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sabraeal · 7 months

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All That Remains, Chapter 12: The Prince and the Princess [Part 2]

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Obiyukiweek 2023, Day 3: Declaration

Also written for @lusakina, who has created a Fell Birthday Wish Bargain with Jordan, so that one of them always gets D&R, and the other always gets this, and thus they can trust that they will regularly get their favorite fluff and favorite angst in short order. Which has paid off doubly this year, since the stars aligned and both their requests worked for Obiyukiweek, and thus their fluff & angst combo is back to back!

Once upon a time, there was a little girl.

Ah, but that is how stories begin, isn’t it? A girl, a boy, a prince, a witch, a troll with its mirror; a person, their decisive trait, the inciting event. A simple call that we rise to answer, a familiar tune that entices us to listen to the refrain.

But this story has already had its start. The journey is long underway, filled with high and lows, reversals and betrayals. This girl has had all the disappointments of a thousand lifetimes in but a single step, and yet, yet—

Her story is not yet done. Oh no, not nearly.

This is not how the story starts, but how it continues; how it makes miles into inches, and months to moments. How it turns interminable nights with doubt nibbling at the shadows into but a breath:

The girl walks for days and nights, with only her snowdrop for company.

The girl walks for days and nights with only her snowdrop for company. For as much courage as that delicate stem imparts wrapped around the shell the of her ear, the little flower is a poor conversationalist, not much given to the small talk the others in the garden had been. There are none of the tiger lily boasts or the babble of baby’s breath, but merely a comfortable silence, a knowing that if the girl spoke into the empty air, she would be heard, if not answered.

It is a comfort, one of her few now that summer’s bounty has long given way to autumn, and her precious shoes are long behind her. Mud squelches between her toes more often than not, cold as the dew that drips from the forest’s canopy. But she cannot stop, not while her boy might breathe. Not while she might yet be able to clutch his hands in hers and ask him to help tend their roses.

The only rests she allows herself are those to sleep and eat, though more and more often she finds her dinner on tree branches and on late-bearing bushes or hidden down between tree roots. There’s no need to stop then, to lose more time than the picking, but one day—

One day, the skies open, and the snowdrop’s dire prediction of thunder or snow sends her scurrying toward a cave’s mouth, lost beneath the scrub. She crawls inside, dry if not precisely warm, and chooses to wait out the storm.

It is pure chance that she is not the only one.

Despite her tutors’ high hopes, Shirayuki had never become the great appreciator of art that they seemed to expect from a princess. Even with every inch of the royal palace swathed in the country’s greatest works, the only commentary she could summon up when prompted was, it’s pretty. Or worse, I think I like it?

She had grown used to the rictus of Haki’s polite smile, all signs of pleasure dying as she offered her unsuitable assessments. It’s not about the quality of the art, the consort had tried to explain, too many times to count, it’s about how it moves you. About what it means.

Haruka might have huffed, might have made his disappointment known by the curve of his mouth and the clench in his knitted fingers, but he would at least pause as they passed, raising a hand to not quite brush over a haloed figure. This would be Adam, first of the Wisteria line— with a squint, she could see it the nose that would eventually smooth into Zen’s, and the cheekbones Izana would wear so proudly— painted as the sun god, breaking through the clouds. It’s an allusion to the way he wrested the power of the kingship from the previous dynasty, whose device was lightning descending from a cloud. Their divine right came from the claim of kinship with the sky god, who would throw bolts from his heavenly seat to punish the unworthy.

The lesson had been but a few moments, an aside while moving between more important topics, but for the first time, she understood why Zen had called him his favorite tutor, why he had said that prowling through the galleries beside his even strides had been one of the only good parts of rainy days. The marquis would never be emotive, but this talk made him animated, less an unforgiving edifice and more a man. She’d almost dare to call him approachable.

So it’s a…painting we like? She’d dared a quick glance at him, searching for some sign of approval. A good one?

His shoulders heaved with his sigh, but still, he nodded too. Yes, a good one.

And yet, when she sees that trailing tail on the water and the slender body that precedes it, rising from the depths of the pool with the same smile as a snake gives its prey, her only thought is of the fresco in the front hall. Nymphs, Zen had explained once, blushing; sirens, Haruka had corrected later with an awkward cough, meant to recall the hundred daughters sent to the third king of the Wisterias, tempting him to name a queen among them.

