noble would have to renounce their title and shirk their family name. They would then have to live as a commoner for at least two years before being able to marry."
"That sounds needlessly complicated."
"It was to ensure that no noble family could curry favours with the Emperor to gain more power." Eve shrugged.
"So, your husband… who was he?" Glenn asked, a tinge of jealousy once again finding its way into his voice.
"He was a member of the royal guard." Eve answered, but not before gently kissing her lover. "The gatekeeper at the entrance to the palace. I actually used to hate him."
Eve giggled at the memory which was met with a frown by Glenn. But his curiosity must have outweighed his jealousy for he continued to inquire.
"Why did you hate him?" He asked, cocking his head to the side.
"I used to sneak out a lot." Eve laughed more heartily this time. "As you can imagine, he was often an obstacle in that regard."
"Did you bring him with you when you travelled to Fodlan first?" Glenn pressed. Eve adored how much he seemed to care about her and her past. "What happened when he found out you didn't age?"
"No." Eve shook her head in response to Glenn's first question. "And, for better or for worse, he never did find out about my age."
"What happened?" Glenn frowned, picking up on the sudden melancholic tone that took over Eve's voice.
"Well for starters, when we first wed, even I didn't know I would stop ageing." Eve explained. "I was eighteen and he was four years my senior. And when I did stop ageing, I knew I had a couple years to figure out how to bring it up before it would start being obvious. But… in the end I didn't have to worry about it."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Glenn cupped Eve's face gently in his calloused hand, concern written on his face.
"If I don't tell you, who else will know?" Eve asked. "I hate to think these lives I've intersected with will be lost to time while I carry on living."
"Then go on." Glenn encouraged with a small smile.
"The country immediately to the west of us was rife with rebellion—shattered into factions between warring states." Eve tapped absently against Glenn's shoulder where her hand rested, eyes glazed over with the memory.
"International relations had been my duty. Under my policies, we had allied ourselves with the faction that controlled the land we shared a border with. Not only did it make sense in terms of avoiding conflict, but the leader of that faction also held to ideals that aligned with our own in many ways."
Eve took a shaky breath as she realised she was skirting around the actual point. It had been ages since she had recounted to anyone, herself included, what had transpired when her homeland still existed.
"All this to say, there was a point just a year after I had stopped ageing when that faction's leader had an opportunity to defeat their biggest rival and essentially end the civil war in their nation. This would require our aid, however."
"You and your husband went to fight for them?" Glenn's brow furrowed. "Why wouldn't you just send reinforcements?"
"It was meant to be a show of good faith." Eve sighed. "If I fought on the battlefield beside the future leader of our neighbouring nation, it would solidify our positive relationship. And, should the occasion ever arise, it put them in our debt to fight for us as well. It was a calculated risk; I thought the benefits outweighed the risk."
Eve paused for a moment when Glenn reached out to brush a tear from her cheek. When had she started crying? When was the last time she had cried before now?
"I never fought by his side." Eve's voice hitched in her throat as the regret from years past came flooding back. "I was always too worried about him if we were fighting together. He didn't need me to baby him. I sent him to his death, Glenn; I made the battle plan that put us on opposite sides of the battlefield."
"You couldn't have known, Kiko." Glenn comforted, brushing away her tears as quickly as they came.
"I didn't know he was dead until the fighting had subsided." Eve said softly. "Like a fool, I celebrated while our allies raised their banners and cheered for a united nation. One of his men brought me the news… that amidst the fighting he had protected them and died in their place. I ran to his body, but there was nothing I could do. He was gone; no matter how much I tried to use my Crest in vain, he was gone."
Eve was openly weeping now, throwing herself into Glenn's arms and burying his face in his shoulder. She truly could not remember the last time she had allowed herself to feel like this. It wasn't since the person she had sworn fealty to House Fraldarius for that someone knew this much about her or her past.
"I'm sorry." Eve breathed as she pulled back to look at Glenn. "It's unlike me to lose my head like this."
"Don't apologise." Glenn shook his head furiously. "I want to know these parts of you. I want to be someone you can share this side of yourself with."
"Why?" Eve couldn't help but ask, confused as to why anyone would want that.
"Because I love you." He answered simply.
For a moment, a look of shock flitted through Glenn's eyes as if he himself had not been prepared for him to say that. But that shock quickly passed and was replaced with an astonishing certainty. As Eve failed to find words, he seemed increasingly sure of himself and his words.
"I love you, Eve—Tsukiko." Glenn repeated with feeling. "I don't care if you don't feel the same way. But I'd rather fall upon my own blade than go another moment without you knowing."
