If Baela isn’t talking about Jace, it doesn't mean she easily got over him. It just hurts too much to talk about him. She hasn’t had any time to mourn him. She just went straight back to work without bereavement.
If you think she is flirting with Addam, maybe that could just be repressed grief and unhealed trauma manifesting itself as impulsivity.
Now she has to distract herself and chase a high to avoid the pain... and the pain is deep because her love for Jace was so deep. There is no longer any reason for her to be a good girl and preserve her maidenhood now that she no longer has the one man worth saving it for.
She didn't even get a kiss goodbye.
He respected her too much to sexually objectify her or show public displays of affection when they were not officially married. They lived in a castle surrounded by people who could smear her, spread gossip about her lack of virtue. The Black council never gave her the respect she was due, but Jace did.
He trusted her. He confided in her. He supported her. He honored her. He defended her. He noticed her. He comforted her. He believed they could be victorious together. He died fighting to save her.
He fucking loved her. He didn't profess the words out loud, but he proved it with his actions.
Baela did not care if he was a bastard or who his father was. She cared who he was. He was brave, honorable, and kind as a true king should be, as a good husband and father should be, as a lifetime lover should be. He was a fierce and spirited dragon rider like she was. He could have fled when the battle got worse, but he didn't.
There was only one Jace and there will never be another.
Jace brought out a tenderness in Baela that no one else did. The sound of her voice would soften and sweeten when she talked to him. With him, she had safety, belonging, and hope for the future. Then suddenly, in one instant, it was all taken from her.
She will chase feelings that only he could make her feel but never catch them. She could kiss every high born, low born, and bastard in Westeros except the one she truly wanted.
She could look into every pair of eyes in the Seven Kingdoms and never again see his eyes looking back at her.
Now Baela has to continue living a life of pain without her soulmate.
Baela is hurting. Let her do whatever she needs to do to cope and survive, but she will never forget about him no matter how hard she may try to escape the pain and distract herself with her duties. Jace will always be alive in her heart no matter what. Those feelings don’t just go away. She can’t just easily replace the love of her life with another man.
I do like Addam very much. He’s much better than Alyn. I just know his fate in the books and don’t want to get too attached and end up feeling even more depressed. Giving them a ship name will set myself up for even more heartbreak.
For the fanfic ask: for your fic tears: how do you imagine the reunion between Aegnor and Andreth in the afterlife? Which Valar does Andreth enjoy debating with the most?
The headcanon answer for Tears, and the reason why I haven't really written it, is that Andreth returned to Arda is a human who has spent eons in Catholic Heaven (Look, I'm actually an atheist who was raised atheist, so for me the joy of the Athrabeth was that this very Catholic author with a fantasy world that had an afterlife also didn't rule out that after death is just nothing, cessation). So her spirit reentering Arda? No longer mortal and human, really, but something more like an Ainur themselves, which works because Service to the Dead is now also in Tears canon, so Aegnor has been working basically as a Maia of Mandos for Ages now. Aegnor's family face disappointment when they realize that Andreth returning to Aegnor doesn't make him less fae and finally willing to get reembodied the normal way and rejoin Valinorean Eldar society. They visit, but they don't integrate back in.
Andreth enjoys debating with Manwë the most- philosophical, moral, legal topics and a very respectful and gentle guy. Most common is with Mandos, because husband's boss. At first she works with Vairë, because history, and Nienna, but I think she will eventually branch out to another Ainur because she has the chance to learn about something new that she never had the opportunity to in Dorthonion.
— summary; In the morning, as she’d dressed, Kanae had found new morning glories crisscrossing the soft flesh on her chest. She’d stared at them for a good minute before slipping her kimono on over her head (or: a soulmate au, in which flowers grow from wounds).
— for; @aoflameandco who got me shipping them
— read it on ao3
It’s the pain that wakes her.
Her hair is plastered to her forehead with sweat, despite the chill of the room. The room is still, Shinobu’s breathing in the futon nearby ebbing away – at least to her. Nothing exists outside of her body, outside of this pain that she knows will consume her.
In the morning, when dark half-moons ring her eyes, and her lids are pearly with sleeplessness, Kouchou Kanae will look in the mirror to see her forehead and the bridge of her nose painted over with blue morning glories.
