Chapter Text
As gentle as she could manage, Eunie gripped the bend of her wing with one hand as she used the other to smooth out the feathers and stroke away the loose plumage. Before everything that had happened she had never considered the fact that she had wings odd. Of course, she knew that she had them. They had been jutting out of the sides of her head since she was little, but she didn’t consider the fact that she had them and Lanz and Noah and some of the others didn’t.
She had always known there were differences between them, but those differences never meant anything because there were no parents are heritages to worry about. Everyone in the Kevesi military had one shared mother.
Their Queen.
Or so they had been led to believe. The hallway outside of the powder room where she had chosen to do this grooming was quiet. Bathing and dressing in front of others wasn’t really something too strange for her and she considered this far less private. And with the Imperial Palace of Alcamoth so empty she was sure to hear anyone’s approach.
Though there was one exception to that.
“Have you decided if you’re going to speak to him about everything yet?” Queen Melia’s voice carried this wisened sense of authority that made Eunie want to snap to attention whenever she heard it.
This time she managed to keep her reaction down to a subtle jolt with surprise and she even refrained from letting out a shocked yelp.
“Shit! Your Majest—“
Queen Melia’s reflection peered at her in the mirror, head tilted forward in warning. Before Melia had finished her words she caught herself.
“Melia,” Eunie said finally. “I’m still not sure how you always manage to sneak up on me.”
Melia caressed the wall, running her hand along the door frame. “I spent the better part of a century in these halls before I ever ventured far from where this place used to be. I know exactly where every little soft spot in the floor and creaking stair is. I can be quiet as a baby bunnit. When the mood suits me.”
Eunie forced a smile, but she could immediately feel it wasn’t adequate. Her mouth was hanging open wrong and her teeth were parted and showing. It probably looked more like she was in pain.
“Right,” she said.
“Don’t try to dodge the question,” Melia said.
Eunie’s wings slumped slightly, her shoulders followed.
“I can’t just come right out and say it, now can I?” Eunie said turning to meet Melia’s gaze. Then she spoke in a deep voice, mocking her own speech.
“Oi, Taion! Remember me, the girl you probably fell in love with almost a dozen years ago in a world that don’t exist no more? How would you like a shag?”
Eunie realized too late how her words must have sounded to the Queen.
“I-I mean…” she stammered.
Melia’s laughter wasn’t a rare thing, the Queen had a good sense of humor, but to hear her laugh with the kind of enthusiasm that caused her to grip the doorframe just to keep herself steady was not something that happened often.
“I don’t think that he is expecting that from you, but with the abrupt nature of how things ended something of the matter needs to be said,” Melia said as her fit of laughter died down.
Eunie sighed. “It’s just hard. I mean, I grew up here. And I’ve got this mum and dad who are wonderful, but I remember that other world and everything we did there and it’s like I’ve got two lives in my head all the time. Two lives with different bloody circumstances and different friends, and all. A family here—and you let me work and live in the castle now…but I remember it like it just happened. Sometimes it doesn’t feel bloody real.”
Melia’s lips curled into a devilish smile that made her suddenly seem younger. “How do you think Nia and I feel? We’ve got several thousand years of that world up here,” Melia said pointing to her temple.
“And the craziest part,” Melia added. “Is that all of that, everything we all remember, took place in less than a blink of an eye. The prospective eternity that was the Infinite Now could fit on the tip of a seamstress’s needle.”
Eunie narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, I get it. But you’re not making it any better.”
Melia fully entered the room now. “My point is that it doesn’t matter how long it really took. The memories and circumstances that you experienced over there were real.”
She contemplated this for a while, turning the memories over in her head. The time she spent with them is real: Taion, Sena, and Mio. And Manana and all of the other Agnians she had come in contact with. It had only recently become possible to see them, to cross over from one world to another. It had to do with this thing called the Conduit, Nia had even claimed that the two worlds had once been one and that a man from her world had caused whatever forced them apart using the Conduit.
Eunie didn’t understand it the whole thing and she was rather sure that Nia was just repeating what someone had told her.
From what they could tell of it, traversing the two worlds seemed to be safe. It had been done multiple times at this point, even a few by Melia herself. While there was a distinct desperation deep in Eunie’s chest, a want to see everyone again, there was also her duty as part of the Queen’s Guard—she couldn’t very well go galivanting off to another world when it could leave her stranded and Melia without her most trusted protection.
“What’s it like?” Eunie asked. “In Alrest, I mean…”
“Well, I want to say that it is very much like our own in some ways,” Melia said. “But there are some huge differences—the biggest being the blades and core crystals.”
“Aye, I remember them,” said Eunie. “Every Agnian had a one them, uh, jewel-thingies in their chests.”
“Right—oh and I guess there is the Titans that the live on. Their Titans are different than ours. They’re smaller than ours and more numerous, but from the way Nia explained it they combined to make a larger land mass. I haven’t noticed anything too strange about that part of things so I doubt it will make any difference to you.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I am going to be inspecting their geology—though that would be the kind of thing that Taion might find exciting, so thanks…for that,” Eunie said.
“You’re welcome,” Melia said. She stepped in behind Eunie and placed her hands on her shoulders. Their eyes met in the mirror. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about and I regard you as something of a daughter—which, oh goodness sounds way creepier and makes me feel older than I want to think about being when I say it out loud. Let’s forget the daughter thing…”
“Yeah, let’s,” Eunie said.
“You’re just—very important to me and I wouldn’t let you walk into some dangerous Hell world without the proper preparations,” Melia said.
“I suppose you wouldn’t,” Eunie said. “It’s just that meeting him like this again is strange. What if he’s changed too much.”
“You’ve changed too, but you still regard him this way and who knows, perhaps those changes will make your bond deeper.”
Eunie puffed her cheeks as she looked at her eyes in the mirror. “I guess I’m as ready now as I’ll ever be,” Eunie said as she absently tugged at her right wing.