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You had died a footnote in your own novel.
You went from the heroine of high stakes gamble to nothing more than a damsel in distress left to their burning tower. You remembered many things; you remembered an accent from the cold seas in the North, you remembered the sheen of broad wings, and you remembered a low voice in the dark telling you it wasn’t your fault.
You remembered fire, you remembered red.
You watched the coils of aethermist, wondering if maybe they were spelling something, curses perhaps, in their roiling meandering lines.
And then you heard it.
A soft voice, sending you briefly back to a time of small skirts and little ballet shoes. Of your first coracle, to skim the tideline. It was made of websilk, and you remembered losing it.
The voice sounded again, a hiccup, a sob. The smallest whimper of words long meant and too late.
“Terezi?”
You followed the words, the soft coughing of sobs long gone.
“Terezi please answer me. Terezi its cold.”
You found her, laying on her side. One wing crumpled, her ankle swollen and her face bruised. A scuff over one graceful cheekbone. The shape of a face you would always recognize but never thought you would see again.
Her clothing was bloodied, her eyes glazed and white like snow on the bow.
She looked up to you and you saw some kind of recognition in her eyes, those dead young eyes. Your stomach flipped when you realized she looked at you like a coming Messiah, like a hero in a fairytale destined to chase away the bad dreams.
All ideals you gave up long ago.
“M-Marquise? You’re here? Really?”, she whispered, then she closed her eyes.
“Like that would ever happen. People like me don’t get heroes. People like me don’t get anything…”, she gripped the dirt, smearing the mists, “People like me are expendable. I was nothing more than a gamble, a loaded die set for snake eyes.”
Your face fell, your dead heart clenched hard enough to beat as you recognized the words pouring from this broken youth. This confused fae, lost in an afterlife neither welcoming nor warm.
You knelt beside her, and she looked at you with tears, tears hovering at the edge of eyes long since resigned.
“All I wanted was respect. All I wanted was success. Maybe… Maybe if I won, if I was the best, they would stop.”
“Stop what?”, you asked, the first words spoken in what felt like millennia.
“Stop hating me. Stop leaving me.”, the girl hiccuped, “Maybe my last name wouldn’t be said like a swear, like some sick curse dropped on a child for no other reason but the glorification of the status fucking quo.”
You let your hand skim over her hair, and she leaned into the touch. You let hilt-roughened fingers catch limp curls, and realized they came away cerulean. She pushed herself up, too strong, too strong to be of your stock.
You had grown weak, your will had faded when he had looked at you with scar skewed eyes and told you to get off his ship.
“I always looked up to you, you know.”
“Why?”, you bit your lip, the question had slipped free before you could stop it.
“Because.”, she said simply, sitting slumped like a troll on death row, “Because they loved you.”
You went icier than death.
“They loved you Mindfang. They respected you, they cared for you.”, the young woman sniffled, her lips quivering as she spoke, “They wanted you. They wanted you more than anyone ever wanted me.”
“They wanted what I stood for.”
“You stood for me.”
You blinked at her, as her eyes met yours and filled with tears.
“All… All I ever wanted… was to be there and be known. I wanted them to say my name with a smile on their face. I wanted…”
“What was it you wanted, little one?”
“I wanted someone to want me to stay.”, she said softly, “I wanted to be missed.”
You sighed, “Did they… hold her death against you then? Redglare’s?”
“Yes. They did.”, said the girl softly, “But I befriended her descendant, could have maybe loved her, I don’t know. I’ve never been loved myself so I don’t know what its like. I’m Vriska Serket, the descendant of the Marquise. I’m the liar, I’m the cheater, I’m a thief, and a problem.”
You wilted beside her, your descendant, this child forced into a game beyond comprehension. Beyond decency, with players and puppeteers far beyond this child’s grasp.
“I sought solace in stories.”
You looked at her.
“Your stories, Mindfang. Your journal. I’ve kept it, after all these years. It… It made me happy. It made me dream. I could be loved, I could be valued. I could be someone, I could be more than the name you left me, more than a banner in a history book. A-And maybe, just maybe… I could be somebody I could stand to see in the mirror.”
Her shoulders were shaking and she covered her face. Her words were overtaken in sobs, the desperate kind of crying of the scared and alone. Of the unmasked, of the regretful.
Her hands fell, and she tilted her head back and sobbed, narrow chest heaving.
“T-Terezi never… Terezi never was like that. And I was so cruel… I didn’t mean it, I’ll take it all back. I miss her, I miss her so much. I miss her, I miss Kanaya, I miss everyone. I miss Eridan, and I miss Aradia.”
She coughed, you pulled her closer, letting her nestle against your side and you stroked the blood from her hair, you kissed the top of her head.
“I’ll do anything, anything at all. I’ll give up the name, I’ll give up my stories, I’ll shatter the dice and give my other eye if I have to. Just let me go home, why cant I go home? Why doesn’t anyone want me?”
“Mistakes are made, child, it’s life.”
“I ONLY MADE THE MISTAKES THEY WANTED ME TO!”, she screamed, “ITS WHAT THEY WANTED, THEY SAID IF I WAS A REAL SERKET, IF I COULD LIVE UP TO YOUR NAME, THEY’D WANT ME. I’D BE A PERSON, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME!”
You broke. You bundled her close, ignoring the cerulean smears on silken skirts. You ignored the scuffing on your boots, and you held her close to a silent heartbeat.
You rocked her then, you rocked her as she screamed against your bodice, as her body shook and shuddered from the force of her grief, a lifetime of sadness and self loathing so easily covered by the stagepaint known as manipulation.
You couldn’t stand it, you couldn’t stand what you’d done to this child. This mourning fae curled in your lap, lanky angles and sleepless nights bundled in scars and torn god tiers.
You felt your cheeks damp, and blinked in shock.
You were crying.
She looked up to you now, and reached one pain shaken hand to your face and wiped your tears for you.
“Please don’t cry for me.”
“Why not, you cry for me?”
“I don’t deserve tears.”
“You deserve to be mourned. You deserve to be held, to be loved and respected and treated like what you are.”
“I’m a monster.”
“You’re a child. You’re a child forced into a world that broke many twice your age. That broke me.”
She let her head thud softly against the bodice of your gown.
You held her close, your eyes scanning the misty afterworld like a mother hen.
“I’m sorry Mom-erm, Mindfang.”
You looked down to her, her blushing and stammering.
“It’s okay.”
She hiccuped.
“It’s okay, Vriska.”
“C-Can you be my mom?”, she whispered, “I want a real mom, not like Spidermom. I’m just… so tired.”
“Sleep. Dream as the dead do. I’ll be here, little hero.”
She wrapped her arms around you, and clung tight and let herself cry. And you rocked her, humming a song you heard once long ago from an old privateer when he thought you asleep.