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pizzafishandchips · 3 months ago

Text

2 - "It's been a long time"

Fandom - Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem/7KPP (fanfic) Content warnings - none Pairing - Clarmont x MC

Other notes: angst [ Spoilers for the Clarmont route and endgame! ]

Clarmont knows he should be grateful.

It’s a busy day, surrounded by servants and workers alike bustling about performing their duties. As chaotic as the commotion is, he welcomes it; it’s a sign of life, of the peace they’ve worked so hard to attain in the formerly war torn nation. It’s been five years since the last summit, five years since what he felt was the impossible had been achieved. Five years since last he’d seen—

He stops himself from finishing that train of thought. This is a time for celebration, for work, for learning to appreciate and cherish the lives they saved, not to wallow in what had been lost. What he lost.

Though if he was honest with himself—which he rarely allows himself to be over this—it would be more accurate to say what he threw away.

But it shouldn’t matter now. He should be thankful for what he has, what everyone gained.

Of course, Clarmont has become a master of pushing away his own thoughts and desires, and he pushes down the dark tide within his heart that he knows will swallow him whole if he isn’t careful as he appraises the work before him. When ideas for a new grand library were initially put forth, people were surprised at how readily he had offered up his lands as a potential construction site. He wasn’t sure what the fuss had been about; while it’s true he’s not particularly known for a love of books but there was nothing wrong with wanting to provide that for others, was there? So much had been lost twenty years ago, what better way to try to preserve what could be saved, so future generations could learn from past mistakes?

A single person can die. But knowledge? Ideas? Those can be passed on. And in that way, they live forever.

Words once spoken by someone very important to him. He shakes his head and blinks away the memory. This has nothing to do with her.

“Lord Clarmont? A moment, if you will?”

He’s led to a quieter area, away from the main construction site for a discussion. They speak of various topics and concerns regarding the library, before the lead worker tells him, “We��re in luck, the consultant from Jiyel is set to arrive today. She’s likely already here, if not soon.”

As if on cue, they spot something over his shoulder. “Ah, there she is!”

Clarmont turns, and in that moment his heart stops.

Even from a distance, he would always recognize her. She strides up the path with a familiar gait, donned in elegant yet functional Jiyelan garb. She never liked letting her hair loose when there was work to be done, so of course her long black tresses are tied up and styled atop her head. The worker next to him, unaware of his distress, gestures at her and begins to approach.

“Lady Octavia! I’m glad you could finally make it!”

He doesn’t know how his body is able to move when his mind feels like it’s been ejected right out of him. His legs are able to stiffly carry him forward as he follows, trying in vain to make sense of his bearings as he feels the world around him begin to tilt. Five years without her, five years of ignoring and hiding away the memories, and it all comes undone with a single glance.

Clarmont almost wants to believe that it’s all a dream, but the closer she gets the more reality begins to truly set in. Then their eyes meet, and he freezes as it all comes rushing back.

Golden eyes. Eyes that, when he first laid eyes on her, he thought stood out so clearly among the other Jiyelans. Intelligent, clever eyes that could hold you in place as she tried to solve the puzzle that was you in her mind, a gaze that could be as warm and comforting as a freshly brewed cup of tea, or as hard and immovable as polished amber. He knew what those eyes looked like when she gazed at him with all the tenderness in the world, and he knew all too well how they were when filled with immeasurable hurt.

Five years, and she looked the same yet so different at the same time. Five years, and she looks just as beautiful as she did then.

Five years, and he finally has to confront the fact that his feelings hadn’t changed one bit since then, not in all this time.

But when they look at each other now, Clarmont sees none of the energy or affection he once knew. Instead he’s met with a stony blankness, almost indifference, as if she doesn’t even recognize him. He can’t help it; in the suddenness of her presence he loses some self-control, reverting a little back into old habits, to the man he was when they first met.

“Octavia,” he greets with a weak smile, “it’s been a long time.”