But it’s not a potential queen that prowls toward her now, sliding right up beside her, one arm pressed against the tile to hold her steady. “Come here often, Little Miss?”

“Um…?” Shirayuki’s never been one to be good with faces, let alone names— that had always been Obi’s forte. Just one of the many services I provide, Miss, he’d tell her, grin honed to a gleaming edge, I’ll remember your grudges good enough for both of us. And yet, there’s something about this woman, a familiarity in the way she moves, in the precise slant her smirk takes. “No, not really…?”

“Shirayuki?” There’s not so much as a ripple as Kiki cuts through the steam, her damp hair clinging to her shoulders and back, floating where it meets the water. The light casts her in shadow and sepia, and oh, if only that fresco painter still lived, he would itch to commit her to plaster as well, nymph or siren or seamaid. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, Kiki!” She bobs higher in the pool, water splashing over her siren. “Ah, yes, I’m over here. Sorry, I didn’t mean to lose you.”

“It’s not your fault.” The tone is kind, but her body is tense, gaze wary where it lingers on the woman beside her. If she were some sort of sea creature, it would be one that hunted her own kind. “I shouldn’t have left you to—”

“Ah, it’s Blondie!” The siren surges out of the water, close enough that her breath stirs the hair on her neck. “And I bet when this is dry, it’s red, isn’t it, Little Lady?”

Kiki rises out of the water, no longer a nymph or seamaid but a goddess, blinding where the light halos around her. Limned as she is, Shirayuki sees the moment her jaw clenches, hand dropping to her hip only to find it bare. “And who are—?”

“Wait.” The woman’s eyes are wide enough to catch the light, flashing like two golden coins, and oh, there’s only one other person with a color like that. “You’re Obi’s friend. Torou!”

A great crow swoops down, settling on a stone scattered on the cave floor, just across from her. She thinks nothing of it, not at all, until it winks.

Caw, caw, it says, and because she is yet a child, and a child does not yet know what she should understand and what she should not, she hears it as, “Good day, good day, little one! What brings you here?”

Careful, the snowdrop whispers in her ear, always wary. Crows are tricksters and worse.

Were she a woman grown, the warning might spook her, might convince her to turn her shoulder and forget this crow-speak entirely. But she is yet a little girl, and children are the most accomplished tricksters of all.

“I am looking for a boy,” she says. “Have you seen him?”

“Well.” There’s a flutter of eyelashes before Torou moves, her sudden stillness all turned to a sinuous slink. “That’s putting it a little strong, but sure. We’re friendly.”

“Torou.” Kiki tries the name on her tongue, but no familiarity lights on her face, even if her shoulders do ease. “Strange that we meet you here. Again.”

“Not so strange, Blondie.” They may not be friends— Obi had begrudgingly called her a colleague, when pressed— but her mouth slants, so like Obi’s it makes her breath catch. “Last time we stumbled onto each other, you were coming from Tanbarun while I was going to. And this time, well…” Both her brows arch, too innocent. “Looks like we both might be heading toward.”

Shirayuki’s heart flutters in her throat, fear spiking through her like a rabbit with a fox outside it’s den, but Kiki’s face might well be made of marble for how little it gives away. “How do you figure that?”

Torou tips her head, smile spreading like butter in a hot pan. “Where else is a lady knight going to take a runaway princess?”

It happens between one blink and the next.

Kiki stands still as a statue, bath lapping around at waist, the dim light turning her skin from flesh to stone, a masterpiece so perfect it would make Viande’s masters despair. Water pools in the round of her belly button, winking in the light, and— and it’s a small detail to catch on, but Kiki is so rarely vulnerable like this. Even without leather and steel, she is armored by her station, by the prestige of Seiran, but now—

Now she lacks both, all of it left behind with her duties in Wistal. Because of her.

Salt burns, right at the corner of her eyes, threatening to let more than just a drop squeeze from them. Shirayuki ducks her head, trying to settle the sting with just a small flutter or two, but there’s a splash, hard enough that the water rolls up over her shoulders, and when she looks up—

Kiki has a knee pressed between Torou’s thighs, lips strung around her teeth in a snarl so fierce Izana’s best hounds would quiver.