"You oaf." Eve shook with a breathy laugh as the last of her tears fell. "Of course I love you."
Sylvain knocked on Eve's door for quite some time with no answer. And when he noticed her door was unlocked, he had been too worried about her to concern himself with whether or not he should go barging in. But when he grabbed her shoulder gently to shake her awake, Sylvain was rather frighteningly met with the cold steel of a dagger against his throat.
"Woah, kitten, it's just me!" Sylvain said quickly, withdrawing his hands to hold them up.
"Goddess, Sylvain, I almost killed you." Eve huffed as she finally recognised the figure kneeling beside her bed. "What were you thinking barging in here?"
"I was worried about you, kitten." Sylvain frowned, brow knitted with concern.
"Worried?" Eve asked as she placed her dagger back under her pillow.
"I could hear you crying from upstairs." Sylvain explained softly. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I was crying?" Eve's hand flew up to her face in shock, coming away wet with tears.
She seemed genuinely shaken by her own tears, looking down with confusion at her glistening fingertips.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Sylvain asked.
He wanted to open up a dialogue, allow his friend to say what was on her mind. But he also didn't want to push her. As of late, he had challenged her a lot when it came to her relationships with His Highness and Felix and he didn't want to pester her too much.
"…I've been dreaming a lot about Glenn lately." Eve said after a pause.
She moved to sit up fully, crossing her legs as she patted the space beside her in invitation. Sylvain gratefully accepted and stood from his rather uncomfortable stoop by her bedside.
"What kind of dreams?" Sylvain asked after he had settled.
"Memories." Eve said softly.
Looking over at her, Sylvain decided that Eve looked impossibly small all of a sudden. Even passed out in His Highness' arms after fainting in Conand Tower she had looked more powerful than she did now. And as he examined her quietly, looking at the scar she had gotten for Felix, Sylvain wondered how many of her scars she had accrued for Glenn. How many would she accrue for His Highness?
"Sometimes when I look at Ingrid, I feel so guilty." Eve met Sylvain's eyes with a look of self-loathing that he had previously only seen in the mirror. "She looked up to him. And even if she won't call it as such, she loved him. I would've taken him away from her either way."
"Rodrigue thinks he knew his son. And yet he knows nothing of our relationship. And Felix… Felix always living in his brother's shadow, he's coming dangerously close to figuring out the relationship I had with Glenn."
"What will you do if he finds out?" Sylvain asked curiously.
"I don't know." Eve breathed. "Some terrible part of me wants him to find out because otherwise Glenn's memory dies."
"You're not the only one who remembers him." Sylvain comforted, placing a hand on the small of Eve's back. "We all have our own memories of him and how we knew him to be."
"But you'll all die too." She muttered, shocking Sylvain silent for a moment. "You'll all die, and I'll have to carry on and tell all your stories."
"Then let us die, kitten." Sylvain replied. "It shouldn't be up to you to keep the memory of all those you've left behind."
"Sylvain, I've spent my entire life trying to convince myself I'm alive." Eve turned to look in his eyes, searching them desperately. But for what, Sylvain had no idea. "The only way I can keep on living like this is if I make the effort to bring with me the memory of all those I've outlived."
"Did anyone ask you to do that?" Sylvain asked.
The words sounded rather mean coming from his mouth and he watched as Eve recoiled a bit. But it was a genuine question—one he truly wanted the answer to. He couldn't bear thinking of Eve carrying on the memory of all the people she had outlived. Knowing how she had been living in secret, not letting anyone but the head of House Fraldarius know what she was, there was no way those memories weren't weighing heavy on her soul. There was no point in her holding onto all those lives past if she was the only one who remembered them.
"N-no." Eve stuttered, clearly taken off guard. "But for me to keep on living, the least I can do is keep them alive in my heart."
"When I die, Eve," Sylvain said, speaking gravely, "I want you to let me die. Let me fade into oblivion. I don't need you to hold onto my memory—I don't want you to."
"You're just saying that to make me feel better." Eve averted her eyes, crossing her arms with a huff.
"No." Sylvain said firmly, shifting so Eve had to look at him. "I don't want to die knowing that I'll be leaving you with an eternal burden. Even if I lived the most fulfilled life, there's no way I could die happy if I knew you'd be in pain thinking you had to carry on my memory."
"Do you really feel that way?" Eve asked with pleading eyes.
"I do." Sylvain nodded.
For a moment, Sylvain saw relief wash through Eve's eyes. He thought that for once he had been able to offer her some genuine council. But just as quickly as that relief had washed over her, it was replaced by a soul shattering dread.
"Then what am I alive for?"