Gauche hadn't expected this conversation to go well, by any means—but if he had known that it would go this badly, he would've forced himself to do it during the afternoon. The longer it went on, the surer he became that he was going to have to do something—anything—after this to work out the energy or he might explode.
After a lifetime of exactly two emotions—adoration of Marie and anger ranging from irritation to fury at anyone else—Gauche was suddenly drowning in all the emotions that he absolutely did not want. He had been, in fact, for the last two weeks. Well, technically, ten days… not that he was counting.
He'd jumped on any mission that would take him away from the base and spent more time in his own room than he probably ever had before. He'd gotten chased away from the orphanage—twice—by Sister Theresa when he'd shown up to check on Marie; the fact that he had updates on Marlin was completely irrelevant, especially since he hadn't even told Mariela that he'd gone and seen their siblings. Gauche had been doing anything and everything in his power to not care about the look that had been on her face that night at the bar—that look of total fear, like she seriously thought he might hurt her.
Wouldn't you? The thought haunted him constantly, taking up time much better spent fawning over his angel Marie. His precious little sister, however, now seemed to be intrinsically linked to Mariela in his head… something that he would beat out of himself, if he could.
Yami had tried to talk to him once or twice over the past ten days about what was going on; every time he gave Gauche a new mission, he'd make some comment about Mariela ranging from benign to obvious bait. The last time he'd tried, Yami had flat out mentioned knowing that Gauche followed Mariela around.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Gauche had said, and Yami had rolled his eyes.
"You and Noelle are both so lucky that you're obsessed with people as observant as plywood."
Gauche had then gone out to train—or, at least, blast a small hill to pebbles and dust. Immediately before going to go wander around for no reason; definitely not so he could see what Mariela was up to and who she was up to it with. When he'd very accidentally found out that she'd gone out bathing suit shopping with the other women in the guild, Gauche had waited in the common area of the hideout all day—definitely not for her or anything—until, coincidentally, they'd all gotten back from their shopping trip in town. The smile on her face… it made him almost as angry as the smile she'd had when he'd first seen her with Asta out on the lawn in front of the hideout that first day she'd been here.
Gauche was a… possessive person by nature. He was more than aware of that—he'd had too much taken away from him to not have become a person willing to fight for what was his. The issue that he'd been facing was that he had never wanted or needed anything or anyone to be his other than his little sister. Mariela… complicated things. And he had joined the Black Bulls almost entirely so he could avoid any complications while he took care of his angel of a sister. He hadn't exactly figured out how to change how the way Mariela spending time with anyone but him made him furious, however. So that smile she'd come back to the hideout with was also what had finally pushed him into biting the bullet and knocking on her door the night before everyone was supposed to leave for the beach to train—something that he definitely should have guessed the others would have invited her to, but it hadn't even crossed his mind.
That had been the start of this conversation really sliding downhill; he'd expected himself to screw up the actual apology, but he hadn't expected to have to hear from her directly how close she'd been getting to everyone but him.
Then, she'd told him the awful story about her family, her father, the nobility, and the Magic Knights. How they'd threatened her and humiliated her father. And it had all touched something in him that was still raw, something that still hurt in a way that made Gauche feel vicious. The same way he felt when he thought about the looks on the nobles faces when they'd told him and his sister that they'd ruined their lives and smiled gleefully while they did it.
Gauche didn't consider himself—by any means—to be a good person, or the sort of person who felt any inclination to do good things for the sake of doing good things, or whatever other hero bullshit guys like Asta felt when they thought about the Magic Knights. He had only joined to take care of Marie. But even knowing he wasn't anything close to a hero… Gauche still wanted to hurt every person who was making Mariela cry right now.
They'd been sitting in silence since he asked her to tell him what had happened to Marlin and brushed off her warning about it being a long story. The conversation felt so… delicate. And Gauche was not the delicate type. So, he was trying to give her all the time she needed to figure out what to say—and he was trying to figure out what exactly he was supposed to do about the tears that wouldn't stop falling into her lap as she stared blankly at the wall in front of her.
When Marie cried, Gauche killed the person who was behind it—literally. It was the only way he knew how to handle tears. In that moment, he would have killed every person who was behind the constant stream running down Mariela's face with exactly no hesitation.
