Alitia: Crown of Ash

XXXI: Destined Declaration

The days passed in their own strange sense of offbeat rhythm, and Luce wasn't even sure if she was able to mark the passage of time aside from the rising and setting of the sun. She found herself feeling stagnant and pained no matter how much she wanted to find ground for herself to stand on. Luce was trying to move past her problems with the war by pretending they didn't exist, but this was proving itself to be far harder than she was expecting. Trying to avoid the subject of the inevitable coming war was most certainly frustrating, and she didn't seem to be able to run away from it no matter how hard she tried. 

Lianna's eyes were only getting more inquisitive as the days went on, but concern was slowly starting to make its way into her gaze as well. Luce sat in her room on the morning of the second-to-last day of the break, her eyes shut as she faced the far wall away from the door. Luce heard Lianna before she saw her, and she didn't know if she wanted to turn around or not. 

Lianna, it seemed, was not going to wait for permission from Luce to walk inside. "Hey," she greeted simply, casual and bright the same way as nearly everything else that she had always said. Still, there was an underlying shadow to it, like darkness shifting beneath the surface of ice, something that could be seen but was hard to grasp otherwise. 

Luce wasn't sure of how to respond, but Lianna still wasn't patient enough to wait for an answer. Luce was used to Lianna's eternal kindness and grace, so to see her pushed so far was somewhat upsetting to her in a way that she didn't know how to describe. "What's going on?" Lianna questioned, getting right to the point without going through the regular song and dance of back and forth that they had been part of ever since Luce arrived back on Amity. 

"I don't want to talk about it," Luce whispered, finally opening her eyes but still not able to make herself look up at Lianna. "There's a lot on my mind, and I'd rather not distract myself with it, if that's alright with you."

"It's already distracting you. Anyone can see that you're hiding something, and you're not doing a particularly good job," Lianna told Luce. Her words could be seen as harsh, but Luce knew better than to jump to such a conclusion. Everything Lianna said was rooted in its own sense of honesty, and she was pushing so hard because she cared so much. Despite her elegance and careful smiles, Lianna was just as stubborn as Luce and Cryon, and she was making sure that Luce knew it. 

Luce couldn't bring herself to offer an answer to that, instead simply staring at the ground as her eyelids narrowed. She felt a gentle arm wrap around her shoulders, and she knew that Lianna was taking advantage of the few privileges that she had as a member of the mercenary company. Luce had always been picky regarding those who were allowed to touch her, but Lianna had enjoyed this unique position from the very beginning due to how much of motherly figure she had shown herself to be even from the beginning. 

Luce found her body leaning against Lianna's before she had a chance to pull away, and much to her own surprise, she didn't move away when she thought she was bound to. Lianna's warmth was far more enjoyable than she had been acting since arriving back on Amity, and Luce suddenly couldn't remember why she was hiding anything in the first place. Of course Lianna was going to know everything. To many others, Luce was thought of as inscrutable because of her silence and stoicism, but Lianna was different. Lianna had been standing by her years, taking all of her flaws without blinking and understanding all the sharpened edges that had come to form as Luce grew older. Why was she trying to hide from a bond that had held her down in the face of terrifying darkness for so many years in the past? 

Luce swallowed nervously, and she wondered when her mouth had gotten to be that dry. "I... I don't want to go back if it's going to end the way I'm suspecting," she admitted. The words were uncomfortable on her lips, but she knew that they had to get out one way or another, so she chose to breathe on around the anxiety hollowing out part of her chest.