“Just where,” she growls. “Did you hear that?”

It is so easy for a little girl to trust a crow, is it not? For her to simply ask what she needs, with not the slightest hint of fear. A trickster he may be, but there is little danger while she is healthy and hale, and he so much smaller than she. Were he to cross her, she could simply catch her neck between her two hands and twist. Not a thought that occupies the little girl’s mind, of course, but surely it passes through the crow’s, the complex calculation of all smaller, weaker things that must share their path creatures who smile with sharp teeth.

Perhaps it would be different if it were a snake, or a tiger. If there were some way for harm to come to her, perhaps the little girl might not trust so easily, not so soon after she had escaped from the sorceress who had twisted her will to adorn her garden.

Ah, but no, not our little girl. She would refuse to let her heart to be trampled, to walk around wounded and bleeding and call it strength. To close herself off from the crows and tiger and snakes and sorceresses because they might bite or peck or bend her to their will.

So often we would call that foolish. A sign of a soft thing not ready to face the harshness of the world. A child that needed to be protected, lest she hurt herself.

And surely, you will find, her snowdrop agrees.

It was impossible to live in Wistal and not know of Kiki’s skill. The guardsmen used to line up when she was in the yard, waiting their turn to take on the indomitable heir of Seiran. Shirayuki had seen it more than a few times passing from the pharmacy yo the main palace; men twice her size would charge at her, voices raised to a battle cry, and Kiki would dispatch them without a hint of sweat beading her brow, one right after the other.

Miss Kiki might look like a princess, Obi told her once after Sereg, steam curling up from his mug, but if I had to face either her or Sir in a real fight, I’d take the big guy every time.

Because he’s bigger?Slower, is what she meant, but it felt cruel to call Mitsuhide that when both Zen and Obi had done it more than enough over Kiki’s recent engagement.

That, he allowed with a shrug, but also… He smiles, like a throat around a knife. Sir wouldn’t be fighting to kill.

Kiki was lethal, that’s what he meant to say. And she’d understood that, the same way a man might know it’s dog could kill, given the reason. But it’s not until now, when Torou turns her head and the light glints along the flat of a small blade, pressed intimately across her neck, that Shirayuki realizes: she’s dangerous, too.

“Kiki…” It’s mean to be a warning, a plea, but it’s a squeak, the whole world feeling as if it’s escaped its moorings. “Don’t…”

“My, my.” Torou’s laugh is as languid as the stretch of her limbs. “Now you got me wondering where you had that one squirreled away, Blondie.” Her finger traces over the knob of Kiki’s wrist, suggestive. “Maybe even what else you got hidden up there too.”

Kiki huffs, one corner of her mouth tugging up her cheek. “Thought you said you didn’t like the dangerous ones.”

Her smile hones as sharp as the knife at her throat. “Oh, honey, you should know by now…I lied.”

A thin line of red beads where metal meets flesh. “I would not suggest doing that with me.”

Shirayuki is close enough to catch the hitch of Torou’s breath, to see the thin sheen of fear stretch across the gold field of her eyes before it fades into bravado. “Boo,” she groans, “you’re just as boring as I remember, Blondie.”

“You wouldn’t like me to get interesting.” There’s not a trace of humor when Kiki says, “Now answer the question. How did you know?”

Torou heaves a sigh so heavy her eyes roll too. “Oh please, like anyone between Yuris and Wirant hasn’t heard about the Second Prince’s wayward little wife-to-be. Doesn’t take a genius to see a red head and the heir to Seiran and do the math.”

Kiki’s grip slackens on the hilt of her knife, her eyes uncertain as they dart toward Shirayuki, a question that she doesn’t even begin to have the answer for. Torou, as sharp as Obi ever was, doesn’t miss it.

“Listen, Blondie.” Her slender fingers fold neatly over the arm at her throat like tiger stripes. “I got a head up because I know who Nan— Obi hung around. None these peddlers and pilgrims are gonna know a lady from the louse, let alone think they’re breaking bread with someone who might’ve been a Highness. And I’m sure not going to be the one letting them know any different.”