"I had just found out about my engagement," Mariela whispered finally, and the words caught Gauche off guard harder than a sucker punch would have. He did his best not to react, but he also knew it was too late; there was no way she hadn't noticed him damn near jump out of his skin at the word "engagement".
"You're… betrothed?" Gauche choked the question out. When Mariela shook her head, he felt his heart rate ease… just a little.
"No," she clarified, seemingly oblivious to Gauche's sudden panic. "I was supposed to be. There was a trader who wanted to work out a deal with my parents. He wanted to store livestock on our farm to make his travels easier, and he had a son who would have helped take care of everything after marrying me and moving onto our land."
Mariela laughed, but the sound was hollow and mirthless. The tears had finally stopped, and she suddenly looked furious, even with the smile on her face. She nearly spat, "They knew it was a deal we couldn't turn down—so I was supposed to be grateful for the opportunity to marry our farm away."
The venom in her voice took Gauche by surprise, and the fury he'd felt at the idea of her engagement disappeared as quickly as it came. The glare she was leveling at her bedroom wall was withering but, after a moment, she seemed to deflate. Wrapping her arms around herself and visibly hunching over to make herself smaller, Mariela took a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly. After two more, she continued, whispering so softly that Gauche had to lean in to hear her, "I was. Unhappy. With the arrangement… obviously. So, I spent every day from the day they told me at the riverside, pretending that I could run away from a future I thought was so terrible."
Her laugh this time was biting—almost cruel. Oddly, it made Gauche sad; this woman who was usually so soft-spoken and gentle, so unbelievably sweet and good-natured, was slipping into fury that Gauche understood well. "Well, I guess I got my wish, huh? Thank God I avoided the awful fate of being married to a slightly pigheaded man so his very pigheaded father could help my family stay afloat. What a stroke of luck that the future where I had children of my own, and a family that wasn't dead or comatic, is no longer in the cards for me. I'm so happy I got what I wanted."
Gauche didn't know what to say; the level of acid in her words made the entire thing seem unbroachable as an outside person who, in all honesty, barely knew her. He understood hatred. He understood fury. But Gauche had a harder time understanding this—Mariela obviously hated herself, and he couldn't understand why.
"You didn't want to marry an asshole," Gauche said finally, when it became clear that Mariela had lost herself in her thoughts again. When she jumped and looked at him, as if she was startled that he was still there, he repeated, "You didn't want to marry an asshole. You didn't want to give up the only thing your family had. Why do you act like you're such a monster for wanting more? It was a cult that destroyed your family; do you really think that, if you hadn't wanted to change your engagement, anything would be different?"
Mariela looked at him for a long second, her beautiful purple eyes searching his face and making Gauche increasingly uncomfortable under the intense gaze. When she turned her head to look back at the wall in front of her, she said quietly, "If I hadn't been so against the marriage, I wouldn't have spent all my time at the river. If I hadn't been spending all my time at the river, I would have been closer to home when it happened—and Marlin wouldn't have been in the house when those demons came to burn our house to the ground with their horrible, cursed fire."
Her voice had broken on that last sentence, and Gauche watched with pain steadily growing in his chest as the tears started to flow down her face again. Part of him—the larger part, a fact that he wasn't proud of—wanted to leave and let Mariela find him if she wanted to keep diving into this. Part of it was that he was sure this was hurting her… most of it was that he hated this ache, this need to comfort someone who he had no reason to want to expend the effort on. This had all started because she looked a little like Marie and she made his sister smile—if he had known it would end up doing all this to him…
This is what Sister Theresa meant, he thought to himself dimly as he watched Mariela collect herself. She knew I wouldn't want to deal with how all this would make me feel. Damn the old hag for always being right.
"Marlin hates the water," Mariela said flatly when she had composed herself. The tears were still coming, but her face was stoic as they dripped from her chin and she made no move to acknowledge them at all. "He followed me around like a little duckling—he was my little duckling. Marlin's birth was hard on our mother; she was already frail, especially after years of having to ration her medication, and she was bedbound after he was born. She still gave us all the love in the world—more so, in fact." The smile that softened Mariela's face seemed to change her entirely, the stoniness melting away at the first good memories she'd seemed to have so far. "I was just the one who could play with him while our father worked in the fields, but for a little boy, that's more than enough. He followed me… everywhere. Everywhere except the river."
