Dedue heard the crash from his room as he was finishing getting dressed, but it was the stifled wail that sent him into motion. Within moments, he had burst out of his own room and into the next one to find Eve with her head buried into her pillow as her hand bled profusely over her sheets. Her mirror was shattered into pieces all over her floor and he quickly realised that the crash had been from her striking it with the hand that was now covered in lacerations.
Eve let out another pained, nearly inhuman howl, and Dedue quickly shut the door behind him to avoid her voice carrying too much.
"Give me your hand." Dedue said firmly, sitting on her bed and grabbing her wrist in an attempt to pry her fist from its death grip on her sheets.
He could see some shards of mirror glass stuck in her hand that would need removing before he could even attempt to heal her wounds. Silently, Dedue stood and walked over to Eve's desk where he rummaged around until he managed to find a small first aid kit. When he returned to sit on Eve's bed, he was surprised to find her watching him silently with intense eyes.
Her eyes were dry. He had thought her wail had been a sob and that she had been crying. But there was not a drop of moisture in her eyes. They were bright, frighteningly clear.
"What happened?" He asked as he used tweezers from the kit to pluck the glass from her hand that she had finally allowed him to pick up.
"I punched the mirror." Eve answered flatly.
He could feel her intense gaze upon him as he worked.
"Why?"
"I was angry." She said. "I still am."
"Are you angry with His Highness?" Dedue asked, trying to discern if he had to be concerned.
Dedue stopped his work and turned to look at Eve's face when she didn't answer. Her eyes were locked on her hand in his as she knelt beside the bed where Dedue sat. In this moment, he felt as if he were seeing the truest version of Eve he ever had.
"Are you angry with His Highness?" Dedue repeated.
"No." Eve blinked, shaking her head slightly before looking up to meet Dedue's eyes. "No, never. I know none of this is his fault."
"Are you angry with Lady Rhea?" Dedue asked.
"Why is Rodrigue here?" Eve asked instead of answering his question.
So, it was the Fraldarius Lord's presence that had upset her. Dedue was aware of her connection to the house, but it still puzzled him why she would be so violently affected by this.
"He wanted to be there for His Highness." Dedue answered. "And I imagine he also wanted to be here for you. He is the closest thing you have to family."
"He was almost my father." Eve said dryly.
Dedue frowned at this. He wondered what she meant. Did she mean it literally—biologically? Or did she mean by marriage—alluding to her relationship with Felix?
"Dedue, do you hate me?" Eve asked suddenly as he finished removing the last of the glass and began healing her wounds.
"Why would I hate you?" He asked.
"You've devoted your life to Dimitri; he's the most important thing to you." Eve said slowly as she watched him heal her. "I'm sure you wanted to see him into a happy marriage."
"You act as though you have caused His Highness nothing but sorrow." Dedue said, gingerly placing her now healed hand down.
"Haven't I?" She laughed bitterly.
"You have made him happier than you know." Dedue said. "He's told me all the little things you've done for him—the ways you have shown him that you care. And even if you do not love him the way he loves you, you have treated him as a peer in a way no one else at the Academy has. I know how he longs to be seen as something beyond his title and you have given him that."
"I promise I'll make him happy." Eve breathed.
"You do not need to promise me anything." Dedue shook his head.
"But I want you to know." Eve said eagerly, meeting Dedue's eyes with fierce determination. "I won't rest until that sadness in his eyes when he looks at me is gone."
Dedue said nothing, but simply nodded. It was a noble promise, one he hoped she would adhere to. But he couldn't help wondering if she was doing it for His Highness' sake or for her own.
Ever since the day he had met her, Eve had continued to be nothing but an enigma to Dedue. He never could deduce her motivations or goals. Why did she stay in Fodlan if it meant she had to marry His Highness? Why was she so adamant about caring for His Highness while nurturing a relationship with Felix? What was her history with Lady Rhea and the Church?
But despite all this, she had always been gentle to His Highness. She cared for him—to what extent, though, Dedue did not know. At the very least, he was sure she would never to anything to harm His Highness, and that was all he could ask at this moment.
Their union would be an interesting one to watch grow, that was for sure. Dedue could only hope that Eve could be all that His Highness needed her to be. He knew that was an unfair expectation to hold her to, but he knew if anyone could be what His Highness needed it was going to be Eve.
"I believe you." Dedue said finally, and watched as relief and something much, much sadder washed over Eve's features.
Eve sat in silence, hands folded neatly in her lap, as she wished that she could feel anything. There were no tears in her eyes, no outward display of her grief. It almost felt like a disservice in her eyes to be so stoically numb in this moment. She could not cry, though, could not bring herself to do anything but sit in silence and stare at the fire before her.
"How do you do it?"
The sniffling voice beside her suddenly reminded her that she was not alone, and she turned to look at the man to her left. Yes, that was why she was here.