He realizes his mistake a second after he finishes speaking. The lack of formality causes Octavia’s eyes to narrow, almost imperceptibly so, yet she doesn’t remark upon it as she dips into a formal curtsy.

“Lord Clarmont. I hope you’ve been keeping in good health.”

Her tone is formal, distant and aloof in a way that leaves him a little in shock. Has she, unlike him, moved on? Has she been able to march forward from that fateful summit and put it all behind her in a way that he never could? Does she simply not care anymore?

“Oh, do you two know each other?” the worker asks.

How could he even begin to answer that? Yes, he wants to say, they knew each other once, when the world was slowly coming apart at the seams. When they were young and relatively beneath notice, when his life was something to throw away when needed for the sake of his country, and she shot into it like fireworks against the night sky, so for a few precious moments he could be reminded that it was worth living for.

And then, within the span of less than a week, it all crumbled away, for them to only become strangers again.

Octavia smiles faintly at the question, looking as if she just heard a good joke. “We’ve met. Several years ago, briefly.”

Clarmont wonders if he’s just imagining it, or if she did in fact place more emphasis on the word “briefly”. His heart trembles, saying nothing as the worker launches into a discussion with the newly arrived lady. His body moves automatically when they lead the two of them around, leaving the bulk of the conversation between the other two as it’s all he can do to hold himself together. There are moments when he can’t help it, and his gaze drifts only to rest on her, taking her in. He’s heard rumors of Octavia’s activities through the years, tried to keep tabs when the pain of thinking about her was somewhat tolerable. He found himself thinking, was she happy? Had she achieved some of her goals? How similar is she now to the woman he knew five years ago?

Throughout the entire walk, she doesn’t so much as throw a glance at him even once.

He’s able to glean a few details of her unexpected arrival: he knew of plans to consult various scholars on restoration of cultural centers throughout Revaire, and somehow she had been requested for this site while he was none the wiser. Underneath the roiling cauldron of emotions he was already undergoing, he can tell something about the arrangement seems too perfect, but he doesn’t have the energy to dwell too deeply on it. Octavia, on the other hand, is at ease and knowledgeable of the location and the job at hand, indicating she was perfectly aware of what she was getting into.

Clarmont, against his better judgment, holds onto this like a lifeline. Perhaps she has a reason for coming all the way here, in spite of knowing whose lands she’d be attending to. Perhaps there’s a chance…

The worker wraps up introductions, bidding farewell to them as they return to work. Without another word, Octavia turns heel and begins walking back down the path she came up.

Emotions he cannot hope to name threaten to boil over and suffocate him, and all Clarmont knows is that if he lets her completely walk away from him now he may never have another chance. He trails after her, searching for his voice.

“You’ve likely had a long journey, my lady. It would be my privilege to escort you back to your lodgings, or provide any other assistance in accommodations.”

“There is no need, my lord. I manage perfectly well on my own,” she replies, with the same indifferent tone she used before. Her pace is brisk and businesslike, unwilling to relent, as if he’s nothing more than a minor nuisance she’s humoring on a whim.

“...It would put my mind a little more at ease, my lady.”

Her response comes out as a sneer, the first bit of emotion she’s revealed in front of him all afternoon. “Do you think me so helpless, my lord?”

At this, Clarmont, growing more and more desperate by the second, reaches out to take hold of her arm. “Octavia, please—”

She whirls around, firmly wrenching herself out of his grip and sending him a piercing glare that sends an uneasy shiver down his spine. There is no gentility in her eyes, only what he recognizes now as thinly veiled contempt.

“What is it that you want from me, Clarmont?”

A sharp ripple of pain rushes through him at the way she speaks. “I just… I just want to talk.”

“Talk? Now you want to talk? The time for talking is over, Clarmont. You made that quite clear, five years ago,” she spits.

He opens his mouth yet no sound escapes. Memories of that fateful conversation come flooding back, memories he wishes he could keep buried. Regrets and grief churn and mix until they sit like a large, jagged stone within his soul that he can’t ignore.

