#scharlakol

[justices-blade]

1. Their First Memory

✧ meme-ories!

First, darkness. Then warmth. Then, movement — Hurried, like being taken to morning market. But he is let down like a yolk of egg.

The warmth leaves.

The hard, dusty steps to an orphanage. A shadow fleeing into the night. It's cold. ████ blinks the sleep out of his eyes.

There's still a frayed blanket over his shoulders. It doesn't keep the chill out. It's cold, barefoot on those stone steps. Where are his shoes? He can't go out without his shoes. The cut from the glass he stepped on is still healing. His baby brother's started to wail in his crib. ████ winces, still sleepy. His own body is still half-draped over it, cradling it close like a pillow.

A flailing hand reaches out. Tiny, pudgy. He takes it, watching the fingers curl.

"Finch." Baby brother's name. He barely knows how to pronounce it. "Shhh. Shhh..."

The screaming doesn't stop.

The screaming will stop when Ma comes back.

████ waits. It's cold. He doesn't have his shoes. He can't go out without his shoes. The cut on his foot smarts from the cold.

(She doesn't.)

[enarmor]

@scharlakol & @sacaeblade sent:

18. A memory they’d love to change tosses a grenade before you can get me

//sacae wants me dead forreal

//via memories; no longer accepting

Daisies to say 'I love you'

Carnations for an ache

Lilies are a virtue

And Bellflowers mean 'I'll see you when I wake'

Sain breathes deep. Every flower in his arrangement is accounted for, each of their petaled heads touched by the tip of his finger. He's been rummaging through the bouquet for the better half of an hour now, ensuring that every last detail is perfect--is picturesque. This would be the climactic scene at the end of his act. He'd finally roll up his sleeve and allow his lady to see the heart he wears underneath, speaking truly and honestly when he professes his love.

He knows what he is. That he's very rarely taken seriously. But dash your head against a rock enough times, and it may just start to crack; maybe this time she'll understand. Maybe this time she'll see.

He cradles the flowers like they're a newborn, saddling onto his mount with measured motions. Like treading upon a carpet of gossamer, he is careful. Not even the wind can be allowed to misarrange that which he has painstakingly crafted.

He rides.

And as he draws near, she comes into view. She is the very picture of beauty, just as lovely and refined as their first encounter. Her hair is warm and gentle, like a breeze, but her eyes are each wells of insurmountable strength. They are perfect compliments to one another: the sun's first ray on a field of morning frost. Nothing is too cold, and nothing too hot. Everything attains balance and moderation by another of her qualities. And when he sees her move, he finds it difficult to look away. Every motion, every flick of the blade, is deliberate and practiced. She flows faster and more poised than any river: a movement Sain wishes would end up in his arms. To see her dance across and open field and end in his hand, he could die happy. Every effort spared for her would have been made more than worthwhile, such that the remainder of his life's breaths could all be hers to claim. He wants her. He needs her. In the way a sunflower turns to the sky, aching for its one true love.

And right now, she's... Speaking with the others.

And she looks happy.

Sain stops himself. He laughs a little, noticing how easily she does the same. Except, he doesn't think he's ever heard her laugh. Not while he was around, at least. 'It seems there are no decent men among Lycia's knights,' she had once said. And though it failed to reach him then, the realization that he has more than just his own reputation to tarnish takes root. There is Kent, too, and Lord Wallace. And his father, who he fears a slight against more than any other. Is it right for him to be doing this? The Lance sucks in a breath. His gaze falls from Lyndis and the others, and onto his bouquet. It seems... Pathetic. Insufferable. Like it would only earn further scorn against his house and knightly order. "They... Don't deserve that," he mutters, looking back to his liege to see that she has still not noticed him.

"There's still time to go back."

If asked about why he had spoken those words, Sain could not come up with an answer. They sort of just fell out of his mouth, far beyond the reach of his own control. And as they do, his vision grows bleak. The world dons a deeper shade of gray--reflected in his eyes by the loss of focus in their lenses. Nothing seems worthwhile. Not the flowers, not the sappy poem to go along with them--not even his service, in a way. But the shake of his head dispels that last thought. Sain may be able to convince himself that Lyndis will never accept him as her man, but he will always be her knight. He chews on the inside of his cheek. Hands tremble as they reach for his horse's reins, but once they're grabbed, he yanks them back.