---
Reckless, reckless, reckless.
If one had asked Kanae how she would have described her soulmate, she would have said aloud the constant mantra in her head, along with an indulgent, gentle smile.
She’s grown used to the bond that links her and her soulmate together; oftentimes, it feels as though her insides are full of broken glass. Kanae trembles her way through the days, constantly sleep-deprived, the pain constantly thumping out a slow tempo.
Still, she bears her soulmate no grudge, but offers prayers at the shrine for his continued wellbeing.
Hold on and live. I want to meet you.
Shinobu purses her lips every time she sees the familiar bright blue mottle her sister’s skin, and comments, rather snidely, that Kanae’s soulmate is probably a ruffian.
Her sister means well, and Kanae hears the unspoken concern.
So Kanae ruffles Shinobu’s hair and tells her not to worry.
---
She’s on the cusp of womanhood when demons attack her family.
Before, there had been a growling howl, and then a sharp bang and a rain-like sound as splinters from the door poured down onto the floor. Her mother and father had screamed, but their voices were cut off by loud thuds of furniture crashing to the ground, upholstery ripping, pans clattering.
Kanae had bitten her bottom lip so hard that it began to bleed.
And then silence: eerie, thick silence that pours over the little house and drowned out everything else.
The sisters cling to each other, near mirror images with their chests pressed together until it seems as if their hearts are one single organ beating between them. Shinobu tangles her tiny fingers into Kanae’s thick black hair and hides her face by her sister’s neck. Kanae strokes Shinobu’s head comfortingly with one hand, while the other gropes blindly for something – anything – that she can use to defend them.
Finally, her fingers find the smooth handle of a handheld mirror.
The screen door is ripped apart, the stream of light hunting them down in the darkness.
As Shinobu cries out, Kanae strikes the mirror hard against the ground, cracking the glass. Trembling, she pries the largest shard from the mirror’s frame.
She stares into the monster’s hard sienna eyes and it cocks its mangy head. Before Kanae knows what she’s doing, she shoves Shinobu under the bed and leaps to her feet, wielding the shard of mirror like a knife. Kanae takes a hesitant step forward, then another, until she’s so close to the monster that the rotting stench emanating from his throat chokes her.
A thought locks itself in Kanae’s mind, and she repeats it over and over until it becomes a chant, a prayer: I am the only one left to fight, so now I must kill you.
---
Kanae survives.
For a while, her body is marked with bumpy, jagged scars, red and raised and painful. The ointment that the Master and Ayame provide her with does little to ease the burning pain.
I’m sorry, Kanae thinks, as she drifts in and out of consciousness. I’m so sorry.
Somewhere, she imagines blue morning glories blooming on the skin of her soulmate, and her chest burns.
When her wounds are infected and her body is ravaged by the ensuing fever, the Master nurses her through the night, placing cool cloths on her forehead, only leaving when Ayame has to change her bandages.
“I’m going to fight them,” Kanae declares quietly, as gruel is spooned into her mouth.
The Master stops his ministrations temporarily, and it almost seems as though his shoulders are stooped under the weight of her declaration. “You’ve chosen a hard road ahead.”
“I won’t let anyone else go through that. Never again.”
And despite all her efforts to swallow it, Kanae chokes out a sob.
---
As soon as her body is recovered, Kanae throws herself into training, with Shinobu at her side.
Her teacher is exceptional, and she makes significant progress. But Kanae doesn’t fully credit her new teacher’s skill for her swift advances in combat. After the demise of her parents, she’s devoted herself into training relentlessly. She’s determined to fill the void in her chest with an unparalleled commitment to training, to climbing higher and higher up the ranks.
Her hands, once soft and pliable, are now calloused, and crack like old leather. As Kanae binds them in thin gauze strips, she casts an eye at the sky tinged in pink, her thoughts drifting back, as they so often do, to her soulmate.
Last night, the pain had once again shocked her awake. It had been so horrible that Kanae had curled into a ball and forced her eyes shut through the haze of pain, against the tears that threatened to spill over.