Gauche didn't need to hear the rest of the story—suddenly, all her self-hatred had a source that made sense, even if he knew she was wrong about it. When she didn't continue immediately, Gauche ventured, "That's why you don't like the tears. On his face."
Mariela looked up at him, startled again out of whatever thoughts had been dragging her down. Every time she looked at him when this happened, like he'd just pulled her out of a black hole, he felt more and more anxiety—like he was afraid he wouldn't do it in time, and she would fall in and disappear. She just looked so… devastated. Lost.
"Yes," Mariela whispered, not looking away from him and seemingly still not noticing the tears streaming down her face now that there was no reason for her to fear the water. "He used to hate taking baths; I used to have to force him."
Gauche didn't know what to say—so, instead, he reached out and hesitantly took her hand. Mariela flinched at the touch but didn't pull away. Instead, she flipped her hand over and laced her fingers between his loosely, pulling it to lay in her lap where he'd originally taken it from. Gauche was sitting very still, actively trying not to pull his hand away while telling himself that this was an attempt at comfort that he obviously shouldn't have made… but he couldn't very well pull his hand back now. Right?
Oblivious to his internal battles, Mariela continued, her voice soft as she stared off again blankly at her bedroom wall, "I never could have saved them. My mother couldn't walk—my father would rather die than leave her. But Marlin… Marlin I could have saved."
"You did," Gauche objected immediately, his brow furrowed. "Marlin isn't dead, Marie. Just comatic. He's going to be fine once you find the right healer to help him."
Mariela laughed mirthlessly, but not unkindly. Absentmindedly, she started drawing circles on the back of Gauche's hand with her thumb, tracing lightly over his skin in a way that made him actively suppress a shiver.
You really are an animal, Gauche admonished himself, irritated and none-too-proud of the fact that he was having such a hard time keeping focus during such an obviously emotional moment. Mariela, still oblivious to his response to it, kept tracing those circles on the back of his hand lightly as her laugh settled into an incredibly sad smile.
"The mage fire they used," she finally started, her voice thick with remembered horror, "was stronger than anything I'd ever seen before. By the time I got there…" she trailed off with a small, heartbreaking choking sound, her hand squeezing his suddenly in a spasm that calmed as she cleared her throat. "By the time I got there, my parents were gone; the back portion of our house, the part with the bedrooms… it had already collapsed. I found Marlin in the front room… he'd, he'd almost… he'd almost made it to the door…" Mariela shut her eyes tight, and when Gauche looked down at her hands, he realized that she was digging the nails of the hand he wasn't holding into her other forearm so forcefully that blood had started to seep up around her fingernails. Gauche, gently as he could, put his free hand on top of hers and slowly pulled it off, grimacing at the sight of the crimson crescents her nails left behind. At this point, he had turned in his seat to face her directly as she sat on her bed, and while she still wasn't looking at him, her hands relaxed in his after a moment had passed and it became clear that he wasn't going to let them go.
"They had barricaded the front door," she finally whispered. The tears had stopped flowing and a hollow, dead look had come to her glazed-over eyes. "I didn't know if the fire was purposeful or a byproduct of whatever was happening, at first. The front door—I had to throw myself against it to break it down. Even if Marlin had made it to the door… he never would have made it out."
Gauche felt his face heat in fury. The Eye of the Midnight Sun had been behind the attack that had almost killed him, Asta, and Sister Theresa, as well as the reason why his precious angel of a sister had been kidnapped and hurt. They were evil by every metric he'd ever known—and Gauche had a decent amount of evil to go off of as examples. It didn't surprise him that they would do something so heinous as burn down a farm with an injured woman and a child in it—but it did piss him off.
Mariela pulled her hands away from Gauche's gently, dragging him out of his own murderous thoughts. Before he could understand what she was doing, she'd reached behind her neck and started to undo the bow that held the collar of her white nightdress up.
"What—"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Mariela said immediately, her hands freezing with the undone laces in them and her eyes wide. As if she'd been woken from a trance, her face started to heat as she stuttered out, "N-no, th-this isn't what—" she cut herself off, closing her eyes and taking a deep, shaky breath. Without lowering her hands, she opened her eyes to meet Gauche's. Her face was still red, but she was much more composed as she explained, "I didn't think about how this would look—I am so, so sorry. I'm just going to show you my shoulder and the top of my chest. Is that… okay? With you? I'm sorry for the improperness of it all."