The tension spills out of Kiki between one sigh and the next. “All right. I’ll believe you.” Water sloshes as she pulls black, knife disappearing beneath the surface. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“Yeah, yeah, or you’ll make sure I do.” Torou rubs a hand over her throat, palm coming away smeared. “Heard it. Now that we’ve got the small talk out of the way, tell me…”

She leans in, smile all mischief. “Where’s tall, dumb and handsome? Gotta say my bed’s been a little cold lately, wouldn’t mind a big guy like that to warm it up for me.”

Shirayuki doesn’t realize she’s gaping until water laps over her teeth, rousing her enough to gasp, “You mean, Mitsuhide?”

“Oh, is that his name? Yeah,” she sighs, wistful. “Mitsuhide. That’d sound all nice wrapped up in a moan, wouldn’t it?”

Kiki folds her arms under chest, mouth twitching. “He’s engaged.”

“That so?” A plucked brows quirks with her grin. “Well, I can work with that. Engaged isn’t married, after all. Wouldn’t be the first guy I’ve had one last hurrah with before he clamps on the old ball and chain.”

There’s a shift in the water, one that starts from where Kiki stands and ripples out; Shirayuki stiffens, sure that she’ll see metal flash and blood drip along its edge, but instead—

Instead, Kiki laughs. Loud enough it echoes off the rafters, filling the whole space like church bells. “I would love,” she hums, “to see you try it.”

“You know,” Torou grouses, shoving her head through the collar of her dress. It’s an effort, with all that hair. “That’s when most women bring out the knife.”

“Really?” Kiki shifts back on her hips, utterly casual where she leans against the wall of their room. Dinner steams on the table where the innkeeper’s wife left it: three bowls of stew and hearty bread, though Shirayuki’s the only one who has bothered to sit herself in front of it. “I think it would be entertaining. Haven’t seen him try to climb out of his own skin like that in years.”

Shirayuki could count on her hand the number of times she’d seen Obi blush; whether it was natural inclination or the cast of his skin, she couldn’t say, but his embarrassment almost never showed itself on his cheeks or the tips of his ears, but in the hunch of his back or the set of his jaw. It’s what Torou does now, the sharp angles of her shoulders forming pickets up around her ears.

“So the magic is gone, is it?” Torou mutters into her shoulder, pouting like a scolded child. “Sorry for you princess. Shoulda known that sort of thing never outlasts the happy ending.”

A corner of Kiki’s mouth hooks into a grin so sly Shirayuki finds herself blushing. “Far from it. Just found better things to wrap my hands around.”

Gold flashes, molten and curious, before Torou sashays over to where Kiki leans, hair trailing water where she walked. “Well, maybe if he’s not one to be tempted, you might be…eh, my lady?”

Her purr sets Shirayuki’s skin tingling, but even a hefty application of batting lashes doesn’t move Kiki to more than a snort. “Pass.”

“Ugh.” Torou tosses herself into the nearest chair, ladder back knocking into Shirayuki, setting a small spray of stew across the table. “You really are no fun, Blondie.”

That only hones Kiki’s smile to a point, like the dagger Obi showed her once, meant to slip between armored places. A stilletto, he called it. Viandese. “I’m sure you’ll learn to live with the disappointment.”

Her eyes roll, smooth as coins along cobble. “I’ll never understand what Nanaki saw in the lot of you. Maybe job security or something just as boring. How he didn’t just up and die from the lack of fun, I can’t—”

“Wait!”

It’s not until Torou’s wrist sits clenched between her fingers, pulse fluttering against her fingertips, that Shirayuki even realizes she’s spoken. Her voice is raw where it scraped its way out, hope digging its claws deep into her throat.

He was seen leaving with a woman, my lady. The lamps had carved deeps shadows across Kai’s face, his sweet face grim, but—but—

“Obi,” she gasps. “Is he with you?”

There can’t be more than a breath between the ask and the answer, but time bends once her lips wrap around that final rise, running honey-slow, so viscous she swears she can feel it stretch against her skin. Torou’s eyes round, jaw going slack, and oh, there’s time enough for her to count the muscles that contort to make it so, for her to see the words etched in gold before flesh could form them.

“Him?” That narrow wrist breaks her hold as if it were wet paper, cradling against the the valley of Torou’s chest. “No. He’s done with me, he said, and I don’t come crawling to any man, let alone that one.”