In the morning, as she’d dressed, Kanae had found new morning glories crisscrossing the soft flesh on her chest. She’d stared at them for a good minute before slipping her kimono on over her head.
Again, a familiar thought.
Hold on and live. I want to meet you.
In response, she feels warmth pulsating down her arm. As Kanae watches, a single morning glory sprouts, blue petals unfurling.
---
She’s only a teenager when she becomes a pillar.
Her mild-mannered parents, she knew, would have disapproved. Her father had hoped for her and Shinobu to marry someone worthy of their status, with children to carry on the family legacy.
But another, deeper voice whispers that she’s made the right choice, the only choice. Knowing of the existence of evil, true evil that corrupted the world, had forever altered her heart and mind. If she had chosen a different path, she wouldn’t have slept another night. Her head would have been restless as she thought of only the horrors that might be creeping outside her door, waiting to rend her flesh.
She would not live a life as the hunted; she would be the hunter.
Her uchigatana hits its mark, tearing flesh and crunching through bone. The demon jerks and goes still, all its weight dropping against her momentarily before it crumbles apart into ash.
Choking, Kanae shoves the demon’s clothes off and rolls over onto her hands and feet. She gasps, gulping down air as if there would never be enough of it.
The skirmish with the Lower Moon Demon has left her with twisted, throbbing muscles, which now make their objections to the evening’s abuse known in the form of unceasing aches. She tries to stand but finds that her legs are unable to bear her weight.
Kanae’s gaze lands on the crumpled heap of clothes. She’s expected to feel hatred, anger . . . But there’s nothing at all. Just sympathy for the demon who’d begged and pleaded to be spared.
Kanae bows her head, and presses her hands together respectfully. “Please find happiness in the next life.”
She hopes that her prayers are heard.
---
Sanemi Shinazugawa barges into her life unexpectedly, much like the raging wind that his attacks resemble.
Much like her, he’s only recently been made a pillar. He cuts a scarred, intimidating figure as he walks into the traditional Japanese garden. Blue morning glories are scattered over a wide expanse of his skin, and it’s with a dawning realization that Kanae is made aware of who he really is.
The morning glories are embedded in her skin as well, in the very same places.
Kanae, very deliberately, does not look up, and lets her hair fall into her face, obscuring it from view, and retreating behind a thick curtain of inky black tresses.
“Shinazugawa.” Kanae finally says, speaking up for the first time since his angry outburst. He turns the full force of those intense eyes onto her, but Kanae does not falter, tilts her chin up defiantly so that he can see the blue flowers, identical to his own, splashed across her skin like the most beautiful painting. “Ever since Master became our leader, he has memorized all the names and backgrounds of the corps members who have passed.”
She watches as the fight drains out of Shinazugawa, how his eyes mist over with tears when he reads Masachika’s will. His shoulders shake. Though muffled by his hands, his mourning fills the garden with a broken sound of grief that makes Kanae’s throat tighten.
They’re still strangers, but no one should be left alone to drown in this depth of sorrow.
So Kanae presses closer to him, winding her fingers into the edge of his sleeve, and waits for his tears to dry.
ship: ew / nonono / maybe / i ship it / aww / otp / MY HEART
This is the most beautiful and tragic of ships I love everything about it. Peggy loved that man from day one, loved his spirit and bravery and intelligence and willingness to sacrifice himself and it didn’t matter that he was skinnier than a weeping willow branch he was cool in her book. The beefed up body later on was just a nice bonus and did nothing really to change her affection for him
Steve admired Peggy from day one did you see his face when she punched that guy out, Steve had MAD respect for her after that. And she too was brave and intelligent and willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of other people, like helping him go rescue Bucky and the other soldiers
AND THEN GOSH THEY DIDN’T GET TO DANCE TOGETHER AND THEN PEGGY CAN’T BE WITH HIM WHEN HE “DIES” AND THEN HE COMES BACK TO LIFE BUT SHE HAS DEMENTIA OR ALZHEIMER’S AND GETS ALL CONFUSED AND THEN HE WAS NOT ABLE TO BE WITH HER WHEN SHE DIED I CAN’T EVEN–WHO THOUGHT THAT ALL WAS OK??!