Gauche stared at her for a long moment, completely unsure of what to say and slightly suspicious. If it were anyone else—anyone else—Gauche would have immediately shut the entire situation down as a trap. Then again, if it were anyone else, he never would have allowed the conversation to get this far. So, with a slow nod, he waited as she slowly lowered the left side of her dress's collar to reveal the top of her shoulder and chest, careful to keep every part of her smooth skin covered as she used the white fabric to frame a vicious burn. It ran from the top of her shoulder, down to disappear beneath the fabric of the dress on her back, spreading out across the front of her chest to end right beneath the edge of her collarbone.
"That…" Gauche trailed off, trying to find the best way to put it, "That can't be from the fire you're talking about. Could it?" The burn looked new—freshly scabbed over, like she'd just shoved her shoulder through a burning door to drag her brother out of a flaming home days ago… not over a year ago.
The ghost of a smile on her lips, Mariela answered, "It was mage fire, Gauche. This injury will likely never heal past the point it's at now; even if the skin could heal, the real damage is irreversible. And all things considered, I highly doubt I'll ever have to worry about having to find a husband who would want a permanently disfigured wife who can't access her own magic, anymore."
Gauche opened his mouth but closed it as he realized he had no idea what he would even say. As they had been since he'd met her, his feelings were roiling so fast that he could barely keep up: irritation at the idea of her thinking a little cursed scar would make her suddenly unmarriable, fury at the idea of her getting married, concern for the fact that, apparently, the horrendously painful looking burn marring her shoulder was not the worst part of whatever the mage fire had done to her.
"What do you mean, you can't access your own magic, anymore?"
Mariela looked suddenly uncomfortable. She tied the laces of her collar back around her neck, her eyes fixed firmly on her lap as she did so. When she looked up, it was to look at anything but Gauche. "I… I don't know the details," she said haltingly. Her hands were gripped tightly in her lap again, and she looked like she was almost shaking. "I saw a healer, once, for the both of us. He said that the fire had damaged the paths in my body that my mana would need to travel through. He also said there was no cure."
"But I've seen you cast spells," Gauche protested, his brow furrowed. At that, Mariela smiled, a bit of happiness finally coming to her face and her voice.
"When it became clear that Marlin wouldn't be able to eat or drink or get the nutrients he needed in the state he was in, I carried him from village to village looking for a healer who could help, and he just got weaker and weaker. One day, when I thought he wouldn't be able to go any further, I spent half the day sobbing over his little body and begging for an answer. My grimoire gave me one."
Mariela finally met Gauche's eyes, and the pride there was unmistakable. "I can't use my own mana anymore, but I can act as a conduit for natural mana. I can't channel more than I would be able to handle myself—so I'm still very weak—but I don't need to channel more than I would ever need to heal, and because I don't have access to my own magic type, I'm not limited in the element that I can channel the mana from. All the spells I have in my grimoire are healing spells; I can pull the natural mana out of an element and channel it through myself to merge with something or someone else."
Gauche flashed back to the sight of Mariela leaning over her brother, a vicious set of fangs sunk into her by a vine that she was using to transfer her own life force into Marlin to sustain him. Suddenly, all of it made sense.
"That's why your grimoire changes colours," Gauche thought out loud mildly, thinking back to that day. "No elemental or type restriction."
Mariela smiled sadly. "I'm a much better mage now than I ever was before. Silver linings and such, right?"
"I don't know if silver linings are what I would call having your magic taken away and your shoulder and chest permanently scarred," Gauche pointed out before he could think better of it. Mariela flinched, her hand reflexively going to hold her ruined shoulder now that her dress was tied back up.
"I suppose you're right," she whispered, eyes far away.
I came here specifically to stop her being afraid of me, and I keep making it worse. God dammit, what the hell am I supposed to do?
"I mean-" Gauche started to try again, but Mariela just shook her head.
"No," she said softly, "you're right. There was nothing good about the months that followed the night we lost everything. Absolutely nothing."