“But you’ve seen him.” Her fingers itch to bury themselves in that dress, to hold her only lead in her grasp and simply shake until answers come out. “Recently? If he told you—?”

“That was years ago. You were there. Well” —her head tilts, one way and then the other, indecisive— “in the next room over. After what happened at the manor, he didn’t want me ruining his new gig. Gave me the big kiss off. No actual kisses,” she clarifies, at Kiki’s inquisitive brow. “But you know. It’s been real. Have a nice life. Don’t try to find me or I’ll kill you. That sort of thing.”

Kiki’s mouth twitches. “Touching.”

“But Kai said…” There’s not enough air for her to speak, not at anything more than a whisper. “They had said he left with a woman. If it isn’t you, then…?”

When Torou looks down at her, there is pity in her eyes, so heavy she thinks she would stumble under it, were she on her feet. “I haven’t seen him,” she admits, more gentle than Shirayuki ever thought she could speak. “But I….I think I know someone who has.”

My wings take me far and wide, little girl, far and wide, the crow says, a showman among birds. Look at them and you can see how strong they are, how long. Why if you were a grub or a louse or even a little mouse they might blot out the sky when I fly overhead, and you’d feel a little tremble in your knees and a little water in your belly.

She asked, the snowdrop says, its little voice fierce, whether you’d seen her boy.

I’ve been to all sort of places, all sorts. His spindly crow legs pace over the stone, tack-tack-tack, undaunted by the sternness of a small flower. Here, there, and everywhere, more places than you’ve ever heard of, and even more you’ve never dreamed! Well traveled, that’s what I am, little girl, that’s what I am, so if I haven’t seen it, it can’t be anywhere meant to be found.

But my boy, our little girl presses, heart so far up her throat she could have coughed it into her hands. Might have too, if she thought giving it away might help her. You must have seen him too.

I’ve seen all that’s to be seen under the sun, he tells her, but with one great ruffle of his feathers, he deflates. But I haven’t seen a boy like yours.

Hope crumbles in her hands the way ill-baked cakes would, dry and grainy and unpleasant, leaving nothing to her but crumbs and a sandy taste in her mouth. Would that she have never asked, she might have held on to it a while longer, might have trudged on thinking that she could hold him once again, but—

But perhaps, the crow says, a twinkle in his beady eye, I know someone who has.

Kiki's face is as still as a death mask, her hand absently reaching at an empty hip. “Who—?”

“How?” Shirayuki doesn’t so much speak the word as it shivers out, so delicate a breath could scuttle it to the four winds. “Where?”

“Tanbarun.” A shoulder lifts, the wide neck of Torou’s dress slipping off it. “In the castle.”

“The castle…?” she echoes. “Why…?”

Miss. It’s a puff in the air, a warning that soon Lilias will give up this tenuous summer for autumn. Shirayuki turns anyway, eyes slipping from the burning horizon to trace Obi’s silhouette in the fading light. If this all doesn’t work out…

You mean the Phostyrias? They’re so close now; even in the gloaming, the road to Wirant glimmers, lit as bright as day in the darkest night. Another year and Oriold will shine just the same. I suppose we’d have to go back and look at our notes, see if there’s a more likely hybrid would could pursue. This one appears to be hearty enough, and without any of the orimmalys’s poison, but there were quite a few promising lines to choose from.

Miss. There’s a smile in his voice, as fond as the warmth in her chest that answers it. That’s not what I meant.

Oh. Shadows hang heavy from his brow, clinging close to the curve of his cheekbone, and it makes it harder to see the question in his eyes, to divine just what he’s trying to ask. You mean if the whole project was scuttled?

An uncomfortable possibility to ponder; she’s spent so much of her tenure on coaxing sprouts to grow, on convincing stone and seed to graft, that starting over would be daunting, to say the least.

Well, there’s any number of labs here that might be happy to have an extra set of hands, she allows. Or maybe I might help Yuzuri in the green houses before trying my hand at my own—

That’s not what I meant either. Trust me, Miss, Obi says, entirely too amused. I know you could find work anywhere. The problem is stopping you.