She rolls her eyes, unimpressed. “Ancestors, why did I agree to this?”

That’s enough to rouse him, just enough to speak. “Why… Why did you?”

The little kernel of hope planted within him when she first arrived, the hope that maybe, just maybe, she came in part to see him, is slowly dissolving away, with each passing second proving to be nothing more like the rest of his fleeting dreams. But he had to know, he had to at least have some of the burning questions that have haunted him for the past several years.

“I was personally requested. They said I would be most suited,” she answers with a shrug. She scrutinizes him, a realization dawning on her. “Don’t tell me… Did you think I came to see you?” Octavia barks out a laugh. “Oh, Clarmont, you really have lost your touch!”

She steps forward within arm’s reach, close enough that he can smell her perfume and make out the finer details of her face that he used to be able trace with his eyes closed. “Let me make myself completely clear so you never forget. After what happened, I have never done anything for you or your benefit, my dear Lord Clarmont. So banish those childish fantasies now, along with the rest of your fanciful thoughts about justice and fairness.”

She speaks of these things with such clear derision, clearly meant to mock him, but how could he give them up, when she was living proof that they could come true? And it is this hope, this tiny, insignificant, vain hope, that he continues to clutch onto.

Because in the end, that’s all that he had left of her.

“If they were as childish as you say, why did you fight so hard all those years ago at the summit?” he mutters. “I know you’re not the type of woman to fight for nothing but a fancy.”

She laughs again, harder this time. “What, you mean brokering for peace? Oh, my dear, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve thought about how much easier it would have been to give you up? How much simpler my life would be if I had just given Gisette everything I knew?” Seeing the look on his face, she continues, relentless, “Do you know how difficult that entire affair was? How I would have been set for the rest of my life with the Revairan royal family in my debt? Oh, I will admit, I’ve spent many a night wondering if I should have chosen a different path. Why are you looking at me like that? I’ve told you before, I’m no saint. Don’t put expectations on me that you’ve come up with in your own mind.”

With every word comes another little cut across the already ravaged, bleeding landscape of his heart. He didn’t want to listen, he didn’t want to believe and tarnish those precious memories of those seven weeks, even if he didn’t want to always face them. Could she really have been so cruel to even entertain the idea? To truly regret it?

Octavia leans in, speaking just barely above a whisper. “I want to know something, Clarmont. I want you to know why exactly I bothered to put in the effort to give you your peace, even after what you did to me. Because, let’s be honest here, you really didn’t give me a lot of reason to.” Raising her chin in a mocking, conspiratorial way, she says, “It was so that for the rest of your life, every single day for as long as you live, you’ll know it was me. You’ll always remember that this would have never been possible without me, and you’ll always know that this could have all been turned to dust had I simply made the decision to look the other way.

“Every passing day without conflict, every inch of progress you make towards a better tomorrow, you’ll remember that I made it possible, that I was the one who could give you a fighting chance. You’ll remember what I did for as long as you breathe, and you will never forget what you did, and what you lost.”

Smirking, she steps away, and this time he can’t bring himself to follow as she marches down the path without a second glance. Clarmont stands rooted to the spot, those few minutes seemingly stretching into eternity as Octavia’s confession rolls over him like a landslide, crushing him down under. It takes a moment before he finds the strength to move, and in a daze he makes his way back to his personal estate. He’s able to stumble his way into his personal chambers before slowly collapsing into a chair, hands trembling as he holds his head bowed in pain.

He’d known hardship, and he was no stranger to loss. But for the first time since the end of that fateful summit, Clarmont wonders how it could be possible to grieve not for a something that was taken away, but for a future that never was to begin with. He lets his regrets and heartbreak wash over him, with nothing but the bittersweet memories of the past to keep him company.

#fictober24 #7kpp #clarmont x mc #owlscratch #*coughs up blood*#i repeat: this ain't a happy one #this particular post canon possibility gives me so many brainworms

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