There was something about the way she said it that made Gauche uneasy—something about the bitterness there that he'd only heard thus far attached to things that made him feel violent with no real outlet. Against his better judgement, he asked, "What happened?"
The smile that twisted her face was closer to a snarl than a real show of happiness; it spoke to something feral in her that Gauche hadn't so much as glimpsed until now. Without looking at him, her hand tightened hard on her burnt shoulder. Not so much as flinching at it, she said calmly, "We were caught by bandits while we were on the road. They would have killed Marlin, but I agreed to certain terms to keep him safe until we got to Hage—where they sold us. Well. They sold me; Marlin had always been barely more than my luggage while they had me."
Gauche blinked—he felt like he'd been slapped. The way she'd talked about her time with these bandits was the exact opposite of how she'd talked about everything else that had happened to her and her brother up until now. Rather than hurt, she sounded almost defiant, like she was daring him to say something. But he had no idea what to say, or what she was so sure he would say.
Seemingly without thinking about it, Mariela moved her hand from her shoulder, revealing the dark red seeping into the white fabric left behind, and rubbed idly at one of the leather cuffs on her wrists. Her nails sporadically dug into the thick leather, letting Gauche know why she kept them on… well. One of the reasons she kept them on. Somehow, he had a feeling he didn't want to know any of the other reasons she might have for not wanting to take them off.
"I thought you went to Hage looking for a healer." It was a bland, probably stupid thing to say in the face of everything she'd just told him, but it also seemed to be the right thing to say. Mariela, seemingly caught off guard, suddenly lost all the defiant bite in her tone and face.
"There were some people that my mother used to tell me would help us," she said softly. "People that she told me to go looking for if I ever needed help. One of them was Sister Theresa, actually—that's how we ended up there. Another one was a young nun named Sister Lily."
The name sent a jolt through Gauche that he was very careful not to let show on his face. He knew that name. He didn't remember exactly what it meant, but if it was about someone in Hage then he knew how he'd heard it.
"So, I was looking for her before the bandits found us," Mariela continued, "and after they found us, we… traveled with them. For months. I don't remember how many. By the time we got to Hage, we were purchased by an extremely kind priest who realized what was happening when they were passing through the village. I… don't know how a priest from the Forsaken Realm could have possibly had the money to make those men both sell us in good faith and leave the village without trouble. When I realized that he was really going to let us go, it was…" Mariela trailed off, and the look in her eyes made Gauche's heart squeeze again painfully. She looked so… haunted. Clearing her throat, she continued, "I was not expecting kindness from a man who had just given a group of bandits yul in exchange for my brother and I. When I got it—and when it turned out he knew Sister Lily…" This time, the soft choking sound that Mariela made was one she didn't bother trying to muffle. Looking up at Gauche with tears in her eyes, she said with a smile, "It was a miracle. I had… I had lost all faith in miracles by then. But, just like that… I was saved. We were saved."
Mariela laughed suddenly, surprising Gauche. It must have registered on his face, too, because she gave him the brightest smile she'd given him in… well. Ten days. Genuine happiness in her eyes had wiped out all the bitterness he'd seen there before as she chuckled out, "Then, after that bout of luck had worn off when Sister Lily had given me directions and helped us get transport to Sister Theresa, you dropped into my life and fixed all the problems I had left—except for the curse on Marlin." She looked away then, and her smile dimmed but didn't disappear. "And, thanks to this job, I will find someone to cure him. I'll never give up."
"What about you?" Of all the things that Gauche could have- or should have, he guessed—asked in that moment, he knew that particular question was probably a stupid one. He already knew what her answer would be even before she started laughing, this laugh her usual lovely and clear. Without missing a beat, she shrugged and gave him a brilliant smile.
"What about me?"
Gauche opened his mouth—there were lots of things he could think of to say to that—but closed it just as quickly as he saw the tears beginning to pool at the edges of her eyes. With a start, he realized that she was trying to be brave—she was scared. Of course she was scared.
Gauche was quiet until her laughter had died down to just the bright smile and the tears they were hiding. Finally, he reached out and tentatively grabbed her hands again. When she offered no resistance, Gauche moved to sit next to her on the bed and gently wrapped an arm around her. It started slowly—just a faint shake. Then, as if she couldn't hold back anymore, Mariela bent at the waist and gasped out a sob, the sound pained and choked. She'd pulled her hands back from his and was gripping at her stomach, the sobs wracking her body violently enough that Gauche was a little concerned she'd hurt herself.