He shifts, the shadows swallowing him until only the shape of him remains. I meant, if this whole thing with Master doesn’t work out. If you do all this and Elder Highness gives you a polite shoo out the window. Where do we go if…?

Her breath catches. You mean if I…?

If she stops being a curiosity, and starts being inconvenient. That’s what he means. If Izana can’t be trusted to keep his word.

Tanbarun. It’s not until she says it that she’s knows it’s true. It’s my…it used to be my home.

He’s silent for a long moment. Well, he snorts, I suppose it’s not like Prince Raj is going to ask you to marry him a second time…

“The real question,” Kiki hums, unimpressed, “is what were you doing there?”

Torou lifts her chin, curling a hand beneath it. “I already said I wasn’t. I just know someone who saw him there.”

“You know someone who was in the castle.” It’s not a question, not from Kiki. Oh no, it’s a statement, so full of doubt it nearly drips. “Someone who also just happens to know who Obi looks like. And we’re supposed to…?”

Believe that, she doesn’t say, but the implication hangs heavy enough.

“Hey, my source is legitimate.” A bejeweled hand flutters in the air, pressing tight over Torou’s heart. “He’s supposed to be there.”

One elegant eyebrow arches, matching Kiki’s tone as she asks, “And just how did you come across this…source?”

“Why, he’s my sweetheart,” Torou tells her smugly, both her eyebrows waggling. “One of the prince’s men, works right in the castle. And the last time we had a little rendezvous, he told me that he saw Obi himself, strutting right through the royal hallways without so much as a slouch.”

My little crow wife. The crow puffs proudly, as if that were an accomplishment in itself. The little girl didn’t know much about crows and how they lived; perhaps it was. She lives inside the castle’s rookery, the best of His Majesty’s messengers, that’s what they say. No one can fly as high or as fast as my little wife! The king himself asks for her by name.

But what, our little girl rasps, does this have to do with my boy.

Everything, he quarks, because my fast and tidy little wife told me not a week past she saw a boy, just like yours. Dressed as fine as a dandy, sweeping bows and calling to his betters. An impressive sounding boy, one of the finest feather.

But how can that be? Her fingers brush over the snowdrop’s petals. Her boy is a good one, a fine one, that is true, but to think of him in silks and cambric, to think of him with fine manners and a great bearing— a season cannot be enough to wrought such changes. He is no fine knight or lord, he is just my boy.

Are you sure of that? The crow cocks his small head, curious. Surely a boy that belongs to so discerning and worldly a girl would be worthy of prizes and titles aplenty.

The girl frowns at that. She was not so discerning a girl before she was taken in by the sorceress and her garden. She was not so worldly before she traveled so much of it.

Perhaps, the crow muses, he only needed a little polishing. Perhaps— his beady eyes sparkle, full of mischief— he only needed a little push.

A push? Her small mouth purses in a pout. But what could have pushed him?

Are you sure you care to know? the crow asks archly, a sly shine to his clever beak.

I do. They were so happy, after all, with their windows that called across from each other, with their little roses both their hands tended. At least, that is always what the little girl had thought. I do.

Then I can tell you, he says, magnanimous. He has forgotten you for a princess.

Rain patters against the glass, a lulling rhythm, if Shirayuki were in any mood to allow herself to be lulled. Instead she twists on her pillow, a groan stifled in the down, thoughts refusing to settle. It’s the most comfortable bed she’s had in weeks, and the softest she’s like to see for many more, and yet, yet—

“There’s a catch,” Kiki grunts, cold and stiff beside her. “There’s always a catch with people like that. She wouldn’t give us what we want for free.”

“But…” Her lips press together, steadying. “It’s the best lead we have.”

The only lead, really, but there’s no need to say it, not when Kiki is already sighing, resigned. “It could lose us days if she’s spinning us some yarn. Weeks, even, if he never even came this way.”

“I’ve already lost us more than that,” she murmurs, barely able to bring her voice louder than a whisper. “The trail’s already gone cold. If only we’d gone last summer, then maybe…”

Maybe we would have a chance. Shirayuki bites her cheek to keep from saying it. Kiki stiffens anyway.

“All right,” she says after a long moment. “It’s up to you.”

Shirayuki stares at the back of her head. “It is?”

