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~*~
“Get out.”
Alphinaud’s not even a full step through the door before Alisaie’s voice, cold as ice, stops him in his tracks. He exhales, slipping into Alisaie’s room in the Pendants. A twin to his own, because of course the Exarch would have rooms ready for them even after months away.
The door clicks shut, and Alphinaud is still there. Hugging her knees on the corner of her bed, Alisaie’s breath hitches in her throat. She grits her teeth, her hackles raised.
“Alisaie,” Alphinaud begins, tentative.
A tissue box hits him in the face. Alphinaud lets out a patient sigh, bending down to retrieve it from the floor and set it on a dresser.
“Alisaie, please,” Alphinaud urges. “About… about that eater--”
Alisaie is on her feet, trembling with rage and-- and something else.
“Get out!” Alisaie seethes. “Get out this instant, Alphinaud, or I swear--”
Alisaie balls her fists until her knuckles are white. Alphinaud flinches and recoils, his hands up in surrender.
“Alisaie,” he pleads. “This-- this isn’t like you.”
“Oh, isn’t it?” Alisaie snaps. “Hiding in my room, crying and screaming ‘til my throat is raw, instead of brandishing my rapier and doing something useful? No, I suppose it’s not like me at all.”
“I only wanted to talk,” Alphinaud says carefully.
“Just let me have this!” Alisaie snarls. “Just let me feel this. Let me scream into the void for one night before you come to me with a plan. Can you do that for me, Brother? Or is your ego so astounding that you can’t even let me spend one night broken before you have to fix me, too?”
Her words sting. But no hurt can compare to the loss gnawing at Alisaie’s core, so Alphinaud weathers them with a sad, patient smile.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, wringing his hands. “It’s just that… we haven’t seen each other in some time, and… well. I didn’t want you to be alone. Not with this.”
Alisaie takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“...I know,” she murmurs.
“I love you.”
“I know.”
Silence stretches between them. Alphinaud lingering awkwardly between Alisaie and the door. Eventually, he sighs, turning away.
“...I’m sorry,” he repeats. “She was your friend.”
“What do you know about it? Nothing!” Alisaie glowers.
“I know enough, from your letters,” Alphinaud says gently. “I know you and she were… quite close. I know she was brave, at the end, saving that child from--”
“And just how in the hells would you know about that?” Alisaie snaps.
Alphinaud falters, caught. He bites his lip, glancing away. “...Zo told me.”
Alisaie stares at him, her eyes wet. She scowls, her jaw tight.
“...She had no right,” Alisaie says, adamant.
“She was strong, in the end,” Alphinaud keeps trying. “Just like you. You’re strong, Alisaie. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
Alisaie rounds on him, snarling, her eyes glinting and jagged like glass. And, like glass… she breaks.
“I don’t want to be strong,” Alisaie ekes out. “I want to be happy.”
Something in Alphinaud’s chest cracks like an egg. Affection surges through his limbs, instinct overcoming intellect, and he darts forward to pull her into his arms.
Alisaie catches him by the collar and forces him back at arms’ length, even as her treacherous fingers grab fistfuls of his jacket, clinging to him like a child.
“Don’t,” she gasps. “Please. Just… just leave me alone, Alphinaud. I promise you, in the morning I’ll be right back to the Alisaie you remember. Just… please, Alphinaud. No one’s supposed to see this. Not even you.”
Alphinaud stares at her, stricken. He opens his mouth as if to say something, closes it again. Eventually, he nods.
“Alright,” he says, swallowing hard. “Alright.”
“I’m sorry for snapping at you.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
Alphinaud takes a deep breath and reluctantly leaves Alisaie’s side. He pauses by the door, clicks his heels together and dips his head.
“...Good night, Alisaie.”
“Good night.”
The door clicks shut. Alisaie curls into a ball on the corner of her bed, hugging her knees to her chest. The night sky over Lakeland, so strange and unfamiliar after the endless, blazing pall above Amh Araeng, looms just as distant and inscrutable, offering no comfort.
But even in that darkness, there is light. A familiar, shimmering blue.
Alisaie opens her eyes to find a creature beside her. A carbuncle, nuzzling her legs like a cat. As she sits up, the creature clambers onto her lap, gazing up at her with its bright black eyes. Despite everything, Alisaie pats the spirit on its head, smoothing her palm across the core crystal in its forehead.
“...Moonstone,” she says in greeting, as the creature nuzzles her hand. As warm and comforting as any pet, yet still touched with Alphinaud’s aether.
Stubborn as she was to push him away, he was still, quite literally, with her in spirit.
Alisaie gasps. The dam breaks. She curls her fingers into the carbuncle’s tails. Alisaie buries her face in shining midnight fur, and weeps.
Just outside her door, Alphinaud snaps his grimoire shut with a gasp. The sound of Alisaie, brave, strong, stubborn Alisaie, weeping alone in her room…
It’s too much to bear. He hugs his grimoire to his chest with shaking fingers, closing his eyes in grief.
“For those we have lost,” he whispers, like a prayer. A promise. But as he flees down the corridor to his own chambers, Alisaie’s sobs drown out the creed.
Tesleen, Alisaie wails, her voice haunting his steps, piercing his heart like a crystal rapier through plaster flesh. Tesleen. Tesleen.
I loved you. I loved you. I loved you.
~*~