"Do what?" She answered mechanically, willing her brows to knit together to express her confusion.
"How do you stand to watch them all die?" His voice cracked as he fought to keep his composure. Eve almost found it funny that he would try so hard to remain composed in her presence; her Lord, her friend, she had seen him in so many moods.
"Because the inverse is worlds lonelier than you will ever know, Rodrigue." Eve said softly.
"I hope to never know something lonelier than what I feel now." Rodrigue replied.
"Before I served House Fraldarius, I would always have to leave." Eve continued, unsure of why she was still speaking. "Before anyone could notice that I did not age, I would disappear."
Rodrigue had not asked her to elaborate, but if she didn't keep going Eve felt as if she might scream. Neither one of them could stand the silence, so she kept speaking.
"I never knew what happened to those people I left behind." She paused for a moment in thought. "I know they're dead now, they all die eventually. But what was their life like? How long did it take them to forgive me for leaving? How long did it take them to forget me? Did their dreams come true? Were they happy? Did they ever fall in love? I never got to know. So, in a way, I find comfort in sticking around long enough to see the people I care about die. At least I have answers."
"How many of your friends have you had to outlive?" Rodrigue asked.
"Too many." Eve sighed. "Too many."
"Tell me something." Rodrigue demanded suddenly as the silence started to settle back around them.
"Like what?" She asked.
"Anything." Rodrigue gestured vaguely. "I just put my son in the ground, I cannot stand to hear my own thoughts right now."
"I do not…" Eve swallowed dryly, Rodrigue's frank reminder of why they were like this had taken her by surprise.
"Why Fraldarius?" He inquired. "I've always wondered. You're not from Faerghus, you're not even from Fodlan. So why did you swear to protect this house?"
Eve paused for a moment, suddenly transported back to a time so long before the two of them were sitting on that very couch.
"Her name was Nadege." She said finally. "Nadege Marie Fraldarius. But when I met her, she was just Nadege; no title, no station, just a girl in the woods."
How long had passed since she had met Nadege? How long had passed since she had even spoken or thought of her?
She could still remember that night so clearly, though, as if it had been days ago rather than centuries. It had snowed that day, but the night was clear and bright with the stars shining above as Eve trekked through the woods of what she would learn was the outskirts of the Fraldarius estate.
She had been cold, unprepared for the frigid air of Faerghus, and looking for any kind of shelter that she could post up at for the night. That was when Eve had come across the cottage. It was more a shack, four walls with a wooden door that always hung crooked and a window that was permanently cloudy. But what had drawn her to it was the thin trail of smoke that was spiralling up from the shack's little chimney.
"My grandmother's name was Nadege." Rodrigue mused. "I knew it was a name that ran in the family."
"Perhaps that is my fault." Eve admitted sheepishly. "I have yet to let her go and often encourage the name when a new Fraldarius mother doesn't know what to name her daughter."
"Tell me about her." Rodrigue encouraged.
Eve pitied him. She had sat with him like this not long ago to mourn the death of his wife. And now here they were mourning the death of his firstborn. And as much as she wanted to, Eve could never let Rodrigue know just how much she had cared about Glenn. She could not allow him to think that he never truly knew his son.
"She was… a contradiction." Eve allowed herself a small laugh as she remembered a time when there was joy in her heart. "She may have been from one of the coldest regions in Fodlan, but she smelled like sunshine and felt like summertime beneath your fingertips."
"You loved her." He said it as a matter of fact, but still seemed shocked by the revelation.
"Yes." Eve nodded. "Yes, I suppose I did."
"Now I feel foolish for the time in my youth when I thought perhaps you fancied me when in fact I was nowhere near your type." Rodrigue laughed hollowly.
"I did not fancy you on account of your boorishness." Eve allowed herself to smile. "There are men in my life that I have also loved. When you are as old as I am, the body has little to do with the heart it is housing when it comes to love."
"Tell me more about Nadege." Rodrigue said.
"She's the one who named me Eve." She replied after thinking for a moment.
She could still hear that voice, that delicate sweetness with which she spoke.
My little evening star. My Eve.
"She called me her evening star." Eve mused. "On account of how brightly the stars shone the night we met. And how we only ever met in the evenings at the beginning. And eventually she shortened it to Eve."
"Did she know your real name?" Rodrigue asked.
"After I began to trust her, yes." Eve nodded. "But the name Eve served me better. I could not be Tsukiko anymore."
"Did she love you the way you loved her?" Rodrigue pressed, desperate for anything that could be tender and gentle where their reality was not.
"Yes." Eve answered, but added quickly, "that's not to say she didn't love her husband, though."
"She had a husband?" Rodrigue frowned.