“I’ve already not listened to you once.” Kiki shifts, just enough that their eyes meet. “I don’t mean to make the same mistake again. Even if it might lead us on a fool’s errand.”

It is hard for us to understand, is it not? To choose to keep our hearts as open as our eyes, to walk willingly into hardship. Would we dare the world to do its worst so soon after feeling its lash? To say, it is not what you do to me that makes me, but what I allow myself to be.

Perhaps that is why stories choose them. Or rather, why we choose to tell their stories. We are so different from these little girls, these children with their hearts on their sleeves and their soft flesh bared to the world. We long to be them once again, to trust in our story—

No, to trust in ourselves. To once again believe that should we fall, we will be able to stand up once again. To accept that, so often, we must be enough, all on our own.

How hard it is to take that leap. How unfair it is that so often, we must.

Few decisions are ever made well in the small hours of the morning; there is something about the lack of light that makes desperation run long in the tooth, that makes those few hours until sunrise feel like an hourglass dripping life’s blood. Shirayuki knows this, resolves in those few moments between when the room falls silent and when Kiki’s breath gives way to sleep to wait until morning to choose. But—

But, well, sleep has never come easy. And without Obi…

Ah, she can’t remember the last time she’s had a good night’s rest. Even in the palace, a soft mattress and cool sheets could never calm the racing of her mind.

Her feet swing down to the floor, breath hissing when she finds how the night’s chill has settled into the boards. But still, she stands, pausing only to light a candle before she pads down the hall. It’s quiet there, still in the way the dormitories were when she stumbled back late from the lab, only Obi’s hand on her back to keep her upright. And yet—

Yet she doesn’t hesitate to knock at Torou’s door. It’s possible she could be abed; that’s where she should be, after all. But after an evening of lop-sided smiles and one-shouldered shrugs, Shirayuki doubts that this is where Obi and his friend might differ.

There’s no answer. Still, she tries again. It takes at least three for Obi to answer for a stranger, and if Torou has a special knock to bypass the hassle, Shirayuki hardly knows it.

On her third knock, she simply tries the door. It’s unlocked, opening easy under her hands, and when she steps in—

Ah, there’s a knife at her neck. A sharper one than Kiki keeps.

“Oh,” Torou sighs, slipping in back into her boot. “It’s just you.”

She tromps back to where she’d been sitting, a deck of cards dealt out for two hands. As a daughter of a bar— granddaughter, Obi’s so quick to tease— she knows more than her fair share of games, but this one escapes even her.

“So,” she drawls, picking up a card. “What brings you my way? Must be something for you to slip the leash like that. Hate to think what Blondie’ll do if she finds her little princess has wandered off on her.”

Hurry up, she’s telling her, and oh, she’d had her whole speech planned from the moment she walked in the door, a tidy thing that would lay out expectations. Boundaries. Guidelines. But now—

Now she just shuffles at the threshold, fingers lacing and unraveling as if that might help her string her thoughts together. It, unfortunately, does not. “I…um…”

Torou glances up, incredulous. “You’re not my type,” she reminds her, “so don’t think you can stick around.”

“No, I wasn’t— that’s not what I’m here for.” Shirayuki clears her throats, letting the vibration order her thoughts. “I just want to…to say…”

Will you take me there? the little girl asks. I must see him myself.

It is very easy to ask that, the crow tells her, more gently than he is wont. But it is much harder to do. Are you ready for that— for it to be hard?

The little girl plants her feet, bare on the stony cave floor, and meets that beady gaze. Yes.

“Great,” Torou hums, setting her cards aside. “I’ll send word that my sweetheart should expect us. I'm sure" --her smile stretches until it's all teeth-- "that he'll be thrilled.

#obiyukiweek23 #day 3 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #all that remains #snow queen au #my fic #ans #oof finally we're about to get to the derring and the doing!!#i got to do some fun tweaks to the snow queen frame this time around #and also step back on the narrative frame a little #i did a nice reread and realized i really started to get very set in the pattern that every other scene had to be frame #like the more stressed out shirayuki is the more i clung to the frame #and so this time i let the scenes breathe much more #let the main story run into itself a little bit #and i think it sort of works for how Shirayuki is feeling #she was so tightly controlled in the palace #and now she's starting to breathe again #and the narrative's doing the same to the plotline

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