The flowers fall from his hands, destroyed in an instant by the trampling of hooves. Daisies are torn, petal from petal, and half-ground into a medicinal sludge. Carnations, with their crimson buds, look like a stain of blood against the side of the road. Lilies lose their virtue, becoming nothing more than a sinner's discarded hope as their purity is dyed brown with dust. And Bellflowers, whose shape had been so pronounced and well-kept, are flattened. Naught remains but tattered heads and splintered stems.

Sain has whipped his mount into a full sprint, making the choice to venture back into town and keep his secret safe in his heart. The arms of a village maiden, though transient, will soothe his hurt feelings for a short while.

"It won't hurt anyone this way. Not me, not them..."

[aglaean]

3. A memory of their mother

also asked by @scharlakol and @enarmor (sorry for the notif!)

tw: parental neglect (mostly implied, but still in there) and death

Now she is older and far too grown-up for flimsy invention. When you've practically memorized 'Legends of Magvel' cover to cover, the familiarity begins to grate. What is a hero-in-waiting to do but turn vigilante?

The idea is attractive enough; it was the execution that had her pacing her room. Quibbles like the practicalities of fleeing everything she had known never really cropped up, for all the time she had invested in envisioning her grand debut as Rausten's saviour. In principle, it had seemed downright easy. She'd disappear into the unknown with noble intentions and return in the trimmings of a hero. Like the ones in the stories Dozla read to her when she spent too long looking at nothing. Like Mother. This wasn't a change. This was her inheritance.

Horse's hooves clatter through ice slowly melting into grass, revealed like cake under the icing their servants layered over treats for elevenses. She wants to reach down, test if it's as sweet. But she knows Mother would rather she focus on the task at hand so she makes sure her horse remains in line, behind her. She stays her hand, closing a fist over nothing.

The snow was falling in shaky little clumps when she took to the road. Her fingers pinked with cold, any traces of feeling in them long surrendered to an insinuating chill. They trembled, and the book clamped in their grip slipped. She paused. Readjusted. Continued onward. She'd tried her best to chide herself out of taking the book. Why cling to old stories, when hers was being written with every step she took?

Finally, it was her 8th birthday. The halls itself seemed to heave relieved sighs as the palace staff could finally stop producing assurances that it was precisely, (and she always asked for the precise date), this or that number of days away. Light entered her room: Mother's cortège - forever swanning in before her. She is handed a book, the title comprised of squiggles she can't decipher aside from one: Magvel. She looks to Mother. Perhaps they can sound it out together? But she is already gone. The light shines, mocking her with its warmth.

Within a few steps the palace has disappeared as if it had never even been there. As if this white expanse was all there had ever been. All there ever will be. Her legs hurt. She should've taken a horse. But she hadn't been riding since... That wasn't worth thinking about now. She was doing what Mother would have wanted her to do. Noble sacrifice, endurance. Teeth chattering, she spotted a promising looking splotch in the distance. She faltered as it got closer. A graveyard; tombstones like the teeth of some hulking gray monster.

Mother... She'd always had an uncanny knack for finding her out.

Her grave is untended. Uncle had stopped taking her after a couple of weeks. She placed her book next to the stone listing off traits that could have been true of Mother: Dedicated carer, valiant hero, inspiration to us all, if she could remember much of her at all.

Had she always loved a figure cut in alabaster? Is that all her mother was, a hero's name kept alive by L'Arachel's whispered reverence? Could you love someone who never held you? She had worshipped her mother. Worship meant that her mother never died. Worship meant Mother was never fully hers.

Her eyes are dry. It would be selfish to mourn sacrifice. But sometimes she wonders if she had been better, done better, would she have cared enough to stay? She'd never know now.

The book is buried under the layers of snow as L'Arachel turns for home.

The ache in her chest feels like a weight, sat there, quiet - unacknowledged - had been left behind. Going hero alone, being worshipped from a distance? That wouldn't do at all. The people should share in her glory!

If she was to be a truly great hero, she needed some truly magnificent retainers to walk the path with her.