"Or else you would not be here today." Eve laughed, though it was hollow just as Rodrigue's had been. "She was the fifth child of seven, the only one of her siblings who bore the Crest of Fraldarius. She was born at a time where there were doubts about the strength of the Fraldarius line. As much as she loved me, she always understood her duty to continue her family legacy."
Eve remembered clearly the heartbreak she had felt at Nadege's wedding. By that time, she had already begun her service to House Fraldarius as Nadege's handmaiden—always by her side. They spent every waking moment together; Eve had watched with dread as Nadege saw to her various suitors. But it had been the moments before the ceremony, when Nadege pulled Eve aside, that her heart had truly broken.
"I love you." Nadege whispered, her forehead pressed delicately to Eve's. "There is no love stronger than the one I hold for you—not even the love I have to have for the man who is about to become my husband. But my duty is stronger than my love, and for that I will spend the rest of my days being sorry."
"But why stay?" Rodrigue asked, his frown deepening. "After she married, after she died, why stay?"
"Well, at first I stayed because I loved her, and she was the first person in a long time who knew what I was. For the first time in ages, I didn't have to leave." Eve explained. "I was content taking a secondary role because at least then I got stay in her life."
"But then?" He prompted.
"She miscarried her first child." Eve swallowed thickly, eyes swimming with tears she didn't know she was capable of. "And…her second child…died shortly after birth."
Rodrigue's eyes softened as he realised where Eve's story was going. He also realised he had never seen his attendant this affected by emotion before. He had always considered Eve a rather stoic being, one who kept all of her emotions carefully hidden. There were only two occasions upon which he had previously seen true emotion in her. The first had been on one of their first excursions together in his young adulthood where he led the charge against a group of bandits that had taken over a small village in Fraldarius territory. He had seen some of the most brutal and heartless acts committed against his people on that campaign, and he remembered the unbridled rage that had ripped through Eve when she saw what had been done. The second occasion had been not long before the two of them were right where they were. The moment news of Glenn's death and the Tragedy of Duscur reached Fraldarius, he saw a small flicker of grief in Eve before she disappeared until the next day. He knew the guilt she felt that she had not been there to change the outcome.
"She didn't…?" Rodrigue couldn't bring himself to finish his question.
"She begged me." Eve pursed her lips in a valiant effort to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling. "She was afraid she would not be able to conceive again. She begged me to save the child, but there was no one else there. She had considered it from the beginning, it's why she had me deliver the child alone—so that no one would see my Crest should I have to use it."
"It has to be him, Eve." She breathed heavily. "Everything I have done has been for this family, now I need you to continue on my duty."
"I could tell the child bore the Major Crest of Fraldarius." Eve swallowed. "Her biggest fear was that the Fraldarius line ended with her and that all of her sacrifices would've been for nothing."
"So, you had to save the child." Rodrigue muttered.
"I had to." Eve nodded. "And in that moment, her duty became mine. I could not let her sacrifices be in vain, so I had to make sure the Fraldarius line carried on."
She had tears in her eyes, pleading with Eve to make the right choice. She had lived long enough; it was time to pass her life on to the next generation—to save her family. And though she knew she was breaking her little evening star's heart, she knew it was the only choice. Eve held back her own tears as she activated her Crest, heart aching as she heard the last words her love uttered: "thank you."
"What did her husband do?" Rodrigue inquired, snapping Eve out of the painful memory.
"I told him everything." Eve said. "I told him the truth of what I am, of what happened in that delivery room. I told him the promise I made to Nadege to continue the Fraldarius line. And I gave him my bargain: his secrecy in return for the power of my Crest on the side of House Fraldarius. I would make sure his wife's sacrifice was not in vain for as long as he or any future Lord did not betray me to the Church."
"…you've done your job." Rodrigue said after a moment's pause.
"No, I haven't." Eve shook her head.
She knew Rodrigue was trying to comfort her, trying to tell her that he didn't blame her. But he did, and she saw it in his eyes. Perhaps he did not put the blame of Glenn's death on her solely, but he knew as well as she did that she was supposed to be there. Things could have been different.
"Rodrigue," Eve turned to her Lord, suddenly filled with the desire to tell him the truth about her relationship with his son, "there's something about Glenn I—"
"I don't want to know." He cut her off.
"What?" Eve balked at the sudden harshness in his tone.
"I know how much you see from the shadows." He said solemnly. "You count on us not paying you any mind. I'm sure there's countless secrets you're privy to, but I don't want to know. I don't want to feel like I didn't know my son. So, please, let me live in my ignorance."
Eve bowed her head, regretfully swallowing the truth, "as you wish, my Lord."
A/N: So I ended up taking a very sudden and very unplanned hiatus from this story. But it's always been in the back of my mind and I'm eager to keep writing more. If there's anyone that's stuck around I'm so sorry for keeping you hanging and hopefully you'll enjoy what more I have for you.