it’s almost funny how the air doesn’t taste of disappointment like edelgard thought it would, and that laughter threatens to bubble from her throat like the last breaths of a drowning man, desperate and hopeless. her body is an anchor tied to her ankle when she’d already been several feet below the surface and now all she has to go is down, down, down. she has enough presence of mind to swallow the hilarity, though, since even edelgard knows that dorothea would not appreciate the joke. she is right, edelgard forgot herself, she let hope overrun sense of perspective. how fitting.
“what answer can i give that will satisfy you, dorothea?” edelgard murmurs, and she lets dorothea’s anger wash over her like a hot blanket where she’d been stuck, frigid and cold in the grip of loss. there is no excuse for what she had done nor would she ever want to make one. no apology that is worth the breath she would spend to make it. were the events that lead up to what occurred at the holy tomb pieces on a chess board she would make the same mistakes time and time again, because she’s sure (she has to be sure) that they will pay off in the end. “it was not my intention to harm anyone. i hoped most anxiously that no-one would fight back, but i won’t insult you by saying that i didn’t mean it.”
edelgard abandons her cup; it’s quite clear she has no intent to drink it. there’s a nervous coil in her throat that her breath can barely make it through, never mind the coffee. her hands come to rest in her lap instead, laced within one another with the kind of gentleness ill befitting the anxiety that claws at her to itch her scars and grip her wrists white-knuckled.
“it had always been my intent to declare war. would that i could have waited until a point at which i knew who my allies were. that i could have asked for your support. for ferdinand’s, for caspar’s, for bernadetta’s and linhardt’s. that i could have freed brigid before throwing their daughter into war.” edelgard’s chin rises, and she levels her eyes on dorothea’s with the kind of frigid openness that spreads across the northern beaches of faerghus. any hope that she had come here with has dissipated, and she is not undeserving of it. the least she can offer now is the same kind of honesty ice does when it threatens to make you slip.
dorothea is right, edelgard has forgotten herself, and now is the time to be the emperor she had been so afraid that dorothea could never love.
“the opportunity arose far sooner than i expected. i would have been a fool not to take it, regardless of the cost.”
dorothea's chest cracks open and bleeds with shock, all of it rolling down towards her stomach where she feels the cold, slimy thing, like poison consuming her innards. she wraps her hands around the cup, grasping for some sense of warmth, and her mouth makes the motion of speaking but no words come out.
edelgard might have avoided wearing the fool’s hat, but dorothea, it seems, has fallen succinctly into the role of the harlequin. it was her fault, for assuming edelgard would be remorseful. hope can be such a dangerous weapon, a beautiful rose luring you over and over again as you cut yourself on its thorns.
❝ i see, ❞ dorothea finally utters, her voice dropping cold as the air. ❝ it seems i made a mistake then, for trusting you. ❞
dorothea's laugh is as bitter as the coffee. she tilts the cup into her lips. it washes down her throat and does nothing but buy time and a brief moment of wakefulness from this fervid dream. when the cup sits back on the table, dorothea’s head rests in her hand.
❝ it’s funny. when i think about our days in school, my mind no longer drifts to when we kissed, or when we walked through the courtyard quietly and bathed in the few moments we could be alone together, ❞ dorothea murmurs. ❝ but to be fair, i’m not sure those memories were nearly as sincere anymore, what with you, disguising yourself and all, no, i don’t think any of that, unfortunately. i just simply think of all the times when there was a chance for you to tell me what you were doing. one, clear explanation. ❞
dorothea laughs again, the sounds as pitiful as the groans of the church’s fraying structure. only the flimsy wall of her pride bars her emotions from spilling forth from her eyes, to which she closes them, just in case.
❝ the things about the church... the schemes behind the relic and the crest stones... the flame emperor. goddess, what am i even saying anymore? of course you wouldn’t have told me... ❞ a tear manages to slip through her anyway, cutting down her cheek like the slide of a knife. ❝ all those nights when you slipped away from our bed, you were busy out there, planning the massacres of people. ❞