He didn't know what to say—so he didn't say anything. Gauche just let her cry, his arm around her as she crumpled in on herself and leaned against him. He wasn't sure how long they sat like that—he just knew that they sat there together as her sobs turned slowly into weak sniffling. Finally, Mariela used the edge of her dress to wipe her face before smiling shakily at Gauche with glassy eyes.
"Thank you," she sounded a lot steadier than he would have expected her to—but then, Gauche was starting to realize that Mariela might not be the type of strong he recognized exactly, but that obviously didn't mean she lacked strength. Straightening herself and turning just enough to pull away from his arm and face him, Mariela ran a shaky hand through her hair before clasping them both together in her lap again. With a bright smile, the same one that Gauche was starting to be able to recognize as fake, Mariela nodded toward the door. "I won't keep you any longer; I'm so sorry that you had to be here for this. Thank you for the invitation tomorrow—"
Mariela stopped abruptly as Gauche took her hands in his again. When she looked at him with the question in her eyes, he looked away, uncomfortable.
"You're still clawing at your hands," he mumbled gruffly. He couldn't make himself look at her right then, but he tightened his grip on her hands regardless. "You're making yourself bleed. Do you…are you sure you want to be alone right now?"
Mariela stiffened immediately, her hands freezing in his. Before she could pull away, Gauche added quickly, "I don't mean—look, you seem very upset, and it's my fault that you're upset. If you want me to leave, I'll go right now. If you want me to stay here for the night, I'll sleep in the chair again like the first time I brought you back to your room."
At that, Mariela relaxed, though the look in her eyes was still weary. Slowly, she asked, "Why do you care if I want to be alone or not right now?"
Gauche didn't have an answer for that; it shouldn't have been such a hard question, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Finally, he just shrugged. He wasn't about to lie to her or give her some kind of chivalrous reason as to why he didn't want to leave her alone. He just knew he didn't like it when she was sad.
Oddly, the shrug seemed to be the answer Mariela had been looking for—or, at least, it had been an acceptable one. She closed her eyes and took in a shaky breath before letting it out. Without opening her eyes, she said quietly, "I. Don't want to be alone. The dark…" her voice broke as she shook her head back and forth like she was trying to shake something out of it. When she spoke again, it was barely a whisper, and she'd bent to bury her face in the front of Gauche's shirt and clutch at him like he was some kind of lifeline.
"The dark," she whispered again, her voice muffled. Gauche had to lean over just a bit to make out what she was saying. "They used to come in the dark. I always wake up thinking that they're coming."
Gauche carefully pulled his hands out of Mariela's and wrapped his arms around her as she moved to grab fistfuls of his shirt while continuing to refuse to look up. He put his chin on the top of her head and held her gently; at some point, she'd started crying again. He could feel her tears soaking through the front of his shirt.
"Is it," her muffled voice caught his attention, and Gauche tilted his head just a bit to hear her better. "Is it incredibly inappropriate to ask you to sleep in the bed with me?" When he didn't answer immediately, Mariela added quickly, "Obviously we'll be dressed and nothing will happen, I just—"
"It'll be a lot more comfortable than the chair," Gauche cut off her hurried ramblings, and Mariela stopped short. Slowly, she pulled herself away from his chest to look up at him; even rimmed in red and bloodshot with tears, her eyes were almost hypnotic. Gauche cleared his throat and nodded toward the light, turning his head to hopefully hide the blush he could feel spreading across his face. "I'll, uhh. I'll hit the lights. Thanks—for letting me sleep in the bed instead of the chair. It, uhh. It killed my neck the last time I had to."
Mariela gave him the smallest smile and an even smaller laugh. She eased off her grip on his shirt, then immediately started to dab at it with the edge of her dress. "I'm so sorry, I got you covered in tears—"
This time, it was Gauche laughing that cut her off. He stood and leaned over to hit the lights, then kicked off his boots to lay next to Mariela in the small bed.
"Gauche?" She asked softly after a moment. A small hand laced fingers through his and squeezed lightly. "Thank you."
Gauche had no idea what to say—so, instead, he pulled her over to him and held her until they were both sound asleep.